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diff --git a/old/13728-8.txt b/old/13728-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2b35ad --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13728-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,27527 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marcella, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Marcella + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13728] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCELLA*** + + +E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +MARCELLA + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +Author of _Robert Elsmere_, _The History Of David Grieve_, etc. + +In Two Volumes + +1894 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Portrait of Mary A. Ward] + + + +TO MY FATHER I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE + + + +BOOK I. + + +"If nature put not forth her power +About the opening of the flower, +Who is it that could live an hour?" + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"The mists--and the sun--and the first streaks of yellow in the +beeches--beautiful!--_beautiful_!" + + +And with a long breath of delight Marcella Boyce threw herself on her +knees by the window she had just opened, and, propping her face upon her +hands, devoured the scene, before her with that passionate intensity of +pleasure which had been her gift and heritage through life. + +She looked out upon a broad and level lawn, smoothed by the care of +centuries, flanked on either side by groups of old trees--some Scotch +firs, some beeches, a cedar or two--groups where the slow selective hand +of time had been at work for generations, developing here the delightful +roundness of quiet mass and shade, and there the bold caprice of bare +fir trunks and ragged branches, standing black against the sky. Beyond +the lawn stretched a green descent indefinitely long, carrying the eye +indeed almost to the limit of the view, and becoming from the lawn +onwards a wide irregular avenue, bordered by beeches of a splendid +maturity, ending at last in a far distant gap where a gate--and a gate +of some importance--clearly should have been, yet was not. The size of +the trees, the wide uplands of the falling valley to the left of the +avenue, now rich in the tints of harvest, the autumn sun pouring +steadily through the vanishing mists, the green breadth of the vast +lawn, the unbroken peace of wood and cultivated ground, all carried with +them a confused general impression of well-being and of dignity. +Marcella drew it in--this impression--with avidity. Yet at the same +moment she noticed involuntarily the gateless gap at the end of the +avenue, the choked condition of the garden paths on either side of the +lawn, and the unsightly tufts of grass spotting the broad gravel terrace +beneath her window. + +"It _is_ a heavenly place, all said and done," she protested to herself +with a little frown. "But no doubt it would have been better still if +Uncle Robert had looked after it and we could afford to keep the garden +decent. Still--" + +She dropped on a stool beside the open window, and as her eyes steeped +themselves afresh in what they saw, the frown disappeared again in the +former look of glowing content--that content of youth which is never +merely passive, nay, rather, contains an invariable element of covetous +eagerness. + +It was but three months or so since Marcella's father, Mr. Richard +Boyce, had succeeded to the ownership of Mellor Park the old home of the +Boyces, and it was little more than six weeks since Marcella had +received her summons home from the students' boarding-house in +Kensington, where she had been lately living. She had ardently wished +to assist in the June "settling-in," having not been able to apply her +mind to the music or painting she was supposed to be studying, nor +indeed to any other subject whatever, since the news of their +inheritance had reached her. But her mother in a dry little note had let +it be known that she preferred to manage the move for herself. Marcella +had better go on with her studies as long as possible. + +Yet Marcella was here at last. And as she looked round her large bare +room, with its old dilapidated furniture, and then out again to woods +and lawns, it seemed to her that all was now well, and that her +childhood with its squalors and miseries was blotted out--atoned for by +this last kind sudden stroke of fate, which might have been delayed so +deplorably!--since no one could have reasonably expected that an +apparently sound man of sixty would have succumbed in three days to the +sort of common chill a hunter and sportsman must have resisted +successfully a score of times before. + +Her great desire now was to put the past--the greater part of it at any +rate--behind her altogether. Its shabby worries were surely done with, +poor as she and her parents still were, relatively to their present +position. At least she was no longer the self-conscious schoolgirl, paid +for at a lower rate than her companions, stinted in dress, pocket-money, +and education, and fiercely resentful at every turn of some real or +fancied slur; she was no longer even the half-Bohemian student of these +past two years, enjoying herself in London so far as the iron necessity +of keeping her boarding-house expenses down to the lowest possible +figure would allow. She was something altogether different. She was +Marcella Boyce, a "finished" and grown-up young woman of twenty-one, the +only daughter and child of Mr. Boyce of Mellor Park, inheritress of one +of the most ancient names in Midland England, and just entering on a +life which to her own fancy and will, at any rate, promised the highest +possible degree of interest and novelty. + +Yet, in the very act of putting her past away from her, she only +succeeded, so it seemed, in inviting it to repossess her. + +For against her will, she fell straightway--in this quiet of the autumn +morning--into a riot of memory, setting her past self against her +present more consciously than she had done yet, recalling scene after +scene and stage after stage with feelings of sarcasm, or amusement, or +disgust, which showed themselves freely as they came and went, in the +fine plastic face turned to the September woods. + +She had been at school since she was nine years old--there was the +dominant fact in these motley uncomfortable years behind her, which, in +her young ignorance of the irrevocableness of living, she wished so +impatiently to forget. As to the time before her school life, she had a +dim memory of seemly and pleasant things, of a house in London, of a +large and bright nursery, of a smiling mother who took constant notice +of her, of games, little friends, and birthday parties. What had led to +the complete disappearance of this earliest "set," to use a theatrical +phrase, from the scenery of her childhood, Marcella did not yet +adequately know, though she had some theories and many suspicions in +the background of her mind. But at any rate this first image of memory +was succeeded by another precise as the first was vague--the image of a +tall white house, set against a white chalk cliff rising in terraces +behind it and alongside it, where she had spent the years from nine to +fourteen, and where, if she were set down blindfold, now, at twenty-one, +she could have found her way to every room and door and cupboard and +stair with a perfect and fascinated familiarity. + +When she entered that house she was a lanky, black-eyed creature, tall +for her age, and endowed or, as she herself would have put it, cursed +with an abundance of curly unmanageable hair, whereof the brushing and +tending soon became to a nervous clumsy child, not long parted from her +nurse, one of the worst plagues of her existence. During her home life +she had been an average child of the quick and clever type, with average +faults. But something in the bare, ugly rooms, the discipline, the +teaching, the companionship of Miss Frederick's Cliff House School for +Young Ladies, transformed little Marcella Boyce, for the time being, +into a demon. She hated her lessons, though, when she chose, she could +do them in a hundredth part of the time taken by her companions; she +hated getting up in the wintry dark, and her cold ablutions with some +dozen others in the comfortless lavatory; she hated the meals in the +long schoolroom, where, because twice meat was forbidden and twice +pudding allowed, she invariably hungered fiercely for more mutton and +scorned her second course, making a sort of dramatic story to herself +out of Miss Frederick's tyranny and her own thwarted appetite as she sat +black-browed and brooding in her place. She was not a favourite with her +companions, and she was a perpetual difficulty and trouble to her +perfectly well-intentioned schoolmistress. The whole of her first year +was one continual series of sulks, quarrels, and revolts. + +Perhaps her blackest days were the days she spent occasionally in bed, +when Miss Frederick, at her wit's end, would take advantage of one of +the child's perpetual colds to try the effects of a day's seclusion and +solitary confinement, administered in such a form that it could do her +charge no harm, and might, she hoped, do her good. "For I do believe a +great part of it's liver or nerves! No child in her right senses could +behave so," she would declare to the mild and stout French lady who had +been her partner for years, and who was more inclined to befriend and +excuse Marcella than any one else in the house--no one exactly knew why. + +Now the rule of the house when any girl was ordered to bed with a cold +was, in the first place, that she should not put her arms outside the +bedclothes--for if you were allowed to read and amuse yourself in bed +you might as well be up; that the housemaid should visit the patient in +the early morning with a cup of senna-tea, and at long and regular +intervals throughout the day with beef-tea and gruel; and that no one +should come to see and talk with her, unless, indeed, it were the +doctor, quiet being in all cases of sickness the first condition of +recovery, and the natural schoolgirl in Miss Frederick's persuasion +being more or less inclined to complain without cause if illness were +made agreeable. + +For some fourteen hours, therefore, on these days of durance Marcella +was left almost wholly alone, nothing but a wild mass of black hair and +a pair of roving, defiant eyes in a pale face showing above the +bedclothes whenever the housemaid chose to visit her--a pitiable morsel, +in truth, of rather forlorn humanity. For though she had her movements +of fierce revolt, when she was within an ace of throwing the senna-tea +in Martha's face, and rushing downstairs in her nightgown to denounce +Miss Frederick in the midst of an astonished schoolroom, something +generally interposed; not conscience, it is to be feared, or any wish +"to be good," but only an aching, inmost sense of childish loneliness +and helplessness; a perception that she had indeed tried everybody's +patience to the limit, and that these days in bed represented crises +which must be borne with even by such a rebel as Marcie Boyce. + +So she submitted, and presently learnt, under dire stress of boredom, to +amuse herself a good deal by developing a natural capacity for dreaming +awake. Hour by hour she followed out an endless story of which she was +always the heroine. Before the annoyance of her afternoon gruel, which +she loathed, was well forgotten, she was in full fairy-land again, +figuring generally as the trusted friend and companion of the Princess +of Wales--of that beautiful Alexandra, the top and model of English +society whose portrait in the window of the little stationer's shop at +Marswell--the small country town near Cliff House--had attracted the +child's attention once, on a dreary walk, and had ever since governed +her dreams. Marcella had no fairy-tales, but she spun a whole cycle for +herself around the lovely Princess who came to seem to her before long +her own particular property. She had only to shut her eyes and she had +caught her idol's attention--either by some look or act of passionate +yet unobtrusive homage as she passed the royal carriage in the +street--or by throwing herself in front of the divinity's runaway +horses--or by a series of social steps easily devised by an imaginative +child, well aware, in spite of appearances, that she was of an old +family and had aristocratic relations. Then, when the Princess had held +out a gracious hand and smiled, all was delight! Marcella grew up on the +instant: she was beautiful, of course; she had, so people said, the +"Boyce eyes and hair;" she had sweeping gowns, generally of white muslin +with cherry-coloured ribbons; she went here and there with the Princess, +laughing and talking quite calmly with the greatest people in the land, +her romantic friendship with the adored of England making her all the +time the observed of all observers, bringing her a thousand delicate +flatteries and attentions. + +Then, when she was at the very top of ecstasy, floating in the softest +summer sea of fancy, some little noise would startle her into opening +her eyes, and there beside her in the deepening dusk would be the bare +white beds of her two dormitory companions, the ugly wall-paper +opposite, and the uncovered boards with their frugal strips of carpet +stretching away on either hand. The tea-bell would ring perhaps in the +depths far below, and the sound would complete the transformation of +the Princess's maid-of-honour into Marcie Boyce, the plain naughty +child, whom nobody cared about, whose mother never wrote to her, who in +contrast to every other girl in the school had not a single "party +frock," and who would have to choose next morning between another dumb +day of senna-tea and gruel, supposing she chose to plead that her cold +was still obstinate, or getting up at half-past six to repeat half a +page of Ince's "Outlines of English History" in the chilly schoolroom, +at seven. + +Looking back now as from another world on that unkempt fractious Marcie +of Cliff House, the Marcella of the present saw with a mixture of +amusement and self-pity that one great aggravation of that child's daily +miseries had been a certain injured, irritable sense of social +difference between herself and her companions. Some proportion of the +girls at Cliff House were drawn from the tradesman class of two or three +neighbouring towns. Their tradesmen papas were sometimes ready to deal +on favourable terms with Miss Frederick for the supply of her +establishment; in which case the young ladies concerned evidently felt +themselves very much at home, and occasionally gave themselves airs +which alternately mystified and enraged a little spitfire outsider like +Marcella Boyce. Even at ten years old she perfectly understood that she +was one of the Boyces of Brookshire, and that her great-uncle had been a +famous Speaker of the House of Commons. The portrait of this great-uncle +had hung in the dining room of that pretty London house which now seemed +so far away; her father had again and again pointed it out to the +child, and taught her to be proud of it; and more than once her childish +eye had been caught by the likeness between it and an old grey-haired +gentleman who occasionally came to see them, and whom she called +"Grandpapa." Through one influence and another she had drawn the glory +of it, and the dignity of her race generally, into her childish blood. +There they were now--the glory and the dignity--a feverish leaven, +driving her perpetually into the most crude and ridiculous outbreaks, +which could lead to nothing but humiliation. + +"I wish my great-uncle were here! _He'd_ make you remember--you +great--you great--big bully you!"--she shrieked on one occasion when she +had been defying a big girl in authority, and the big girl--the stout +and comely daughter of a local ironmonger--had been successfully +asserting herself. + +The big girl opened her eyes wide and laughed. + +"_Your_ great-uncle! Upon my word! And who may he be, miss? If it comes +to that, I'd like to show _my_ great-uncle David how you've scratched my +wrist. He'd give it you. He's almost as strong as father, though he is +so old. You get along with you, and behave yourself, and don't talk +stuff to me." + +Whereupon Marcella, choking with rage and tears, found herself pushed +out of the schoolroom and the door shut upon her. She rushed up to the +top terrace, which was the school playground, and sat there in a hidden +niche of the wall, shaking and crying,--now planning vengeance on her +conqueror, and now hot all over with the recollection of her own +ill-bred and impotent folly. + +No--during those first two years the only pleasures, so memory +declared, were three: the visits of the cake-woman on Saturday--Marcella +sitting in her window could still taste the three-cornered puffs and +small sweet pears on which, as much from a fierce sense of freedom and +self-assertion as anything else, she had lavished her tiny weekly +allowance; the mad games of "tig," which she led and organised in the +top playground; and the kindnesses of fat Mademoiselle Rénier, Miss +Frederick's partner, who saw a likeness in Marcella to a long-dead small +sister of her own, and surreptitiously indulged "the little wild-cat," +as the school generally dubbed the Speaker's great-niece, whenever she +could. + +But with the third year fresh elements and interests had entered in. +Romance awoke, and with it certain sentimental affections. In the first +place, a taste for reading had rooted itself--reading of the adventurous +and poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella had +absorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-one +people who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to have +opinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, must +use indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and suffer +occasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen--what +concentration! what devotion! what joy! One of these precious volumes +was Bulwer's "Rienzi"; another was Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs"; a +third was a little red volume of "Marmion" which an aunt had given her. +She probably never read any of them through--she had not a particle of +industry or method in her composition--but she lived in them. The parts +which it bored her to read she easily invented for herself, but the +scenes and passages which thrilled her she knew by heart; she had no +gift for verse-making, but she laboriously wrote a long poem on the +death of Rienzi, and she tried again and again with a not inapt hand to +illustrate for herself in pen and ink the execution of Wallace. + +But all these loves for things and ideas were soon as nothing in +comparison with a friendship, and an adoration. + +To take the adoration first. When Marcella came to Cliff House she was +recommended by the same relation who gave her "Marmion" to the kind +offices of the clergyman of the parish, who happened to be known to some +of the Boyce family. He and his wife--they had no children--did their +duty amply by the odd undisciplined child. They asked her to tea once or +twice; they invited her to the school-treat, where she was only +self-conscious and miserably shy; and Mr. Ellerton had at least one +friendly and pastoral talk with Miss Frederick as to the difficulties of +her pupil's character. For a long time little came of it. Marcella was +hard to tame, and when she went to tea at the Rectory Mrs. Ellerton, who +was refined and sensible, did not know what to make of her, though in +some unaccountable way she was drawn to and interested by the child. But +with the expansion of her thirteenth year there suddenly developed in +Marcie's stormy breast an overmastering absorbing passion for these two +persons. She did not show it to them much, but for herself it raised +her to another plane of existence, gave her new objects and new +standards. She who had hated going to church now counted time entirely +by Sundays. To see the pulpit occupied by any other form and face than +those of the rector was a calamity hardly to be borne; if the exit of +the school party were delayed by any accident so that Mr. and Mrs. +Ellerton overtook them in the churchyard, Marcella would walk home on +air, quivering with a passionate delight, and in the dreary afternoon of +the school Sunday she would spend her time happily in trying to write +down the heads of Mr. Ellerton's sermon. In the natural course of things +she would, at this time, have taken no interest in such things at all, +but whatever had been spoken by him had grace, thrill, meaning. + +Nor was the week quite barren of similar delights. She was generally +sent to practise on an old square piano in one of the top rooms. The +window in front of her overlooked the long white drive and the distant +high road into which it ran. Three times a week on an average Mrs. +Ellerton's pony carriage might be expected to pass along that road. +Every day Marcella watched for it, alive with expectation, her fingers +strumming as they pleased. Then with the first gleam of the white pony +in the distance, over would go the music stool, and the child leapt to +the window, remaining fixed there, breathing quick and eagerly till the +trees on the left had hidden from her the graceful erect figure of Mrs. +Ellerton. Then her moment of Paradise was over; but the afterglow of it +lasted for the day. + +So much for romance, for feelings as much like love as childhood can +know them, full of kindling charm and mystery. Her friendship had been +of course different, but it also left deep mark. A tall, consumptive +girl among the Cliff House pupils, the motherless daughter of a +clergyman-friend of Miss Frederick's, had for some time taken notice of +Marcella, and at length won her by nothing else, in the first instance, +than a remarkable gift for story-telling. She was a parlour-boarder, had +a room to herself, and a fire in it when the weather was cold. She was +not held strictly to lesson hours; many delicacies in the way of food +were provided for her, and Miss Frederick watched over her with a quite +maternal solicitude. When winter came she developed a troublesome cough, +and the doctor recommended that a little suite of rooms looking south +and leading out on the middle terrace of the garden should be given up +to her. There was a bedroom, an intermediate dressing-room, and then a +little sitting-room built out upon the terrace, with a window-door +opening upon it. + +Here Mary Lant spent week after week. Whenever lesson hours were done +she clamoured for Marcie Boyce, and Marcella was always eager to go to +her. She would fly up stairs and passages, knock at the bedroom door, +run down the steps to the queer little dressing-room where the roof +nearly came on your head, and down more steps again to the sitting-room. +Then when the door was shut, and she was crooning over the fire with her +friend, she was entirely happy. The tiny room was built on the edge of +the terrace, the ground fell rapidly below it, and the west window +commanded a broad expanse of tame arable country, of square fields and +hedges, and scattered wood. Marcella, looking back upon that room, +seemed always to see it flooded with the rays of wintry sunset, a kettle +boiling on the fire, her pale friend in a shawl crouching over the +warmth, and the branches of a snowberry tree, driven by the wind, +beating against the terrace door. + +But what a story-teller was Mary Lant! She was the inventor of a story +called "John and Julia," which went on for weeks and months without ever +producing the smallest satiety in Marcella. Unlike her books of +adventure, this was a domestic drama of the purest sort; it was +extremely moral and evangelical, designed indeed by its sensitively +religious author for Marcie's correction and improvement. There was in +it a sublime hero, who set everybody's faults to rights and lectured the +heroine. In real life Marcella would probably before long have been +found trying to kick his shins--a mode of warfare of which in her demon +moods she was past mistress. But as Mary Lant described him, she not +only bore with and trembled before him--she adored him. The taste for +him and his like, as well as for the story-teller herself--a girl of a +tremulous, melancholy fibre, sweet-natured, possessed by a Calvinist +faith, and already prescient of death--grew upon her. Soon her absorbing +desire was to be altogether shut up with Mary, except on Sundays and at +practising times. For this purpose she gave herself the worst cold she +could achieve, and cherished diligently what she proudly considered to +be a racking cough. But Miss Frederick was deaf to the latter, and only +threatened the usual upstairs seclusion and senna-tea for the former, +whereupon Marcella in alarm declared that her cold was much better and +gave up the cough in despair. It was her first sorrow and cost her some +days of pale brooding and silence, and some nights of stifled tears, +when during an Easter holiday a letter from Miss Frederick to her mother +announced the sudden death of Mary Lant. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Friendship and love are humanising things, and by her fourteenth year +Marcella was no longer a clever little imp, but a fast-maturing and in +some ways remarkable girl, with much of the woman in her already. She +had begun even to feel an interest in her dress, to speculate +occasionally on her appearance. At the fourth breaking-up party after +her arrival at Cliff House, Marcella, who had usually figured on these +occasions in a linsey-woolsey high to the throat, amid the frilled and +sashed splendours of her companions, found lying on her bed, when she +went up with the others to dress, a plain white muslin dress with blue +ribbons. It was the gift of old Mademoiselle Rénier, who affectionately +wished her queer, neglected favourite to look well. Marcella examined it +and fingered it with an excited mixture of feelings. First of all there +was the sore and swelling bitterness that she should owe such things to +the kindness of the French governess, whereas finery for the occasion +had been freely sent to all the other girls from "home." She very nearly +turned her back upon the bed and its pretty burden. But then the mere +snowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, and the +burning curiosity to see herself decked therein, overcame a nature +which, in the midst of its penury, had been always really possessed by +a more than common hunger for sensuous beauty and seemliness. Marcella +wore it, was stormily happy in it, and kissed Mademoiselle Rénier for it +at night with an effusion, nay, some tears, which no one at Cliff House +had ever witnessed in her before except with the accompaniments of rage +and fury. + +A little later her father came to see her, the first and only visit he +paid to her at school. Marcella, to whom he was by now almost a +stranger, received him demurely, making no confidences, and took him +over the house and gardens. When he was about to leave her a sudden +upswell of paternal sentiment made him ask her if she was happy and if +she wanted anything. + +"Yes!" said Marcella, her large eyes gleaming; "tell mamma I want a +'fringe.' Every other girl in the school has got one." + +And she pointed disdainfully to her plainly parted hair. Her father, +astonished by her unexpected vehemence, put up his eyeglass and studied +the child's appearance. Three days later, by her mother's permission, +Marcella was taken to the hairdresser at Marswell by Mademoiselle +Rénier, returned in all the glories of a "fringe," and, in +acknowledgment thereof, wrote her mother a letter which for the first +time had something else than formal news in it. + +Meanwhile new destinies were preparing for her. For a variety of small +reasons Mr. Boyce, who had never yet troubled himself about the matter +from a distance, was not, upon personal inspection, very favourably +struck with his daughter's surroundings. His wife remarked shortly, when +he complained to her, that Marcella seemed to her as well off as the +daughter of persons of their means could expect to be. But Mr. Boyce +stuck to his point. He had just learnt that Harold, the only son of his +widowed brother Robert, of Mellor Park, had recently developed a deadly +disease, which might be long, but must in the end be sure. If the young +man died and he outlived Robert, Mellor Park would be his; they would +and must return, in spite of certain obstacles, to their natural rank in +society, and Marcella must of course be produced as his daughter and +heiress. When his wife repulsed him, he went to his eldest sister, an +old maid with a small income of her own, who happened to be staying with +them, and was the only member of his family with whom he was now on +terms. She was struck with his remarks, which bore on family pride, a +commodity not always to be reckoned on in the Boyces, but which she +herself possessed in abundance; and when he paused she slowly said that +if an ideal school of another type could be found for Marcella, she +would be responsible for what it might cost over and above the present +arrangement. Marcella's manners were certainly rough; it was difficult +to say what she was learning, or with whom she was associating; +accomplishments she appeared to have none. Something should certainly be +done for her--considering the family contingencies. But being a strong +evangelical, the aunt stipulated for "religious influences," and said +she would write to a friend. + +The result was that a month or two later Marcella, now close on her +fourteenth birthday, was transferred from Cliff House to the charge of a +lady who managed a small but much-sought-after school for young ladies +at Solesby, a watering place on the east coast. + + * * * * * + +But when in the course of reminiscence Marcella found herself once more +at Solesby, memory began to halt and wander, to choose another tone and +method. At Solesby the rough surroundings and primitive teaching of +Cliff House, together with her own burning sense of inferiority and +disadvantage, had troubled her no more. She was well taught there, and +developed quickly from the troublesome child into the young lady duly +broken in to all social proprieties. But it was not her lessons or her +dancing masters that she remembered. She had made for herself agitations +at Cliff House, but what were they as compared to the agitations of +Solesby! Life there had been one long Wertherish romance in which there +were few incidents, only feelings, which were themselves events. It +contained humiliations and pleasures, but they had been all matters of +spiritual relation, connected with one figure only--the figure of her +schoolmistress, Miss Pemberton; and with one emotion only--a passion, an +adoration, akin to that she had lavished on the Ellertons, but now much +more expressive and mature. A tall slender woman with brown, +grey-besprinkled hair falling in light curls after the fashion of our +grandmothers on either cheek, and braided into a classic knot +behind--the face of a saint, an enthusiast--eyes overflowing with +feeling above a thin firm mouth--the mouth of the obstinate saint, yet +sweet also: this delicate significant picture was stamped on Marcella's +heart. What tremors of fear and joy could she not remember in +connection with it? what night-vigils when a tired girl kept herself +through long hours awake that she might see at last the door open and a +figure with a night-lamp standing an instant in the doorway?--for Miss +Pemberton, who slept little and read late, never went to rest without +softly going the rounds of her pupils' rooms. What storms of contest, +mainly provoked by Marcella for the sake of the emotions, first of +combat, then of reconciliation to which they led! What a strange +development on the pupil's side of a certain histrionic gift, a turn for +imaginative intrigue, for endless small contrivances such as might rouse +or heighten the recurrent excitements of feeling! What agitated moments +of religious talk! What golden days in the holidays, when +long-looked-for letters arrived full of religious admonition, letters +which were carried about and wept over till they fell to pieces under +the stress of such a worship--what terrors and agonies of a stimulated +conscience--what remorse for sins committed at school--what zeal to +confess them in letters of a passionate eloquence--and what indifference +meanwhile to anything of the same sort that might have happened at home! + +Strange faculty that women have for thus lavishing their heart's blood +from their very cradles! Marcella could hardly look back now, in the +quiet of thought, to her five years with Miss Pemberton without a shiver +of agitation. Yet now she never saw her. It was two years since they +parted; the school was broken up; her idol had gone to India to join a +widowed brother. It was all over--for ever. Those precious letters had +worn themselves away; so, too, had Marcella's religious feelings; she +was once more another being. + + * * * * * + +But these two years since she had said good-bye to Solesby and her +school days? Once set thinking of bygones by the stimulus of Mellor and +its novelty, Marcella must needs think, too, of her London life, of all +that it had opened to her, and meant for her. Fresh agitations!--fresh +passions!--but this time impersonal, passions of the mind and +sympathies. + +At the time she left Solesby her father and mother were abroad, and it +was apparently not convenient that she should join them. Marcella, +looking back, could not remember that she had ever been much desired at +home. No doubt she had been often moody and tiresome in the holidays; +but she suspected--nay, was certain--that there had been other and more +permanent reasons why her parents felt her presence with them a burden. +At any rate, when the moment came for her to leave Miss Pemberton, her +mother wrote from abroad that, as Marcella had of late shown decided +aptitude both for music and painting, it would be well that she should +cultivate both gifts for a while more seriously than would be possible +at home. Mrs. Boyce had made inquiries, and was quite willing that her +daughter should go, for a time, to a lady whose address she enclosed, +and to whom she herself had written--a lady who received girl-students +working at the South Kensington art classes. + +So began an experience, as novel as it was strenuous. Marcella soon +developed all the airs of independence and all the jargon of two +professions. Working with consuming energy and ambition, she pushed her +gifts so far as to become at least a very intelligent, eager, and +confident critic of the art of other people--which is much. But though +art stirred and trained her, gave her new horizons and new standards, it +was not in art that she found ultimately the chief excitement and +motive-power of her new life--not in art, but in the birth of social and +philanthropic ardour, the sense of a hitherto unsuspected social power. + +One of her girl-friends and fellow-students had two brothers in London, +both at work at South Kensington, and living not far from their sister. +The three were orphans. They sprang from a nervous, artistic stock, and +Marcella had never before come near any one capable of crowding so much +living into the twenty-four hours. The two brothers, both of them +skilful and artistic designers in different lines, and hard at work all +day, were members of a rising Socialist society, and spent their +evenings almost entirely on various forms of social effort and Socialist +propaganda. They seemed to Marcella's young eyes absolutely sincere and +quite unworldly. They lived as workmen; and both the luxuries and the +charities of the rich were equally odious to them. That there could be +any "right" in private property or private wealth had become incredible +to them; their minds were full of lurid images or resentments drawn from +the existing state of London; and though one was humorous and handsome, +the other, short, sickly, and pedantic, neither could discuss the +Socialist ideal without passion, nor hear it attacked without anger. +And in milder measure their sister, who possessed more artistic gift +than either of them, was like unto them. + +Marcella saw much of these three persons, and something of their +friends. She went with them to Socialist lectures, or to the public +evenings of the Venturist Society, to which the brothers belonged. Edie, +the sister, assaulted the imagination of her friend, made her read the +books of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love and +dreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day," now seer and prophet, the +herald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shall +enjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason, +brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle, +together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; they +flattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance of +women to the new doctrine and the new era. + +The handsome brother was certainly in love with her; the other, +probably. Marcella was not in love with either of them, but she was +deeply interested in all three, and for the sickly brother she felt at +that time a profound admiration--nay, reverence--which influenced her +vitally at a critical moment of life. "Blessed are the poor"--"Woe unto +you, rich men"--these were the only articles of his scanty creed, but +they were held with a fervour, and acted upon with a conviction, which +our modern religion seldom commands. His influence made Marcella a +rent-collector under a lady friend of his in the East End; because of +it, she worked herself beyond her strength in a joint attempt made by +some members of the Venturist Society to organise a Tailoresses' Union; +and, to please him, she read articles and blue-books on Sweating and +Overcrowding. It was all very moving and very dramatic; so, too, was the +persuasion Marcella divined in her friends, that she was destined in +time, with work and experience, to great things and high place in the +movement. + +The wholly unexpected news of Mr. Boyce's accession to Mellor had very +various effects upon this little band of comrades. It revived in +Marcella ambitions, instincts and tastes wholly different from those of +her companions, but natural to her by temperament and inheritance. The +elder brother, Anthony Craven, always melancholy and suspicious, divined +her immediately. + +"How glad you are to be done with Bohemia!" he said to her ironically +one day, when he had just discovered her with the photographs of Mellor +about her. "And how rapidly it works!" + +"What works?" she asked him angrily. + +"The poison of possession. And what a mean end it puts to things! A week +ago you were all given to causes not your own; now, how long will it +take you to think of us as 'poor fanatics!'--and to be ashamed you ever +knew us?" + +"You mean to say that I am a mean hypocrite!" she cried. "Do you think +that because I delight in--in pretty things and old associations, I must +give up all my convictions? Shall I find no poor at Mellor--no work to +do? It is unkind--unfair. It is the way all reform breaks down--through +mutual distrust!" + +He looked at her with a cold smile in his dark, sunken eyes, and she +turned from him indignantly. + +When they bade her good-bye at the station, she begged them to write to +her. + +"No, no!" said Louis, the handsome younger brother. "If ever you want +us, we are there. If you write, we will answer. But you won't need to +think about us yet awhile. Good-bye!" + +And he pressed her hand with a smile. + +The good fellow had put all his own dreams and hopes out of sight with a +firm hand since the arrival of her great news. Indeed, Marcella realised +in them all that she was renounced. Louis and Edith spoke with affection +and regret. As to Anthony, from the moment that he set eyes upon the +maid sent to escort her to Mellor, and the first-class ticket that had +been purchased for her, Marcella perfectly understood that she had +become to him as an enemy. + +"They shall see--I will show them!" she said to herself with angry +energy, as the train whirled her away. And her sense of their +unwarrantable injustice kept her tense and silent till she was roused to +a childish and passionate pleasure by a first sight of the wide lawns +and time-stained front of Mellor. + + * * * * * + +Of such elements, such memories of persons, things, and events, was +Marcella's reverie by the window made up. One thing, however, which, +clearly, this report of it has not explained, is that spirit of +energetic discontent with her past in which she had entered on her +musings. Why such soreness of spirit? Her childhood had been pinched and +loveless; but, after all, it could well bear comparison with that of +many another child of impoverished parents. There had been compensations +all through--and were not the great passion of her Solesby days, +together with the interest and novelty of her London experience, enough +to give zest and glow to the whole retrospect? Ah! but it will be +observed that in this sketch of Marcella's schooldays nothing has been +said of Marcella's holidays. In this omission the narrative has but +followed the hasty, half-conscious gaps and slurs of the girl's own +thought. For Marcella never thought of those holidays and all that was +connected with them _in detail_, if she could possibly avoid it. But it +was with them, in truth, and with what they implied, that she was so +irritably anxious to be done when she first began to be reflective by +the window; and it was to them she returned with vague, but still +intense consciousness when the rush of active reminiscence died away. + + * * * * * + +That surely was the breakfast bell ringing, and with the dignified +ancestral sound which was still so novel and attractive to Marcella's +ear. Recalled to Mellor Park and its circumstances, she went +thoughtfully downstairs, pondering a little on the shallow steps of the +beautiful Jacobean staircase. _Could_ she ever turn her back upon those +holidays? Was she not rather, so to speak, just embarked upon their +sequel, or second volume? + +But let us go downstairs also. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Breakfast was laid in the "Chinese room," a room which formed part of +the stately "garden front," added to the original structure of the house +in the eighteenth century by a Boyce whose wife had money. The +decorations, especially of the domed and vaulted roof, were supposed by +their eighteenth century designer to be "Oriental"; they were, at any +rate, intricate and overladen; and the figures of mandarins on the worn +and discoloured wall-paper had, at least, top-knots, pigtails, and +petticoats to distinguish them from the ordinary Englishmen of 1760, +besides a charming mellowness of colour and general effect bestowed on +them by time and dilapidation. The marble mantelpiece was elaborately +carved in Chinamen and pagodas. There were Chinese curiosities of a +miscellaneous kind on the tables, and the beautiful remains of an Indian +carpet underfoot. Unluckily, some later Boyce had thrust a crudely +Gothic sideboard, with an arched and pillared front, adapted to the +purposes of a warming apparatus, into the midst of the mandarins, which +disturbed the general effect. But with all its original absurdities, and +its modern defacements, the room was a beautiful and stately one. +Marcella stepped into it with a slight unconscious straightening of her +tall form. It seemed to her that she had never breathed easily till +now, in the ample space of these rooms and gardens. + +Her father and mother were already at table, together with Mrs. Boyce's +brown spaniel Lynn. + +Mr. Boyce was employed in ordering about the tall boy in a worn and +greasy livery coat, who represented the men-service of the +establishment; his wife was talking to her dog, but from the lift of her +eyebrows, and the twitching of her thin lips, it was plain to Marcella +that her mother was as usual of opinion that her father was behaving +foolishly. + +"There, for goodness' sake, cut some bread on the sideboard," said the +angry master, "and hand it round instead of staring about you like a +stuck pig. What they taught you at Sir William Jute's I can't conceive. +_I_ didn't undertake to make a man-servant of you, sir." + +The pale, harassed lad flew at the bread, cut it with a vast scattering +of crumbs, handed it clumsily round, and then took glad advantage of a +short supply of coffee to bolt from the room to order more. + +"Idiot!" said Mr. Boyce, with an angry frown, as he disappeared. + +"If you would allow Ann to do her proper parlour work again," said his +wife blandly, "you would, I think, be less annoyed. And as I believe +William was boot boy at the Jutes', it is not surprising that he did not +learn waiting." + +"I tell you, Evelyn, that our position _demands_ a man-servant!" was the +hot reply. "None of my family have ever attempted to run this house with +women only. It would be unseemly--unfitting--incon--" + +"Oh, I am no judge of course of what a Boyce may do!" said his wife +carelessly. "I leave that to you and the neighbourhood." + +Mr. Boyce looked uncomfortable, cooled down, and presently when the +coffee came back asked his wife for a fresh supply in tones from which +all bellicosity had for the time departed. He was a small and singularly +thin man, with blue wandering eyes under the blackest possible eyebrows +and hair. The cheeks were hollow, the complexion as yellow as that of +the typical Anglo-Indian. The special character of the mouth was hidden +by a fine black moustache, but his prevailing expression varied between +irritability and a kind of plaintiveness. The conspicuous blue eyes were +as a rule melancholy; but they could be childishly bright and +self-assertive. There was a general air of breeding about Richard Boyce, +of that air at any rate which our common generalisations connect with +the pride of old family; his dress was careful and correct to the last +detail; and his hands with their long fingers were of an excessive +delicacy, though marred as to beauty by a thinness which nearly amounted +to emaciation. + +"The servants say they must leave unless the ghost does, Marcella," said +Mrs. Boyce, suddenly, laying a morsel of toast as she spoke on Lynn's +nose. "Someone from the village of course has been talking--the cook +says she heard _something_ last night, though she will not condescend to +particulars--and in general it seems to me that you and I may be left +before long to do the house work." + +"What do they say in the village?" asked Marcella eagerly. + +"Oh! they say there was a Boyce two hundred years ago who fled down +here from London after doing something he shouldn't--I really forget +what. The sheriff's officers were advancing on the house. Their approach +displeased him, and he put an end to himself at the head of the little +staircase leading from the tapestry-room down to my sitting-room. Why +did he choose the _staircase_?" said Mrs. Boyce with light +reflectiveness. + +"It won't do," said Marcella, shaking her head. "I know the Boyce they +mean. He was a ruffian, but he shot himself in London; and, any way, he +was dead long before that staircase was built." + +"Dear me, how well up you are!" said her mother. "Suppose you give a +little lecture on the family in the servants' hall. Though I never knew +a ghost yet that was undone by dates." + +There was a satiric detachment in her tone which contrasted sharply with +Marcella's amused but sympathetic interest. _Detachment_ was perhaps the +characteristic note of Mrs. Boyce's manner,--a curious separateness, as +it were, from all the things and human beings immediately about her. + +Marcella pondered. + +"I shall ask Mr. Harden about the stories," she said presently. "He will +have heard them in the village. I am going to the church this morning." + +Her mother looked at her--a look of quiet examination--and smiled. The +Lady Bountiful airs that Marcella had already assumed during the six +weeks she had been in the house entertained Mrs. Boyce exceedingly. + +"Harden!" said Mr. Boyce, catching the name. "I wish that man would +leave me alone. What have I got to do with a water-supply for the +village? It will be as much as ever I can manage to keep a water-tight +roof over our heads during the winter after the way in which Robert has +behaved." + +Marcella's cheek flushed. + +"The village water-supply is a _disgrace_," she said with low emphasis. +"I never saw such a crew of unhealthy, wretched-looking children in my +life as swarm about those cottages. We take the rent, and we ought to +look after them. I believe you could be _forced_ to do something, +papa--if the local authority were of any use." + +She looked at him defiantly. + +"Nonsense," said Mr. Boyce testily. "They got along in your Uncle +Robert's days, and they can get along now. Charity, indeed! Why, the +state of this house and the pinch for money altogether is enough, I +should think, to take a man's mind. Don't you go talking to Mr. Harden +in the way you do, Marcella. I don't like it, and I won't have it. You +have the interests of your family and your home to think of first." + +"Poor starved things!" said Marcella sarcastically--"living in such a +_den_!" + +And she swept her white hand round, as though calling to witness the +room in which they sat. + +"I tell you," said Mr. Boyce, rising and standing before the fire, +whence he angrily surveyed the handsome daughter who was in truth so +little known to him, and whose nature and aims during the close contact +of the last few weeks had become something of a perplexity and +disturbance to him,--"I tell you our great effort, the effort of us all, +must be to keep up the family position!--_our_ position. Look at that +library, and its condition; look at the state of these wall-papers; look +at the garden; look at the estate books if it comes to that. Why, it +will be years before, even with all my knowledge of affairs, I can pull +the thing through--years!" + +Mrs. Boyce gave a slight cough--she had pushed back her chair, and was +alternately studying her husband and daughter. They might have been +actors performing for her amusement. And yet, amusement is not precisely +the word. For that hazel eye, with its frequent smile, had not a spark +of geniality. After a time those about her found something scathing in +its dry light. + +Now, as soon as her husband became aware that she was watching him, his +look wavered, and his mood collapsed. He threw her a curious furtive +glance, and fell silent. + +"I suppose Mr. Harden and his sister remind you of your London Socialist +friends, Marcella?" asked Mrs. Boyce lightly, in the pause that +followed. "You have, I see, taken a great liking for them." + +"Oh! well--I don't know," said Marcella, with a shrug, and something of +a proud reticence. "Mr. Harden is very kind--but--he doesn't seem to +have thought much about things." + +She never talked about her London friends to her mother, if she could +help it. The sentiments of life generally avoided Mrs. Boyce when they +could. Marcella being all sentiment and impulse, was constantly her +mother's victim, do what she would. But in her quiet moments she stood +on the defensive. + +"So the Socialists are the only people who think?" said Mrs. Boyce, who +was now standing by the window, pressing her dog's head against her +dress as he pushed up against her. "Well, I am sorry for the Hardens. +They tell me they give all their substance away--already--and every one +says it is going to be a particularly bad winter. The living, I hear, is +worth nothing. All the same, I should wish them to look more cheerful. +It is the first duty of martyrs." + +Marcella looked at her mother indignantly. It seemed to her often that +she said the most heartless things imaginable. + +"Cheerful!" she said--"in a village like this--with all the young men +drifting off to London, and all the well-to-do people dissenters--no one +to stand by him--no money and no helpers--the people always ill--wages +eleven and twelve shillings a week--and only the old wrecks of men left +to do the work! He might, I think, expect the people in _this_ house to +back him up a little. All he asks is that papa should go and satisfy +himself with his own eyes as to the difference between our property and +Lord Maxwell's--" + +"Lord Maxwell's!" cried Mr. Boyce, rousing himself from a state of +half-melancholy, half-sleepy reverie by the fire, and throwing away his +cigarette--"Lord Maxwell! Difference! I should think so. Thirty thousand +a year, if he has a penny. By the way, I wish he would just have the +civility to answer my note about those coverts over by Willow Scrubs!" + +He had hardly said the words when the door opened to admit William the +footman, in his usual tremor of nervousness, carrying a salver and a +note. + +"The man says, please sir, is there any answer, sir?" + +"Well, that's odd!" said Mr. Boyce, his look brightening. "Here _is_ +Lord Maxwell's answer, just as I was talking of it." + +His wife turned sharply and watched him take it; her lips parted, a +strange expectancy in her whole attitude. He tore it open, read it, and +then threw it angrily under the grate. + +"No answer. Shut the door." The lad retreated. Mr. Boyce sat down and +began carefully to put the fire together. His thin left hand shook upon +his knee. + +There was a moment's pause of complete silence. Mrs. Boyce's face might +have been seen by a close observer to quiver and then stiffen as she +stood in the light of the window, a tall and queenly figure in her +sweeping black. But she said not a word, and presently left the room. + +Marcella watched her father. + +"Papa--_was_ that a note from Lord Maxwell?" + +Mr. Boyce looked round with a start, as though surprised that any one +was still there. It struck Marcella that he looked yellow and +shrunken--years older than her mother. An impulse of tenderness, joined +with anger and a sudden sick depression--she was conscious of them all +as she got up and went across to him, determined to speak out. Her +parents were not her friends, and did not possess her confidence; but +her constant separation from them since her childhood had now sometimes +the result of giving her the boldness with them that a stranger might +have had. She had no habitual deference to break through, and the +hindering restraints of memory, though strong, were still less strong +than they would have been if she had lived with them day by day and year +by year, and had known their lives in close detail instead of guessing +at them, as was now so often the case with her. + +"Papa, is Lord Maxwell's note an uncivil one?" + +Mr. Boyce stooped forward and began to rub his chilly hand over the +blaze. + +"Why, that man's only son and I used to loaf and shoot and play cricket +together from morning till night when we were boys. Henry Raeburn was a +bit older than I, and he lent me the gun with which I shot my first +rabbit. It was in one of the fields over by Soleyhurst, just where the +two estates join. After that we were always companions--we used to go +out at night with the keepers after poachers; we spent hours in the snow +watching for wood-pigeons; we shot that pair of kestrels over the inner +hall door, in the Windmill Hill fields--at least I did--I was a better +shot than he by that time. He didn't like Robert--he always wanted me." + +"Well, papa, but what does he say?" asked Marcella, impatiently. She +laid her hand, however, as she spoke, on her father's shoulder. + +Mr. Boyce winced and looked up at her. He and her mother had originally +sent their daughter away from home that they might avoid the daily +worry of her awakening curiosities, and one of his resolutions in coming +to Mellor Park had been to keep up his dignity with her. But the sight +of her dark face bent upon him, softened by a quick and womanly +compassion, seemed to set free a new impulse in him. + +"He writes in the third person, if you want to know, my dear, and refers +me to his agent, very much as though I were some London grocer who had +just bought the place. Oh, it is quite evident what he means. They were +here without moving all through June and July, and it is now three weeks +at least since he and Miss Raeburn came back from Scotland, and not a +card nor a word from either of them! Nor from the Winterbournes, nor the +Levens. Pleasant! Well, my dear, you must make up your mind to it. I did +think--I was fool enough to think--that when I came back to the old +place, my father's old friends would let bygones be bygones. I never did +_them_ any harm. Let them 'gang their gait,' confound them!"--the little +dark man straightened himself fiercely--"I can get my pleasure out of +the land; and as for your mother, she'd not lift a finger to propitiate +one of them!" + +In the last words, however, there was not a fraction of that sympathetic +pride which the ear expected, but rather fresh bitterness and grievance. + +Marcella stood thinking, her mind travelling hither and thither with +lightning speed, now over the social events of the last six weeks--now +over incidents of those long-past holidays. Was this, indeed, the second +volume beginning--the natural sequel to those old mysterious histories +of shrinking, disillusion, and repulse? + +"What was it you wanted about those coverts, papa?" she asked presently, +with a quick decision. + +"What the deuce does it matter? If you want to know, I proposed to him +to exchange my coverts over by the Scrubs, which work in with his +shooting, for the wood down by the Home Farm. It was an exchange made +year after year in my father's time. When I spoke to the keeper, I found +it had been allowed to lapse. Your uncle let the shooting go to rack and +ruin after Harold's death. It gave me something to write about, and I +was determined to know where I stood--Well! the old Pharisee can go his +way: I'll go mine." + +And with a spasmodic attempt to play the squire of Mellor on his native +heath, Richard Boyce rose, drew his emaciated frame to its full height, +and stood looking out drearily to his ancestral lawns--a picturesque and +elegant figure, for all its weakness and pitiableness. + +"I shall ask Mr. Aldous Raeburn about it, if I see him in the village +to-day," said Marcella, quietly. + +Her father started, and looked at her with some attention. + +"What have you seen of Aldous Raeburn?" he inquired. "I remember hearing +that you had come across him." + +"Certainly I have come across him. I have met him once or twice at the +Vicarage--and--oh! on one or two other occasions," said Marcella, +carelessly. "He has always made himself agreeable. Mr. Harden says his +grandfather is devoted to him, and will hardly ever let him go away from +home. He does a great deal for Lord Maxwell now: writes for him, and +helps to manage the estate; and next year, when the Tories come back and +Lord Maxwell is in office again--" + +"Why, of course, there'll be plums for the grandson," said Mr. Boyce +with a sneer. "That goes without saying--though we are such a virtuous +lot." + +"Oh yes, he'll get on--everybody says so. And he'll deserve it too!" she +added, her eye kindling combatively as she surveyed her father. "He +takes a lot of trouble down here, about the cottages and the board of +guardians and the farms. The Hardens like him very much, but he is not +exactly popular, according to them. His manners are sometimes shy and +awkward, and the poor people think he's proud." + +"Ah! a prig I dare say--like some of his uncles before him," said Mr. +Boyce, irritably. "But he was civil to you, you say?" + +And again he turned a quick considering eye on his daughter. + +"Oh dear! yes," said Marcella, with a little proud smile. There was a +pause; then she spoke again. "I must go off to the church; the Hardens +have hard work just now with the harvest festival, and I promised to +take them some flowers." + +"Well"--said her father, grudgingly, "so long as you don't promise +anything on my account! I tell you, I haven't got sixpence to spend on +subscriptions to anything or anybody. By the way, if you see Reynolds +anywhere about the drive, you can send him to me. He and I are going +round the Home Farm to pick up a few birds if we can, and see what the +coverts look like. The stock has all run down, and the place has been +poached to death. But he thinks if we take on an extra man in the +spring, and spend a little on rearing, we shall do pretty decently next +year." + +The colour leapt to Marcella's cheek as she tied on her hat. + +"You will set up another keeper, and you won't do anything for the +village?" she cried, her black eyes lightening, and without another word +she opened the French window and walked rapidly away along the terrace, +leaving her father both angered and amazed. + +A man like Richard Boyce cannot get comfortably through life without a +good deal of masquerading in which those in his immediate neighbourhood +are expected to join. His wife had long since consented to play the +game, on condition of making it plain the whole time that she was no +dupe. As to what Marcella's part in the affair might be going to be, her +father was as yet uneasily in the dark. What constantly astonished him, +as she moved and talked under his eye, was the girl's beauty. Surely she +had been a plain child, though a striking one. But now she had not only +beauty, but the air of beauty. The self-confidence given by the +possession of good looks was very evident in her behaviour. She was very +accomplished, too, and more clever than was always quite agreeable to a +father whose self-conceit was one of the few compensations left him by +misfortune. Such a girl was sure to be admired. She would have +lovers--friends of her own. It seemed that already, while Lord Maxwell +was preparing to insult the father, his grandson had discovered that the +daughter was handsome. Richard Boyce fell into a miserable reverie, +wherein the Raeburns' behaviour and Marcella's unexpected gifts played +about equal parts. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Marcella was gathering flowers in the "Cedar garden," the most +adorable corner of Mellor Park, where the original Tudor house, grey, +mullioned and ivy-covered, ran at right angles into the later "garden +front," which projected beyond it to the south, making thereby a sunny +and sheltered corner where roses, clematis, hollyhocks, and sunflowers +grew with a more lavish height and blossom than elsewhere, as though +conscious they must do their part in a whole of beauty. The grass indeed +wanted mowing, and the first autumn leaves lay thickly drifted upon it; +the flowers were untied and untrimmed. But under the condition of two +gardeners to ten acres of garden, nature does very much as she pleases, +and Mr. Boyce when he came that way grumbled in vain. + +As for Marcella, she was alternately moved to revolt and tenderness by +the ragged charm of the old place. + +On the one hand, it angered her that anything so plainly meant for +beauty and dignity should go so neglected and unkempt. On the other, if +house and gardens had been spick and span like the other houses of the +neighbourhood, if there had been sound roofs, a modern water-supply, +shutters, greenhouses, and weedless paths,--in short, the general +self-complacent air of a well-kept country house,--where would have been +that thrilling intimate appeal, as for something forlornly lovely, +which the old place so constantly made upon her? It seemed to depend +even upon _her_, the latest born of all its children--to ask for +tendance and cherishing even from _her_. She was always planning +how--with a minimum of money to spend--it could be comforted and healed, +and in the planning had grown in these few weeks to love it as though +she had been bred there. + +But this morning Marcella picked her roses and sunflowers in tumult and +depression of spirit. What _was_ this past which in these new +surroundings was like some vainly fled tyrant clutching at them again? +She energetically decided that the time had come for her to demand the +truth. Yet, of whom? Marcella knew very well that to force her mother to +any line of action Mrs. Boyce was unwilling to follow, was beyond her +power. And it was not easy to go to her father directly and say, "Tell +me exactly how and why it is that society has turned its back upon you." +All the same, it _was_ due to them all, due to herself especially, now +that she was grown up and at home, that she should not be kept in the +dark any longer like a baby, that she should be put in possession of the +facts which, after all, threatened to stand here at Mellor Park, as +untowardly in their, in _her_ way, as they had done in the shabby school +and lodging-house existence of all those bygone years. + +Perhaps the secret of her impatience was that she did not, and could +not, believe that the facts, if faced, would turn out to be +insurmountable. Her instinct told her as she looked back that their +relation toward society in the past, though full of discomforts and +humiliations, had not been the relation of outcasts. Their poverty and +the shifts to which poverty drives people had brought them the +disrespect of one class; and as to the acquaintances and friends of +their own rank, what had been mainly shown them had been a sort of cool +distaste for their company, an insulting readiness to forget the +existence of people who had so to speak lost their social bloom, and +laid themselves open to the contemptuous disapproval or pity of the +world. Everybody, it seemed, knew their affairs, and knowing them saw no +personal advantage and distinction in the Boyces' acquaintance, but +rather the contrary. + +As she put the facts together a little, she realised, however, that the +breach had always been deepest between her father and his relations, or +his oldest friends. A little shiver passed through her as she reflected +that here, in his own country, where his history was best known, the +feeling towards him, whatever it rested upon, might very probably be +strongest. Well, it _was_ hard upon them!--hard upon her mother--hard +upon her. In her first ecstasy over the old ancestral house and the +dignities of her new position, how little she had thought of these +things! And there they were all the time--dogging and thwarting. + +She walked slowly along, with her burden of flowers, through a laurel +path which led straight to the drive, and so, across it, to the little +church. The church stood all alone there under the great limes of the +Park, far away from parsonage and village--the property, it seemed, of +the big house. When Marcella entered, the doors on the north and south +sides were both standing open, for the vicar and his sister had been +already at work there, and had but gone back to the parsonage for a bit +of necessary business, meaning to return in half an hour. + +It was the unpretending church of a hamlet, girt outside by the humble +graves of toiling and forgotten generations, and adorned, or, at any +rate, diversified within by a group of mural monuments, of various +styles and dates, but all of them bearing, in some way or another, the +name of Boyce--conspicuous amongst them a florid cherub-crowned tomb in +the chancel, marking the remains of that Parliamentarian Boyce who +fought side by side with Hampden, his boyish friend, at Chalgrove Field, +lived to be driven out of Westminster by Colonel Pryde, and to spend his +later years at Mellor, in disgrace, first with the Protector, and then +with the Restoration. From these monuments alone a tolerably faithful +idea of the Boyce family could have been gathered. Clearly not a family +of any very great pretensions--a race for the most part of frugal, +upright country gentlemen--to be found, with scarcely an exception, on +the side of political liberty, and of a Whiggish religion; men who had +given their sons to die at Quebec, and Plassy, and Trafalgar, for the +making of England's Empire; who would have voted with Fox, but that the +terrors of Burke, and a dogged sense that the country must be carried +on, drove them into supporting Pitt; who, at home, dispensed alternate +justice and doles, and when their wives died put up inscriptions to them +intended to bear witness at once to the Latinity of a Boyce's +education, and the pious strength of his legitimate affections--a +tedious race perhaps and pig-headed, tyrannical too here and there, but +on the whole honourable English stuff--the stuff which has made, and +still in new forms sustains, the fabric of a great state. + +Only once was there a break in the uniform character of the monuments--a +break corresponding to the highest moment of the Boyce fortunes, a +moment when the respectability of the family rose suddenly into +brilliance, and the prose of generations broke into a few years of +poetry. Somewhere in the last century an earlier Richard Boyce went +abroad to make the grand tour. He was a man of parts, the friend of +Horace Walpole and of Gray, and his introductions opened to him whatever +doors he might wish to enter, at a time when the upper classes of the +leading European nations were far more intimately and familiarly +acquainted with each other than they are now. He married at Rome an +Italian lady of high birth and large fortune. Then he brought her home +to Mellor, where straightway the garden front was built with all its +fantastic and beautiful decoration, the great avenue was planted, +pictures began to invade the house, and a musical library was collected +whereof the innumerable faded volumes, bearing each of them the entwined +names of Richard and Marcella Boyce, had been during the last few weeks +mines of delight and curiosity to the Marcella of to-day. + +The Italian wife bore her lord two sons, and then in early middle life +she died--much loved and passionately mourned. Her tomb bore no +long-winded panegyric. Her name only, her parentage and birthplace--for +she was Italian to the last, and her husband loved her the better for +it--the dates of her birth and death, and then two lines from Dante's +_Vita Nuova_. + +The portrait of this earlier Marcella hung still in the room where her +music-books survived,--a dark blurred picture by an inferior hand; but +the Marcella of to-day had long since eagerly decided that her own +physique and her father's were to be traced to its original, as well, no +doubt, as the artistic aptitudes of both--aptitudes not hitherto +conspicuous in her respectable race. + +In reality, however, she loved every one of them--these Jacobean and +Georgian squires with their interminable epitaphs. Now, as she stood in +the church, looking about her, her flowers lying beside her in a tumbled +heap on the chancel step, cheerfulness, delight, nay, the indomitable +pride and exultation of her youth, came back upon her in one great +lifting wave. The depression of her father's repentances and +trepidations fell away; she felt herself in her place, under the shelter +of her forefathers, incorporated and redeemed, as it were, into their +guild of honour. + +There were difficulties in her path, no doubt--but she had her +vantage-ground, and would use it for her own profit and that of others. +_She_ had no cause for shame; and in these days of the developed +individual the old solidarity of the family has become injustice and +wrong. Her mind filled tumultuously with the evidence these last two +years had brought her of her natural power over men and things. She knew +perfectly well that she could do and dare what other girls of her age +could never venture--that she had fascination, resource, brain. + +Already, in these few weeks--Smiles played about her lips as she thought +of that quiet grave gentleman of thirty she had been meeting at the +Hardens'. His grandfather might write what he pleased. It did not alter +the fact that during the last few weeks Mr. Aldous Raeburn, clearly one +of the _partis_ most coveted, and one of the men most observed, in the +neighbourhood, had taken and shown a very marked interest in Mr. Boyce's +daughter--all the more marked because of the reserved manner with which +it had to contend. + +No! whatever happened, she would carve her path, make her own way, and +her parents' too. At twenty-one, nothing looks irrevocable. A woman's +charm, a woman's energy should do it all. + +Ay, and something else too. She looked quickly round the church, her +mind swelling with the sense of the Cravens' injustice and distrust. +Never could she be more conscious than here--on this very spot--of +mission, of an urging call to the service of man. In front of her was +the Boyces' family pew, carved and becushioned, but behind it stretched +bench after bench of plain and humble oak, on which the village sat when +it came to church. Here, for the first time, had Marcella been brought +face to face with the agricultural world as it is--no stage ruralism, +but the bare fact in one of its most pitiful aspects. Men of sixty and +upwards, grey and furrowed like the chalk soil into which they had +worked their lives; not old as age goes, but already the refuse of their +generation, and paid for at the rate of refuse; with no prospect but the +workhouse, if the grave should be delayed, yet quiet, impassive, +resigned, now showing a furtive childish amusement if a schoolboy +misbehaved, or a dog strayed into church, now joining with a stolid +unconsciousness in the tremendous sayings of the Psalms; women coarse, +or worn, or hopeless; girls and boys and young children already blanched +and emaciated beyond even the normal Londoner from the effects of +insanitary cottages, bad water, and starvation food--these figures and +types had been a ghastly and quickening revelation to Marcella. In +London the agricultural labourer, of whom she had heard much, had been +to her as a pawn in the game of discussion. Here he was in the flesh; +and she was called upon to live with him, and not only to talk about +him. Under circumstances of peculiar responsibility too. For it was very +clear that upon the owner of Mellor depended, and had always depended, +the labourer of Mellor. + +Well, she had tried to live with them ever since she came--had gone in +and out of their cottages in flat horror and amazement at them and their +lives and their surroundings; alternately pleased and repelled by their +cringing; now enjoying her position among them with the natural +aristocratic instinct of women, now grinding her teeth over her father's +and uncle's behaviour and the little good she saw any prospect of doing +for her new subjects. + +What, _their_ friend and champion, and ultimately their redeemer too? +Well, and why not? Weak women have done greater things in the world. As +she stood on the chancel step, vowing herself to these great things, she +was conscious of a dramatic moment--would not have been sorry, +perhaps, if some admiring eye could have seen and understood her. + +But there was a saving sincerity at the root of her, and her strained +mood sank naturally into a girlish excitement. + +"We shall see!--We shall see!" she said aloud, and was startled to hear +her words quite plainly in the silent church. As she spoke she stooped +to separate her flowers and see what quantities she had of each. + +But while she did so a sound of distant voices made her raise herself +again. She walked down the church and stood at the open south door, +looking and waiting. Before her stretched a green field path leading +across the park to the village. The vicar and his sister were coming +along it towards the church, both flower-laden, and beside walked a tall +man in a brown shooting suit, with his gun in his hand and his dog +beside him. + +The excitement in Marcella's eyes leapt up afresh for a moment as she +saw the group, and then subsided into a luminous and steady glow. She +waited quietly for them, hardly responding to the affectionate signals +of the vicar's sister; but inwardly she was not quiet at all. For the +tall man in the brown shooting coat was Mr. Aldous Raeburn. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"How kind of you!" said the rector's sister, enthusiastically; "but I +thought you would come and help us." + +And as Marcella took some of her burdens from her, Miss Harden kissed +Marcella's cheek with a sort of timid eagerness. She had fallen in love +with Miss Boyce from the beginning, was now just advanced to this +privilege of kissing, and being entirely convinced that her new friend +possessed all virtues and all knowledge, found it not difficult to hold +that she had been divinely sent to sustain her brother and herself in +the disheartening task of civilising Mellor. Mary Harden was naturally a +short, roundly made girl, neither pretty nor plain, with grey-blue eyes, +a shy manner, and a heart all goodness. Her brother was like unto +her--also short, round, and full-faced, with the same attractive eyes. +Both were singularly young in aspect--a boy and girl pair. Both had the +worn, pinched look which Mrs. Boyce complained of, and which, indeed, +went oddly with their whole physique. It was as though creatures built +for a normal life of easy give and take with their fellows had fallen +upon some unfitting and jarring experience. One striking difference, +indeed, there was between them, for amid the brother's timidity and +sweetness there lay, clearly to be felt and seen, the consciousness of +the priest--nascent and immature, but already urging and characteristic. + +Only one face of the three showed any other emotion than quick pleasure +at the sight of Marcella Boyce. Aldous Raeburn was clearly embarrassed +thereby. Indeed, as he laid down his gun outside the low churchyard +wall, while Marcella and the Hardens were greeting, that generally +self-possessed though modest person was conscious of a quite disabling +perturbation of mind. Why in the name of all good manners and decency +had he allowed himself to be discovered in shooting trim, on that +particular morning, by Mr. Boyce's daughter on her father's land, and +within a stone's throw of her father's house? Was he not perfectly well +aware of the curt note which his grandfather had that morning despatched +to the new owner of Mellor? Had he not ineffectually tried to delay +execution the night before, thereby puzzling and half-offending his +grandfather? Had not the incident weighed on him ever since, wounding an +admiration and sympathy which seemed to have stolen upon him in the +dark, during these few weeks since he had made Miss Boyce's +acquaintance, so strong and startling did he all in a moment feel them +to be? + +And then to intrude upon her thus, out of nothing apparently but sheer +moth-like incapacity to keep away! The church footpath indeed was public +property, and Miss Harden's burdens had cried aloud to any passing male +to help her. But why in this neighbourhood at all?--why not rather on +the other side of the county? He could have scourged himself on the +spot for an unpardonable breach of manners and feeling. + +However, Miss Boyce certainly made no sign. She received him without any +_empressement_, but also without the smallest symptom of offence. They +all moved into the church together, Mr. Raeburn carrying a vast bundle +of ivy and fern, the rector and his sister laden with closely-packed +baskets of cut flowers. Everything was laid down on the chancel steps +beside Marcella's contribution, and then the Hardens began to plan out +operations. Miss Harden ran over on her fingers the contributions which +had been sent in to the rectory, or were presently coming over to the +church in a hand-cart. "Lord Maxwell has sent the most _beautiful_ pots +for the chancel," she said, with a grateful look at young Raeburn. "It +will be quite a show." To which the young rector assented warmly. It was +very good, indeed, of Lord Maxwell to remember them always so liberally +at times like these, when they had so little direct claim upon him. They +were not his church or his parish, but he never forgot them all the +same, and Mellor was grateful. The rector had all his sister's gentle +effusiveness, but a professional dignity besides, even in his thanks, +which made itself felt. + +Marcella flushed as he was speaking. + +"I went to see what I could get in the way of greenhouse things," she +said in a sudden proud voice. "But we have nothing. There are the +houses, but there is nothing in them. But you shall have all our +out-of-door flowers, and I think a good deal might be done with autumn +leaves and wild things if you will let me try." + +A speech, which brought a flush to Mr. Raeburn's cheek as he stood in +the background, and led Mary Harden into an eager asking of Marcella's +counsels, and an eager praising of her flowers. + +Aldous Raeburn said nothing, but his discomfort increased with every +moment. Why had his grandfather been so officious in this matter of the +flowers? All very well when Mellor was empty, or in the days of a miser +and eccentric, without womankind, like Robert Boyce. But now--the act +began to seem to him offensive, a fresh affront offered to an +unprotected girl, whose quivering sensitive look as she stood talking to +the Hardens touched him profoundly. Mellor church might almost be +regarded as the Boyces' private chapel, so bound up was it with the +family and the house. He realised painfully that he ought to be +gone--yet could not tear himself away. Her passionate willingness to +spend herself for the place and people she had made her own at first +sight, checked every now and then by a proud and sore reserve--it was +too pretty, too sad. It stung and spurred him as he watched her; one +moment his foot moved for departure, the next he was resolving that +somehow or other he must make speech with her--excuse--explain. +Ridiculous! How was it possible that he should do either! + +He had met her--perhaps had tried to meet her--tolerably often since +their first chance encounter weeks ago in the vicarage drawing-room. All +through there had been on his side the uncomfortable knowledge of his +grandfather's antipathy to Richard Boyce, and of the social steps to +which that antipathy would inevitably lead. But Miss Boyce had never +shown the smallest consciousness, so far, of anything untoward or +unusual in her position. She had been clearly taken up with the interest +and pleasure of this new spectacle upon which she had entered. The old +house, its associations, its history, the beautiful country in which it +lay, the speech and characteristics of rural labour as compared with +that of the town,--he had heard her talk of all these things with a +freshness, a human sympathy, a freedom from conventional phrase, and, no +doubt, a touch of egotism and extravagance, which rivetted attention. +The egotism and extravagance, however, after a first moment of critical +discomfort on his part, had not in the end repelled him at all. The +girl's vivid beauty glorified them; made them seem to him a mere special +fulness of life. So that in his new preoccupation with herself, and by +contact with her frank self-confidence, he had almost forgotten her +position, and his own indirect relation to it. Then had come that +unlucky note from Mellor; his grandfather's prompt reply to it; his own +ineffective protest; and now this tongue-tiedness--this clumsy +intrusion--which she must feel to be an indelicacy--an outrage. + +Suddenly he heard Miss Harden saying, with penitent emphasis, "I _am_ +stupid! I have left the scissors and the wire on the table at home; we +can't get on without them; it is really too bad of me." + +"I will go for them," said Marcella promptly. "Here is the hand-cart +just arrived and some people come to help; you can't be spared. I will +be back directly." + +And, gathering up her black skirt in a slim white hand, she sped down +the church, and was out of the south door before the Hardens had time to +protest, or Aldous Raeburn understood what she was doing. + +A vexed word from Miss Harden enlightened him, and he went after the +fugitive, overtaking her just where his gun and dog lay, outside the +churchyard. + +"Let me go, Miss Boyce," he said, as he caught her up. "My dog and I +will run there and back." + +But Marcella hardly looked at him, or paused. + +"Oh no!" she said quickly, "I should like the walk." + +He hesitated; then, with a flush which altered his usually quiet, +self-contained expression, he moved on beside her. + +"Allow me to go with you then. You are sure to find fresh loads to bring +back. If it's like our harvest festival, the things keep dropping in all +day." + +Marcella's eyes were still on the ground. + +"I thought you were on your way to shoot, Mr. Raeburn?" + +"So I was, but there is no hurry; if I can be useful. Both the birds and +the keeper can wait." + +"Where are you going?" + +"To some outlying fields of ours on the Windmill Hill. There is a tenant +there who wants to see me. He is a prosy person with a host of +grievances. I took my gun as a possible means of escape from him." + +"Windmill Hill? I know the name. Oh! I remember: it was there--my father +has just been telling me--that your father and he shot the pair of +kestrels, when they were boys together." + +Her tone was quite light, but somehow it had an accent, an emphasis, +which made Aldous Raeburn supremely uncomfortable. In his disquiet, he +thought of various things to say; but he was not ready, nor naturally +effusive; the turn of them did not please him; and he remained silent. + +Meantime Marcella's heart was beating fast. She was meditating a _coup_. + +"Mr. Raeburn!" + +"Yes!" + +"Will you think me a very extraordinary person if I ask you a question? +Your father and mine were great friends, weren't they, as boys?--your +family and mine were friends, altogether?" + +"I believe so--I have always heard so," said her companion, flushing +still redder. + +"You knew Uncle Robert--Lord Maxwell did?" + +"Yes--as much as anybody knew him--but--" + +"Oh, I know: he shut himself up and hated his neighbours. Still you knew +him, and papa and your father were boys together. Well then, if you +won't mind telling me--I know it's bold to ask, but I have reasons--why +does Lord Maxwell write to papa in the third person, and why has your +aunt, Miss Raeburn, never found time in all these weeks to call on +mamma?" + +She turned and faced him, her splendid eyes one challenge. The glow and +fire of the whole gesture--the daring of it, and yet the suggestion of +womanish weakness in the hand which trembled against her dress and in +the twitching lip--if it had been fine acting, it could not have been +more complete. And, in a sense, acting there was in it. Marcella's +emotions were real, but her mind seldom deserted her. One half of her +was impulsive and passionate; the other half looked on and put in +finishing touches. + +Acting or no, the surprise of her outburst swept the man beside her off +his feet. He found himself floundering in a sea of excuses--not for his +relations, but for himself. He ought never to have intruded; it was +odious, unpardonable; he had no business whatever to put himself in her +way! Would she please understand that it was an accident? It should not +happen again. He quite understood that she could not regard him with +friendliness. And so on. He had never so lost his self-possession. + +Meanwhile Marcella's brows contracted. She took his excuses as a fresh +offence. + +"You mean, I suppose, that I have no right to ask such questions!" she +cried; "that I am not behaving like a lady--as one of your relations +would? Well, I dare say! I was not brought up like that. I was not +brought up at all; I have had to make myself. So you must avoid me if +you like. Of course you will. But I resolved there--in the church--that +I would make just one effort, before everything crystallises, to break +through. If we must live on here hating our neighbours and being cut by +them, I thought I would just ask you why, first. There is no one else to +ask. Hardly anybody has called, except the Hardens, and a few new people +that don't matter. And _I_ have nothing to be ashamed of," said the girl +passionately, "nor has mamma. Papa, I suppose, did some bad things long +ago. I have never known--I don't know now--what they were. But I should +like to understand. Is everybody going to cut us because of that?" + +With a great effort Aldous Raeburn pulled himself together, certain fine +instincts both of race and conduct coming to his help. He met her +excited look by one which had both dignity and friendliness. + +"I will tell you what I can, Miss Boyce. If you ask me, it is right I +should. You must forgive me if I say anything that hurts you. I will try +not--I will try not!" he repeated earnestly. "In the first place, I know +hardly anything in detail. I do not remember that I have ever wished to +know. But I gather that some years ago--when I was still a +lad--something in Mr. Boyce's life--some financial matters, I +believe--during the time that he was member of Parliament, made a +scandal, and especially among his family and old friends. It was the +effect upon his old father, I think, who, as you know, died soon +afterwards--" + +Marcella started. + +"I didn't know," she said quickly. + +Aldous Raeburn's distress grew. + +"I really oughtn't to speak of these things," he said, "for I don't know +them accurately. But I want to answer what you said--I do indeed. It was +that, I think, chiefly. Everybody here respected and loved your +grandfather--my grandfather did--and there was great feeling for him--" + +"I see! I see!" said Marcella, her chest heaving; "and against papa." + +She walked on quickly, hardly seeing where she was going, her eyes dim +with tears. There was a wretched pause. Then Aldous Raeburn broke out-- + +"But after all it is very long ago. And there may have been some harsh +judgment. My grandfather may have been misinformed as to some of the +facts. And I--" + +He hesitated, struck with the awkwardness of what he was going to say. +But Marcella understood him. + +"And you will try and make him alter his mind?" she said, not +ungratefully, but still with a touch of sarcasm in her tone. "No, Mr. +Raeburn, I don't think that will succeed." + +They walked on in silence for a little while. At last he said, turning +upon her a face in which she could not but see the true feeling of a +just and kindly man-- + +"I meant that if my grandfather could be led to express himself in a way +which Mr. Boyce could accept, even if there were no great friendship as +there used to be, there might be something better than this--this, +which--which--is so painful. And any way, Miss Boyce, whatever happens, +will you let me say this once, that there is no word, no feeling in this +neighbourhood--how could there be?--towards you and your mother, but one +of respect and admiration? Do believe that, even if you feel that you +can never be friendly towards me and mine again--or forget the things I +have said!" + +"Respect and admiration!" said Marcella, wondering, and still scornful. +"Pity, perhaps. There might be that. But any way mamma goes with papa. +She always has done. She always will. So shall I, of course. But I am +sorry--_horribly_ sore and sorry! I was so delighted to come here. I +have been very little at home, and understood hardly anything about +this worry--not how serious it was, nor what it meant. Oh! I _am_ +sorry--there was so much I wanted to do here--if anybody could only +understand what it means to me to come to this place!" + +They had reached the brow of a little rising ground. Just below them, +beyond a stubble field in which there were a few bent forms of gleaners, +lay the small scattered Tillage, hardly seen amid its trees, the curls +of its blue smoke ascending steadily on this calm September morning +against a great belt of distant beechwood which begirt the hamlet and +the common along which it lay. The stubble field was a feast of shade +and tint, of apricots and golds shot with the subtlest purples and +browns; the flame of the wild-cherry leaf and the deeper crimson of the +haws made every hedge a wonder; the apples gleamed in the cottage +garden; and a cloudless sun poured down on field and hedge, and on the +half-hidden medley of tiled roofs, sharp gables, and jutting dormers +which made the village. + +Instinctively both stopped. Marcella locked her hands behind her in a +gesture familiar to her in moments of excitement; the light wind blew +back her dress in soft, eddying folds; for the moment, in her tall +grace, she had the air of some young Victory poised upon a height, till +you looked at her face, which was, indeed, not exultant at all, but +tragic, extravagantly tragic, as Aldous Raeburn, in his English reserve, +would perhaps have thought in the case of any woman with tamer eyes and +a less winning mouth. + +"I don't want to talk about myself," she began. "But you know, Mr. +Raeburn--you must know--what a state of things there is here--you know +what a _disgrace_ that village is. Oh! one reads books, but I never +thought people could actually _live_ like that--here in the wide +country, with room for all. It makes me lie awake at night. We are not +rich--we are very poor--the house is all out of repair, and the estate, +as of course you know, is in a wretched condition. But when I see these +cottages, and the water, and the children, I ask what right we have to +anything we get. I had some friends in London who were Socialists, and I +followed and agreed with them, but here one _sees_! Yes, indeed!--it +_is_ too great a risk to let the individual alone when all these lives +depend upon him. Uncle Robert was an eccentric and a miser; and look at +the death-rate of the village--look at the children; you can see how it +has crushed the Hardens already. No, we have no right to it!--it ought +to be taken from us; some day it will be taken from us!" + +Aldous Raeburn smiled, and was himself again. A woman's speculations +were easier to deal with than a woman's distress. + +"It is not so hopeless as that, I think," he said kindly. "The Mellor +cottages are in a bad state certainly. But you have no idea how soon a +little energy and money and thought sets things to rights." + +"But we have no money!" cried Marcella. "And if he is miserable here, my +father will have no energy to do anything. He will not care what +happens. He will defy everybody, and just spend what he has on himself. +And it will make me wretched--_wretched_. Look at that cottage to the +right, Mr. Raeburn. It is Jim Hurd's--a man who works mainly on the +Church Farm, when he is in work. But he is deformed, and not so strong +as others. The farmers too seem to be cutting down labour everywhere--of +course I don't understand--I am so new to it. Hurd and his family had an +_awful_ winter, last winter--hardly kept body and soul together. And now +he is out of work already--the man at the Church Farm turned him off +directly after harvest. He sees no prospect of getting work by the +winter. He spends his days tramping to look for it; but nothing turns +up. Last winter they parted with all they could sell. This winter it +must be the workhouse! It's _heart-breaking_. And he has a mind; he can +_feel_! I lend him the Labour paper I take in, and get him to talk. He +has more education than most, and oh! the _bitterness_ at the bottom of +him. But not against persons--individuals. It is like a sort of blind +patience when you come to that--they make excuses even for Uncle Robert, +to whom they have paid rent all these years for a cottage which is a +crime--yes, a _crime_! The woman must have been such a pretty +creature--and refined too. She is consumptive, of course--what else +could you expect with that cottage and that food? So is the eldest +boy--a little white atomy! And the other children. Talk of London--I +never saw such sickly objects as there are in this village. Twelve +shillings a week, and work about half the year! Oh! they _ought_ to hate +us!--I try to make them," cried Marcella, her eyes gleaming. "They ought +to hate all of us landowners, and the whole wicked system. It keeps them +from the land which they ought to be sharing with us; it makes one man +master, instead of all men brothers. And who is fit to be master? Which +of us? Everybody is so ready to take the charge of other people's lives, +and then look at the result!" + +"Well, the result, even in rural England, is not always so bad," said +Aldous Raeburn, smiling a little, but more coldly. Marcella, glancing at +him, understood in a moment that she had roused a certain family and +class pride in him--a pride which was not going to assert itself, but +none the less implied the sudden opening of a gulf between herself and +him. In an instant her quick imagination realised herself as the +daughter and niece of two discredited members of a great class. When she +attacked the class, or the system, the man beside her--any man in +similar circumstances--must naturally think: "Ah, well, poor girl--Dick +Boyce's daughter--what can you expect?" Whereas--Aldous Raeburn!--she +thought of the dignity of the Maxwell name, of the width of the Maxwell +possessions, balanced only by the high reputation of the family for +honourable, just and Christian living, whether as amongst themselves or +towards their neighbours and dependents. A shiver of passionate vanity, +wrath, and longing passed through her as her tall frame stiffened. + +"There are model squires, of course," she said slowly, striving at least +for a personal dignity which should match his. "There are plenty of +landowners who do their duty as they understand it--no one denies that. +But that does not affect the system; the grandson of the best man may be +the worst, but his one-man power remains the same. No! the time has come +for a wider basis. Paternal government and charity were very well in +their way--democratic self-government will manage to do without them!" + +She flung him a gay, quivering, defiant look. It delighted her to pit +these wide and threatening generalisations against the Maxwell power--to +show the heir of it that she at least--father or no father--was no +hereditary subject of his, and bound to no blind admiration of the +Maxwell methods and position. + +Aldous Raeburn took her onslaught very calmly, smiling frankly back at +her indeed all the time. Miss Boyce's opinions could hardly matter to +him intellectually, whatever charm and stimulus he might find in her +talk. This subject of the duties, rights, and prospects of his class +went, as it happened, very deep with him--too deep for chance +discussion. What she said, if he ever stopped to think of it in itself, +seemed to him a compound of elements derived partly from her personal +history, partly from the random opinions that young people of a generous +type pick up from newspapers and magazines. She had touched his family +pride for an instant; but only for an instant. What he was abidingly +conscious of, was of a beautiful wild creature struggling with +difficulties in which he was somehow himself concerned, and out of +which, in some way or other, he was becoming more and more +determined--absurdly determined--to help her. + +"Oh! no doubt the world will do very well without us some day," he said +lightly, in answer to her tirade; "no one is indispensable. But are you +so sure, Miss Boyce, you believe in your own creed? I thought I had +observed--pardon me for saying it--on the two or three occasions we have +met, some degenerate signs of individualism? You take pleasure in the +old place, you say; you were delighted to come and live where your +ancestors lived before you; you are full of desires to pull these poor +people out of the mire in your own way. No! I don't feel that you are +thorough-going!" + +Marcella paused a frowning moment, then broke suddenly into a delightful +laugh--a laugh of humorous confession, which changed her whole look and +mood. + +"Is that all you have noticed? If you wish to know, Mr. Raeburn, I love +the labourers for touching their hats to me. I love the school children +for bobbing to me. I love my very self--ridiculous as _you_ may think +it--for being Miss Boyce of Mellor!" + +"Don't say things like that, please!" he interrupted; "I think I have +not deserved them." + +His tone made her repent her gibe. "No, indeed, you have been most kind +to me," she cried. "I don't know how it is. I am bitter and personal in +a moment--when I don't mean to be. Yes! you are quite right. I am proud +of it all. If nobody comes to see us, and we are left all alone out in +the cold, I shall still have room enough to be proud in--proud of the +old house and our few bits of pictures, and the family papers, and the +beeches! How absurd it would seem to other people, who have so much +more! But I have had so little--so _little_!" Her voice had a hungry +lingering note. "And as for the people, yes, I am proud too that they +like me, and that already I can influence them. Oh, I will do my best +for them, my _very best_! But it will be hard, very hard, if there is +no one to help me!" + +She heaved a long sigh. In spite of the words, what she had said did not +seem to be an appeal for his pity. Rather there was in it a sweet +self-dedicating note as of one going sadly alone to a painful task, a +note which once more left Aldous Raeburn's self-restraint tottering. She +was walking gently beside him, her pretty dress trailing lightly over +the dry stubble, her hand in its white ruffles hanging so close beside +him--after all her prophetess airs a pensive womanly thing, that must +surely hear how his strong man's heart was beginning to beat! + +He bent over to her. + +"Don't talk of there being no one to help! There may be many ways out of +present difficulties. Meanwhile, however things go, could you be +large-minded enough to count one person here your friend?" + +She looked up at him. Tall as she was, he was taller--she liked that; +she liked too the quiet cautious strength of his English expression and +bearing. She did not think him handsome, and she was conscious of no +thrill. But inwardly her quick dramatising imagination was already +constructing her own future and his. The ambition to rule leapt in her, +and the delight in conquest. It was with a delicious sense of her own +power, and of the general fulness of her new life, that she said, "I +_am_ large-minded enough! You have been very kind, and I have been very +wild and indiscreet. But I don't regret: I am sure, if you can help me, +you will." + +There was a little pause. They were standing at the last gate before +the miry village road began, and almost in sight of the little vicarage. +Aldous Raeburn, with his hand on the gate, suddenly gathered a spray of +travellers'-joy out of the hedge beside him. + +"That was a promise, I think, and I keep the pledge of it," he said, and +with a smile put the cluster of white seed-tufts and green leaves into +one of the pockets of his shooting jacket. + +"Oh, don't tie me down!" said Marcella, laughing, but flushing also. +"And don't you think, Mr. Raeburn, that you might open that gate? At +least, we can't get the scissors and the wire unless you do." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The autumn evening was far advanced when Aldous Raeburn, after his day's +shooting, passed again by the gates of Mellor Park on his road home. He +glanced up the ill-kept drive, with its fine overhanging limes, caught a +glimpse to the left of the little church, and to the right, of the long +eastern front of the house; lingered a moment to watch the sunset light +streaming through the level branches of two distant cedars, standing +black and sharp against the fiery west, and then walked briskly forwards +in the mood of a man going as fast as may be to an appointment he both +desires and dreads. + +He had given his gun to the keeper, who had already sped far ahead of +him, in the shooting-cart which his master had declined. His dog, a +black retriever, was at his heels, and both dog and man were somewhat +weary and stiff with exercise. But for the privilege of solitude, Aldous +Raeburn would at that moment have faced a good deal more than the two +miles of extra walking which now lay between him and Maxwell Court. + +About him, as he trudged on, lay a beautiful world of English woodland. +After he had passed through the hamlet of Mellor, with its +three-cornered piece of open common, and its patches of +arable--representing the original forest-clearing made centuries ago by +the primitive fathers of the village in this corner of the Chiltern +uplands--the beech woods closed thickly round him. Beech woods of all +kinds--from forest slopes, where majestic trees, grey and soaring +pillars of the woodland roof, stood in stately isolation on the +dead-leaf carpet woven by the years about their carved and polished +bases, to the close plantations of young trees, where the saplings +crowded on each other, and here and there amid the airless tangle of +leaf and branch some long pheasant-drive, cut straight through the green +heart of the wood, refreshed the seeking eye with its arched and +far-receding path. Two or three times on his walk Aldous heard from far +within the trees the sounds of hatchet and turner's wheel, which told +him he was passing one of the wood-cutter's huts that in the hilly parts +of this district supply the first simple steps of the chairmaking +industry, carried on in the little factory towns of the more populous +valleys. And two or three times also he passed a string of the great +timber carts which haunt the Chiltern lanes; the patient team of brown +horses straining at the weight behind them, the vast prostrate trunks +rattling in their chains, and the smoke from the carters' pipes rising +slowly into the damp sunset air. But for the most part the road along +which he walked was utterly forsaken of human kind. Nor were there any +signs of habitation--no cottages, no farms. He was scarcely more than +thirty miles from London; yet in this solemn evening glow it would have +been hardly possible to find a remoter, lonelier nature than that +through which he was passing. + +And presently the solitude took a grander note. He was nearing the edge +of the high upland along which he had been walking. In front of him the +long road with its gleaming pools bent sharply to the left, showing pale +and distinct against a darkening heaven and the wide grey fields which +had now, on one side of his path, replaced the serried growth of young +plantations. Night was fast advancing from south and east over the +upland. But straight in front of him and on his right, the forest trees, +still flooded with sunset, fell in sharp steeps towards the plain. +Through their straight stems glowed the blues and purples of that lower +world; and when the slopes broke and opened here and there, above the +rounded masses of their red and golden leaf the level distances of the +plain could be seen stretching away, illimitable in the evening dusk, to +a west of glory, just vacant of the sun. The golden ball had sunk into +the mists awaiting it, but the splendour of its last rays was still on +all the western front of the hills, bathing the beech woods as they rose +and fell with the large undulations of the ground. + +Insensibly Raeburn, filled as he was with a new and surging emotion, +drew the solemnity of the forest glades and of the rolling distances +into his heart. When he reached the point where the road diverged to the +left, he mounted a little grassy ridge, whence he commanded the whole +sweep of the hill rampart from north to west, and the whole expanse of +the low country beneath, and there stood gazing for some minutes, lost +in many thoughts, while the night fell. + +He looked over the central plain of England--the plain which stretches +westward to the Thames and the Berkshire hills, and northward through +the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire lowlands to the basin of the Trent. +An historic plain--symbolic, all of it, to an English eye. There in the +western distance, amid the light-filled mists, lay Oxford; in front of +him was the site of Chalgrove Field, where Hampden got his clumsy death +wound, and Thame, where he died; and far away, to his right, where the +hills swept to the north, he could just discern, gleaming against the +face of the down, the vast scoured cross, whereby a Saxon king had +blazoned his victory over his Danish foes to all the plain beneath. + +Aldous Raeburn was a man to feel these things. He had seldom stood on +this high point, in such an evening calm, without the expansion in him +of all that was most manly, most English, most strenuous. If it had not +been so, indeed, he must have been singularly dull of soul. For the +great view had an interest for him personally it could hardly have +possessed to the same degree for any other man. On his left hand Maxwell +Court rose among its woods on the brow of the hill--a splendid pile +which some day would be his. Behind him; through all the upland he had +just traversed; beneath the point where he stood; along the sides of the +hills, and far into the plain, stretched the land which also would be +his--which, indeed, practically was already his--for his grandfather was +an old man with a boundless trust in the heir on whom, his affections +and hopes were centred. The dim churches scattered over the immediate +plain below; the villages clustered round them, where dwelt the toilers +in these endless fields; the farms amid their trees; the cottages +showing here and there on the fringes of the wood--all the equipment and +organisation of popular life over an appreciable part of the English +midland at his feet, depended to an extent hardly to be exaggerated, +under the conditions of the England of to-day, upon him--upon his one +man's brain and conscience, the degree of his mental and moral capacity. + +In his first youth, of course, the thought had often roused a boy's +tremulous elation and sense of romance. Since his Cambridge days, and of +late years, any more acute or dramatic perception than usual of his lot +in life had been wont to bring with it rather a consciousness of weight +than of inspiration. Sensitive, fastidious, reflective, he was disturbed +by remorses and scruples which had never plagued his forefathers. During +his college days, the special circumstances of a great friendship had +drawn him into the full tide of a social speculation which, as it +happened, was destined to go deeper with him than with most men. The +responsibilities of the rich, the disadvantages of the poor, the +relation of the State to the individual--of the old Radical dogma of +free contract to the thwarting facts of social inequality; the Tory +ideal of paternal government by the few as compared with the Liberal +ideal of self-government by the many: these commonplaces of economical +and political discussion had very early become living and often sore +realities in Aldous Raeburn's mind, because of the long conflict in him, +dating from his Cambridge life, between the influences of birth and +early education and the influences of an admiring and profound affection +which had opened to him the gates of a new moral world. + +Towards the close of his first year at Trinity, & young man joined the +college who rapidly became, in spite of various practical disadvantages, +a leader among the best and keenest of his fellows. He was poor and held +a small scholarship; but it was soon plain that his health was not equal +to the Tripos routine, and that the prizes of the place, brilliant as +was his intellectual endowment, were not for him. After an inward +struggle, of which none perhaps but Aldous Raeburn had any exact +knowledge, he laid aside his first ambitions and turned himself to +another career. A couple of hours' serious brainwork in the day was all +that was ever possible to him henceforward. He spent it, as well as the +thoughts and conversation of his less strenuous moments, on the study of +history and sociology, with a view to joining the staff of lecturers for +the manufacturing and country towns which the two great Universities, +touched by new and popular sympathies, were then beginning to organise. +He came of a stock which promised well for such a pioneer's task. His +father had been an able factory inspector, well-known for his share in +the inauguration and revision of certain important factory reforms; the +son inherited a passionate humanity of soul; and added to it a magnetic +and personal charm which soon made him a remarkable power, not only in +his own college, but among the finer spirits of the University +generally. He had the gift which enables a man, sitting perhaps after +dinner in a mixed society of his college contemporaries, to lead the way +imperceptibly from the casual subjects of the hour--the river, the dons, +the schools--to arguments "of great pith and moment," discussions that +search the moral and intellectual powers of the men concerned to the +utmost, without exciting distrust or any but an argumentative +opposition, Edward Hallin could do this without a pose, without a false +note, nay, rather by the natural force of a boyish intensity and +simplicity. To many a Trinity man in after life the memory of his slight +figure and fair head, of the eager slightly parted mouth, of the eyes +glowing with some inward vision, and of the gesture with which he would +spring up at some critical point to deliver himself, standing amid his +seated and often dissentient auditors, came back vivid and ineffaceable +as only youth can make the image of its prophets. + +Upon Aldous Raeburn, Edward Hallin produced from the first a deep +impression. The interests to which Hallin's mind soon became exclusively +devoted--such as the systematic study of English poverty, or of the +relation of religion to social life, reforms of the land and of the +Church--overflowed upon Raeburn with a kindling and disturbing force. +Edward Hallin was his gad-fly; and he had no resource, because he loved +his tormentor. + +Fundamentally, the two men were widely different. Raeburn was a true son +of his fathers, possessed by natural inheritance of the finer instincts +of aristocratic rule, including a deep contempt for mob-reason and all +the vulgarities of popular rhetoric; steeped, too, in a number of subtle +prejudices, and in a silent but intense pride of family of the nobler +sort. He followed with disquiet and distrust the quick motions and +conclusions of Hallin's intellect. Temperament and the Cambridge +discipline made him a fastidious thinker and a fine scholar; his mind +worked slowly, yet with a delicate precision; and his generally cold +manner was the natural protection of feelings which had never yet, +except in the case of his friendship with Edward Hallin, led him to much +personal happiness. + +Hallin left Cambridge after a pass degree to become lecturer on +industrial and economical questions in the northern English towns. +Raeburn stayed on a year longer, found himself third classic and the +winner of a Greek verse prize, and then, sacrificing the idea of a +fellowship, returned to Maxwell Court to be his grandfather's companion +and helper in the work of the estate, his family proposing that, after a +few years' practical experience of the life and occupations of a country +gentleman, he should enter Parliament and make a career in politics. +Since then five or six years had passed, during which he had learned to +know the estate thoroughly, and to take his normal share in the business +and pleasures of the neighbourhood. For the last two years he had been +his grandfather's sole agent, a poor-law guardian and magistrate +besides, and a member of most of the various committees for social and +educational purposes in the county. He was a sufficiently keen sportsman +to save appearances with his class; enjoyed a walk after the partridges +indeed, with a friend or two, as much as most men; and played the host +at the two or three great battues of the year with a propriety which his +grandfather however no longer mistook for enthusiasm. There was nothing +much to distinguish him from any other able man of his rank. His +neighbours felt him to be a personality, but thought him reserved and +difficult; he was respected, but he was not popular like his +grandfather; people speculated as to how he would get on in Parliament, +or whom he was to marry; but, except to the dwellers in Maxwell Court +itself, or of late to the farmers and labourers on the estate, it would +not have mattered much to anybody if he had not been there. Nobody ever +connected any romantic thought with him. There was something in his +strong build, pale but healthy aquiline face, his inconspicuous brown +eyes and hair, which seemed from the beginning to mark him out as the +ordinary earthy dweller in an earthy world. + +Nevertheless, these years had been to Aldous Raeburn years marked by an +expansion and deepening of the whole man, such as few are capable of. +Edward Hallin's visits to the Court, the walking tours which brought the +two friends together almost every year in Switzerland or the Highlands, +the course of a full and intimate correspondence, and the various calls +made for public purposes by the enthusiast and pioneer upon the pocket +and social power of the rich man--these things and influences, together, +of course, with the pressure of an environing world, ever more real, +and, on the whole, ever more oppressive, as it was better understood, +had confronted Aldous Raeburn before now with a good many teasing +problems of conduct and experience. His tastes, his sympathies, his +affinities were all with the old order; but the old faiths--economical, +social, religious--were fermenting within him in different stages of +disintegration and reconstruction; and his reserved habit and often +solitary life tended to scrupulosity and over-refinement. His future +career as a landowner and politician was by no means clear to him. One +thing only was clear to him--that to dogmatise about any subject under +heaven, at the present day, more than the immediate practical occasion +absolutely demanded, was the act of an idiot. + +So that Aldous Raeburn's moments of reflection had been constantly mixed +with struggle of different kinds. And the particular point of view where +he stood on this September evening had been often associated in his +memory with flashes of self-realisation which were, on the whole, more +of a torment to him than a joy. If he had not been Aldous Raeburn, or +any other person, tied to a particular individuality, with a particular +place and label in the world, the task of the analytic mind, in face of +the spectacle of what is, would have been a more possible one!--so it +had often seemed to him. + +But to-night all this cumbering consciousness, all these self-made +doubts and worries, had for the moment dropped clean away! A +transfigured man it was that lingered at the old spot--a man once more +young, divining with enchantment the approach of passion, feeling at +last through all his being the ecstasy of a self-surrender, long missed, +long hungered for. + +Six weeks was it since he had first seen her--this tall, straight, +Marcella Boyce? He shut his eyes impatiently against the disturbing +golds and purples of the sunset, and tried to see her again as she had +walked beside him across the church fields, in that thin black dress, +with, the shadow of the hat across her brow and eyes--the small white +teeth flashing as she talked and smiled, the hand so ready with its +gesture, so restless, so alive! What a presence--how absorbing, +troubling, preoccupying! No one in her company could forget her--nay, +could fail to observe her. What ease and daring, and yet no hardness +with it--rather deep on deep of womanly weakness, softness, passion, +beneath it all! + +How straight she had flung her questions at him!--her most awkward +embarrassing questions. What other woman would have dared such +candour--unless perhaps as a stroke of fine art--he had known women +indeed who could have done it so. But where could be the art, the +policy, he asked himself indignantly, in the sudden outburst of a young +girl pleading with her companion's sense of truth and good feeling in +behalf of those nearest to her? + +As to her dilemma itself, in his excitement he thought of it with +nothing but the purest pleasure! She had let him see that she did not +expect him to be able to do much for her, though she was ready to +believe him her friend. Ah well--he drew a long breath. For once, +Raeburn, strange compound that he was of the man of rank and the +philosopher, remembered his own social power and position with an +exultant satisfaction. No doubt Dick Boyce had misbehaved himself +badly--the strength of Lord Maxwell's feeling was sufficient proof +thereof. No doubt the "county," as Raeburn himself knew, in some detail, +were disposed to leave Mellor Park severely alone. What of that? Was it +for nothing that the Maxwells had been for generations at the head of +the "county," i.e. of that circle of neighbouring families connected by +the ties of ancestral friendship, or of intermarriage, on whom in this +purely agricultural and rural district the social pleasure and comfort +of Miss Boyce and her mother must depend? + +He, like Marcella, did not believe that Richard Boyce's offences were of +the quite unpardonable order; although, owing to a certain absent and +preoccupied temper, he had never yet taken the trouble to enquire into +them in detail. As to any real restoration of cordiality between the +owner of Mellor and his father's old friends and connections, that of +course was not to be looked for; but there should be decent social +recognition, and--in the case of Mrs. Boyce and her daughter--there +should be homage and warm welcome, simply because she wished it, and it +was absurd she should not have it! Raeburn, whose mind was ordinarily +destitute of the most elementary capacity for social intrigue, began to +plot in detail how it should be done. He relied first upon winning his +grandfather--his popular distinguished grandfather, whose lightest word +had weight in Brookshire. And then, he himself had two or three women +friends in the county--not more, for women had not occupied much place +in his thoughts till now. But they were good friends, and, from the +social point of view, important. He would set them to work at once. +These things should be chiefly managed by women. + +But no patronage! She would never bear that, the glancing proud +creature. She must guess, indeed, let him tread as delicately as he +might, that he and others were at work for her. But oh! she should be +softly handled; as far as he could achieve it, she should, in a very +little while, live and breathe compassed with warm airs of good-will and +consideration. + +He felt himself happy, amazingly happy, that at the very beginning of +his love, it should thus be open to him, in these trivial, foolish ways, +to please and befriend her. Her social dilemma and discomfort one +moment, indeed, made him sore for her; the next, they were a kind of +joy, since it was they gave him this opportunity to put out a strong +right arm. + +Everything about her at this moment was divine and lovely to him; all +the qualities of her rich uneven youth which she had shown in their +short intercourse--her rashness, her impulsiveness, her generosity. Let +her but trust herself to him, and she should try her social experiments +as she pleased--she should plan Utopias, and he would be her hodman to +build them. The man perplexed with too much thinking remembered the +girl's innocent, ignorant readiness to stamp the world's stuff anew +after the forms of her own pitying thought, with a positive thirst of +sympathy. The deep poetry and ideality at the root of him under all the +weight of intellectual and critical debate leapt towards her. He thought +of the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact of +friendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for her +Socialist friends and their ideals,--with a momentary madness of +self-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like Aldous +Raeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like Marcella +Boyce. But the illusion of passion may deal as disturbingly with moral +rank as with social. + +It was his first love. Years before, in the vacation before he went to +college, his boyish mind had been crossed, by a fancy for a pretty +cousin a little older than himself, who had been very kind indeed to +Lord Maxwell's heir. But then came Cambridge, the flow of a new mental +life, his friendship for Edward Hallin, and the beginnings of a moral +storm and stress. When he and the cousin next met, he was quite cold to +her. She seemed to him a pretty piece of millinery, endowed with a trick +of parrot phrases. She, on her part, thought him detestable; she married +shortly afterwards, and often spoke to her husband in private of her +"escape" from that queer fellow Aldous Raeburn. + +Since then he had known plenty of pretty and charming women, both in +London and in the country, and had made friends with some of them in his +quiet serious way. But none of them had roused in him even a passing +thrill of passion. He had despised himself for it; had told himself +again and again that he was but half a man-- + +Ah! he had done himself injustice--he had done himself injustice! + +His heart was light as air. When at last the sound of a clock striking +in the plain roused him with a start, and he sprang up from the heap of +stones where he had been sitting in the dusk, he bent down a moment to +give a gay caress to his dog, and then trudged off briskly home, +whistling under the emerging stars. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +By the time, however, that Aldous Raeburn came within sight of the +windows of Maxwell Court his first exaltation had sobered down. The +lover had fallen, for the time, into the background, and the capable, +serious man of thirty, with a considerable experience of the world +behind him, was perfectly conscious that there were many difficulties in +his path. He could not induce his grandfather to move in the matter of +Richard Boyce without a statement of his own feelings and aims. Nor +would he have avoided frankness if he could. On every ground it was his +grandfather's due. The Raeburns were reserved towards the rest of the +world, but amongst themselves there had always been a fine tradition of +mutual trust; and Lord Maxwell amply deserved that at this particular +moment his grandson should maintain it. + +But Raeburn could not and did not flatter himself that his grandfather +would, to begin with, receive his news even with toleration. The grim +satisfaction with which that note about the shooting had been +despatched, was very clear in the grandson's memory. At the same time it +said much for the history of those long years during which the old man +and his heir had been left to console each other for the terrible +bereavements which had thrown them together, that Aldous Raeburn never +for an instant feared the kind of violent outburst and opposition that +other men in similar circumstances might have looked forward to. The +just living of a life-time makes a man incapable of any mere selfish +handling of another's interests--a fact on which the bystander may +reckon. + +It was quite dark by the time he entered the large open-roofed hall of +the Court. + +"Is his lordship in?" he asked of a passing footman. + +"Yes, sir--in the library. He has been asking for you, sir." + +Aldous turned to the right along the fine corridor lighted with Tudor +windows to an inner quadrangle, and filled with Graeco-Roman statuary +and sarcophagi, which made one of the principal features of the Court. +The great house was warm and scented, and the various open doors which +he passed on his way to the library disclosed large fire-lit rooms, with +panelling, tapestry, pictures, books everywhere. The colour of the whole +was dim and rich; antiquity, refinement reigned, together with an +exquisite quiet and order. No one was to be seen, and not a voice was to +be heard; but there was no impression of solitude. These warm, +darkly-glowing rooms seemed to be waiting for the return of guests just +gone out of them; not one of them but had an air of cheerful company. +For once, as he walked through it, Aldous Raeburn spared the old house +an affectionate possessive thought. Its size and wealth, with all that +both implied, had often weighed upon him. To-night his breath quickened +as he passed the range of family portraits leading to the library door. +There was a vacant space here and there--"room for your missus, too, my +boy, when you get her!" as his grandfather had once put it. + +"Why, you've had a long day, Aldous, all by yourself," said Lord +Maxwell, turning sharply round at the sound of the opening door. "What's +kept you so late?" + +His spectacles fell forward as he spoke, and the old man shut them in +his hand, peering at his grandson through the shadows of the room. He +was sitting by a huge fire, an "Edinburgh Review" open on his knee. Lamp +and fire-light showed a finely-carried head, with a high wave of snowy +hair thrown back, a long face delicately sharp in the lines, and an +attitude instinct with the alertness of an unimpaired bodily vigour. + +"The birds were scarce, and we followed them a good way," said Aldous, +as he came up to the fire. "Rickman kept me on the farm, too, a good +while, with interminable screeds about the things he wants done for +him." + +"Oh, there is no end to Rickman," said Lord Maxwell, good-humouredly. +"He pays his rent for the amusement of getting it back again. Landowning +will soon be the most disinterested form of philanthropy known to +mankind. But I have some news for you! Here is a letter from Barton by +the second post"--he named an old friend of his own, and a Cabinet +Minister of the day. "Look at it. You will see he says they can't +possibly carry on beyond January. Half their men are becoming +unmanageable, and S----'s bill, to which they are committed, will +certainly dish them. Parliament will meet in January, and he thinks an +amendment to the Address will finish it. All this confidential, of +course; but he saw no harm in letting me know. So now, my boy, you will +have your work cut out for you this winter! Two or three evenings a +week--you'll not get off with less. Nobody's plum drops into his mouth +nowadays. Barton tells me, too, that he hears young Wharton will +certainly stand for the Durnford division, and will be down upon us +directly. He will make himself as disagreeable to us and the Levens as +he can--that we may be sure of. We may be thankful for one small mercy, +that his mother has departed this life! otherwise you and I would have +known _furens quid femina posset_!" + +The old man looked up at his grandson with a humorous eye. Aldous was +standing absently before the fire, and did not reply immediately. + +"Come, come, Aldous!" said Lord Maxwell with a touch of impatience, +"don't overdo the philosopher. Though I am getting old, the next +Government can't deny me a finger in the pie. You and I between us will +be able to pull through two or three of the things we care about in the +next House, with ordinary luck. It is my firm belief that the next +election will give our side the best chance we have had for half a +generation. Throw up your cap, sir! The world may be made of green +cheese, but we have got to live in it!" + +Aldous smiled suddenly--uncontrollably--with a look which left his +grandfather staring. He had been appealing to the man of maturity +standing on the threshold of a possibly considerable career, and, as he +did so, it was as though he saw the boy of eighteen reappear! + +"_Je ne demands pas mieux_!" said Aldous with a quick lift of the voice +above its ordinary key. "The fact is, grandfather, I have come home with +something in my mind very different from politics--and you must give me +time to change the focus. I did not come home as straight as I +might--for I wanted to be sure of myself before I spoke to you. During +the last few weeks--" + +"Go on!" cried Lord Maxwell. + +But Aldous did not find it easy to go on. It suddenly struck him that it +was after all absurd that he should be confiding in any one at such a +stage, and his tongue stumbled. + +But he had gone too far for retreat. Lord Maxwell sprang up and seized +him by the arms. + +"You are in love, sir! Out with it!" + +"I have seen the only woman in the world I have ever wished to marry," +said Aldous, flushing, but with deliberation. "Whether she will ever +have me, I have no idea. But I can conceive no greater happiness than to +win her. And as I want _you_, grandfather, to do something for her and +for me, it seemed to me I had no right to keep my feelings to myself. +Besides, I am not accustomed to--to--" His voice wavered a little. "You +have treated me as more than a son!" + +Lord Maxwell pressed his arm affectionately. + +"My dear boy! But don't keep me on tenterhooks like this--tell me the +name!--the name!" + +And two or three long meditated possibilities flashed through the old +man's mind. + +Aldous replied with a certain slow stiffness-- + +"Marcella Boyce!--Richard Boyce's daughter. I saw her first six weeks +ago." + +"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Lord Maxwell, falling back a step or two, +and staring at his companion. Aldous watched him with anxiety. + +"You know that fellow's history, Aldous?" + +"Richard Boyce? Not in detail. If you will tell me now all you know, it +will be a help. Of course, I see that you and the neighbourhood mean to +cut him,--and--for the sake of--of Miss Boyce and her mother, I should +be glad to find a way out." + +"Good heavens!" said Lord Maxwell, beginning to pace the room, hands +pressed behind him, head bent. "Good heavens! what a business! what an +extraordinary business!" + +He stopped short in front of Aldous. "Where have you been meeting +her--this young lady?" + +"At the Hardens'--sometimes in Mellor village. She goes about among the +cottages a great deal." + +"You have not proposed to her?" + +"I was not certain of myself till to-day. Besides it would have been +presumption so far. She has shown me nothing but the merest +friendliness." + +"What, you can suppose she would refuse you!" cried Lord Maxwell, and +could not for the life of him keep the sarcastic intonation out of his +voice. + +Aldous's look showed distress. "You have not seen her, grandfather," he +said quietly. + +Lord Maxwell began to pace again, trying to restrain the painful emotion +that filled him. Of course, Aldous had been entrapped; the girl had +played upon his pity, his chivalry--for obvious reasons. + +Aldous tried to soothe him, to explain, but Lord Maxwell hardly +listened. At last he threw himself into his chair again with a long +breath. + +"Give me time, Aldous--give me time. The thought of marrying my heir to +that man's daughter knocks me over a little." + +There was silence again. Then Lord Maxwell looked at his watch with +old-fashioned precision. + +"There is half an hour before dinner. Sit down, and let us talk this +thing out." + + * * * * * + +The conversation thus started, however, was only begun by dinner-time; +was resumed after Miss Raeburn--the small, shrewd, bright-eyed person +who governed Lord Maxwell's household--had withdrawn; and was continued +in the library some time beyond his lordship's usual retiring hour. It +was for the most part a monologue on the part of the grandfather, broken +by occasional words from his companion; and for some time Marcella Boyce +herself--the woman whom Aldous desired to marry--was hardly mentioned in +it. Oppressed and tormented by a surprise which struck, or seemed to +strike, at some of his most cherished ideals and just resentments, Lord +Maxwell was bent upon letting his grandson know, in all their fulness, +the reasons why no daughter of Richard Boyce could ever be, in the true +sense, fit wife for a Raeburn. + +Aldous was, of course, perfectly familiar with the creed implied in it +all. A Maxwell should give himself no airs whatever, should indeed feel +no pride whatever, towards "men of goodwill," whether peasant, +professional, or noble. Such airs or such feeling would be both vulgar +and unchristian. But when it came to _marriage_, then it behoved him to +see that "the family"--that carefully grafted and selected stock to +which he owed so much--should suffer no loss or deterioration through +him. Marriage with the fit woman meant for a Raeburn the preservation of +a pure blood, of a dignified and honourable family habit, and moreover +the securing to his children such an atmosphere of self-respect within, +and of consideration from without, as he had himself grown up in. And a +woman could not be fit, in this sense, who came either of an +insignificant stock, untrained to large uses and opportunities, or of a +stock which had degenerated, and lost its right of equal mating with the +vigorous owners of unblemished names. Money was of course important and +not to be despised, but the present Lord Maxwell, at any rate, +large-minded and conscious of wealth he could never spend, laid +comparatively little stress upon it; whereas, in his old age, the other +instinct had but grown the stronger with him, as the world waxed more +democratic, and the influence of the great families waned. + +Nor could Aldous pretend to be insensible to such feelings and beliefs. +Supposing the daughter could be won, there was no doubt whatever that +Richard Boyce would be a cross and burden to a Raeburn son-in-law. But +then! After all! Love for once made philosophy easy--made class +tradition sit light. Impatience grew; a readiness to believe Richard +Boyce as black as Erebus and be done with it,--so that one might get to +the point--the real point. + +As to the story, it came to this. In his youth, Richard Boyce had been +the younger and favourite son of his father. He possessed some ability, +some good looks, some manners, all of which were wanting in his loutish +elder brother. Sacrifices were accordingly made for him. He was sent to +the bar. When he stood for Parliament his election expenses were +jubilantly paid, and his father afterwards maintained him with as +generous a hand as the estate could possibly bear, often in the teeth of +the grudging resentment of Robert his firstborn. Richard showed signs of +making a rapid success, at any rate on the political platform. He spoke +with facility, and grappled with the drudgery of committees during his +first two years at Westminster in a way to win him the favourable +attention of the Tory whips. He had a gift for modern languages, and +spoke chiefly on foreign affairs, so that when an important Eastern +Commission had to be appointed, in connection with some troubles in the +Balkan States, his merits and his father's exertions with certain old +family friends sufficed to place him upon it. + +The Commission was headed by a remarkable man, and was able to do +valuable work at a moment of great public interest, under the eyes of +Europe. Its members came back covered with distinction, and were much +fęted through the London season. Old Mr. Boyce came up from Mellor to +see Dick's success for himself, and his rubicund country gentleman's +face and white head might have been observed at many a London party +beside the small Italianate physique of his son. + +And love, as he is wont, came in the wake of fortune. A certain fresh +west-country girl, Miss Evelyn Merritt, who had shown her stately beauty +at one of the earliest drawing-rooms of the season, fell across Mr. +Richard Boyce at this moment when he was most at ease with the world, +and the world was giving him every opportunity. She was very young, as +unspoilt as the daffodils of her Somersetshire valleys, and her +character--a character of much complexity and stoical strength--was +little more known to herself than it was to others. She saw Dick Boyce +through a mist of romance; forgot herself absolutely in idealising him, +and could have thanked him on her knees when he asked her to marry him. + +Five years of Parliament and marriage followed, and then--a crash. It +was a common and sordid story, made tragic by the quality of the wife, +and the disappointment of the father, if not by the ruined possibilities +of Dick Boyce himself. First, the desire to maintain a "position," to +make play in society with a pretty wife, and, in the City, with a +marketable reputation; then company-promoting of a more and more +doubtful kind; and, finally, a swindle more energetic and less skilful +than the rest, which bomb-like went to pieces in the face of the public, +filling the air with noise, lamentations, and unsavoury odours. Nor was +this all. A man has many warnings of ruin, and when things were going +badly in the stock market, Richard Boyce, who on his return from the +East had been elected by acclamation a member of several fashionable +clubs, tried to retrieve himself at the gaming-table. Lastly, when money +matters at home and abroad, when the anxieties of his wife and the +altered manners of his acquaintance in and out of the House of Commons +grew more than usually disagreeable, a certain little chorus girl came +upon the scene and served to make both money and repentance scarcer even +than they were before. No story could be more commonplace or more +detestable. + +"Ah, how well I remember that poor old fellow--old John Boyce," said +Lord Maxwell, slowly, shaking his stately white head over it, as he +leant talking and musing against the mantelpiece. "I saw him the day he +came back from the attempt to hush up the company business. I met him in +the road, and could not help pulling up to speak to him. I was so sorry +for him. We had been friends for many years, he and I. 'Oh, good God!' +he said, when he saw me. 'Don't stop me--don't speak to me!' And he +lashed his horse up--as white as a sheet--fat, fresh-coloured man that +he was in general--and was off. I never saw him again till after his +death. First came the trial, and Dick Boyce got three months' +imprisonment, on a minor count, while several others of the precious lot +he was mixed up with came in for penal servitude. There was some +technical flaw in the evidence with regard to him, and the clever +lawyers they put on made the most of it; but we all thought, and society +thought, that Dick was morally as bad as any of them. Then the papers +got hold of the gambling debts and the woman. She made a disturbance at +his club, I believe, during the trial, while he was out on bail--anyway +it all came out. Two or three other people were implicated in the +gambling business--men of good family. Altogether it was one of the +biggest scandals I remember in my time." + +The old man paused, the long frowning face sternly set. Aldous gazed at +him in silence. It was certainly pretty bad--worse than he had thought. + +"And the wife and child?" he said presently. + +"Oh, poor things!"--said Lord Maxwell, forgetting everything for the +moment but his story--"when Boyce's imprisonment was up they disappeared +with him. His constituents held indignation meetings, of course. He gave +up his seat, and his father allowed him a small fixed income--she had +besides some little money of her own--which was secured him afterwards, +I believe, on the estate during his brother's lifetime. Some of her +people would have gladly persuaded her to leave him, for his behaviour +towards her had been particularly odious,--and they were afraid, too, I +think, that he might come to worse grief yet and make her life +unbearable. But she wouldn't. And she would have no sympathy and no +talk. I never saw her after the first year of their marriage, when she +was a most radiant and beautiful creature. But, by all accounts of her +behaviour at the time, she must be a remarkable woman. One of her family +told me that she broke with all of them. She would know nobody who would +not know him. Nor would she take money, though they were wretchedly +poor; and Dick Boyce was not squeamish. She went off to little lodgings +in the country or abroad with him without a word. At the same time, it +was plain that her life was withered. She could make one great effort; +but, according to my informant, she had no energy left for anything +else--not even to take interest in her little girl--" + +Aldous made a movement. + +"Suppose we talk about her?" he said rather shortly. + +Lord Maxwell started and recollected himself. After a pause he said, +looking down under his spectacles at his grandson with an expression in +which discomfort strove with humour-- + +"I see. You think we are beating about the bush. Perhaps we are. It is +the difference between being old and being young, Aldous, my boy. +Well--now then--for Miss Boyce. How much have you seen of her?--how deep +has it gone? You can't wonder that I am knocked over. To bring that man +amongst us! Why, the hound!" cried the old man, suddenly, "we could not +even get him to come and see his father when he was dying. John had lost +his memory mostly--had forgotten, anyway, to be angry--and just _craved_ +for Dick, for the only creature he had ever loved. With great difficulty +I traced the man, and tried my utmost. No good! He came when his father +no longer knew him, an hour before the end. His nerves, I understood, +were delicate--not so delicate, however, as to prevent his being present +at the reading of the will! I have never forgiven him that cruelty to +the old man, and never will!" + +And Lord Maxwell began to pace the library again, by way of working off +memory and indignation. + +Aldous watched him rather gloomily. They had now been discussing Boyce's +criminalities in great detail for a considerable time, and nothing else +seemed to have any power to touch--or, at any rate, to hold--Lord +Maxwell's attention. A certain deep pride in Aldous--the pride of +intimate affection--felt itself wounded. + +"I see that you have grave cause to think badly of her father," he said +at last, rising as he spoke. "I must think how it concerns me. And +to-morrow you must let me tell you something about her. After all, she +has done none of these things. But I ought not to keep you up like this. +You will remember Clarke was very emphatic about your not exhausting +yourself at night, last time he was here." + +Lord Maxwell turned and stared. + +"Why--why, what is the matter with you, Aldous? Offended? +Well--well--There--I _am_ an old fool!" + +And, walking up to his grandson, he laid an affectionate and rather +shaking hand on the younger's shoulder. + +"You have a great charge upon you, Aldous--a charge for the future. It +has upset me--I shall be calmer to-morrow. But as to any quarrel between +us! Are you a youth, or am I a three-tailed bashaw? As to money, you +know, I care nothing. But it goes against me, my boy, it goes against +me, that _your_ wife should bring such a story as that with her into +this house!" + +"I understand," said Aldous, wincing. "But you must see her, +grandfather. Only, let me say it again--don't for one moment take it for +granted that she will marry me. I never saw any one so free, so +unspoilt, so unconventional." + +His eyes glowed with the pleasure of remembering her looks, her tones. + +Lord Maxwell withdrew his hand and shook his head slowly. + +"You have a great deal to offer. No woman, unless she were either +foolish or totally unexperienced, could overlook that. Is she about +twenty?" + +"About twenty." + +Lord Maxwell waited a moment, then, bending over the fire, shrugged his +shoulders in mock despair. + +"It is evident you are out of love with me, Aldous. Why, I don't know +yet whether she is dark or fair!" + +The conversation jarred on both sides. Aldous made an effort. + +"She is very dark," he said; "like her mother in many ways, only quite +different in colour. To me she seems the most beautiful--the only +beautiful woman I have ever seen. I should think she was very clever in +some ways--and very unformed--childish almost--in others. The Hardens +say she has done everything she could--of course it isn't much--for that +miserable village in the time she has been there. Oh! by the way, she is +a Socialist. She thinks that all we landowners should be done away +with." + +Aldous looked round at his grandfather, so soon probably to be one of +the lights of a Tory Cabinet, and laughed. So, to his relief, did Lord +Maxwell. + +"Well, don't let her fall into young Wharton's clutches, Aldous, or he +will be setting her to canvas. So, she is beautiful and she is +clever--and _good_, my boy? If she comes here, she will have to fill +your mother's and your grandmother's place." + +Aldous tried to reply once or twice, but failed. + +"If I did not feel that she were everything in herself to be loved and +respected"--he said at last with some formality--"I should not long, as +I do, to bring you and her together." + +Silence fell again. But instinctively Aldous felt that his grandfather's +mood had grown gentler--his own task easier. He seized on the moment at +once. + +"In the whole business," he said, half smiling, "there is only one thing +clear, grandfather, and that is, that, if you will, you can do me a +great service with Miss Boyce." + +Lord Maxwell turned quickly and was all sharp attention, the keen +commanding eyes under their fine brows absorbing, as it were, expression +and life from the rest of the blanched and wrinkled face. + +"You could, if you would, make matters easy for her and her mother in +the county," said Aldous, anxious to carry it off lightly. "You could, +if you would, without committing yourself to any personal contact with +Boyce himself, make it possible for me to bring her here, so that you +and my aunt might see her and judge." + +The old man's expression darkened. + +"What, take back that note, Aldous! I never wrote anything with greater +satisfaction in my life!" + +"Well,--more or less," said Aldous, quietly. "A very little would do it. +A man in Richard Boyce's position will naturally not claim very +much--will take what he can get." + +"And you mean besides," said his grandfather, interrupting him, "that I +must send your aunt to call?" + +"It will hardly be possible to ask Miss Boyce here unless she does!" +said Aldous. + +"And you reckon that I am not likely to go to Mellor, even to see her? +And you want me to say a word to other people--to the Winterbournes and +the Levens, for instance?" + +"Precisely," said Aldous. + +Lord Maxwell meditated; then rose. + +"Let me now appease the memory of Clarke by going to bed!" (Clarke was +his lordship's medical attendant and autocrat.) "I must sleep upon this, +Aldous." + +"I only hope I shall not have tired you out." + +Aldous moved to extinguish a lamp standing on a table near. + +Suddenly his grandfather called him. + +"Aldous!" + +"Yes." + +But, as no words followed, Aldous turned. He saw his grandfather +standing erect before the fire, and was startled by the emotion he +instantly perceived in eye and mouth. + +"You understand, Aldous, that for twenty years--it is twenty years last +month since your father died--you have been the blessing of my life? Oh! +don't say anything, my boy; I don't want any more agitation. I have +spoken strongly; it was hardly possible but that on such a matter I +should feel strongly. But don't go away misunderstanding me--don't +imagine for one instant that there is anything in the world that really +matters to me in comparison with your happiness and your future!" + +The venerable old man wrung the hand he held, walked quickly to the +door, and shut it behind him. + + * * * * * + +An hour later, Aldous was writing in his own sitting-room, a room on the +first floor, at the western corner of the house, and commanding by +daylight the falling slopes of wood below the Court, and all the wide +expanses of the plain. To-night, too, the blinds were up, and the great +view drawn in black and pearl, streaked with white mists in the ground +hollows and overarched by a wide sky holding a haloed moon, lay spread +before the windows. On a clear night Aldous felt himself stifled by +blinds and curtains, and would often sit late, reading and writing, with +a lamp so screened that it threw light upon his book or paper, while not +interfering with the full range of his eye over the night-world without. +He secretly believed that human beings see far too little of the night, +and so lose a host of august or beautiful impressions, which might be +honestly theirs if they pleased, without borrowing or stealing from +anybody, poet or painter. + +The room was lined with books, partly temporary visitors from the great +library downstairs, partly his old college books and prizes, and partly +representing small collections for special studies. Here were a large +number of volumes, blue books, and pamphlets, bearing on the condition +of agriculture and the rural poor in England and abroad; there were some +shelves devoted to general economics, and on a little table by the fire +lay the recent numbers of various economic journals, English and +foreign. Between the windows stood a small philosophical bookcase, the +volumes of it full of small reference slips, and marked from end to end; +and on the other side of the room was a revolving book-table crowded +with miscellaneous volumes of poets, critics, and novelists--mainly, +however, with the first two. Aldous Raeburn read few novels, and those +with a certain impatience. His mind was mostly engaged in a slow wrestle +with difficult and unmanageable fact; and for that transformation and +illumination of fact in which the man of idealist temper must sometimes +take refuge and comfort, he went easily and eagerly to the poets and to +natural beauty. Hardly any novel writing, or reading, seemed to him +worth while. A man, he thought, might be much better employed than in +doing either. + +Above the mantelpiece was his mother's picture--the picture of a young +woman in a low dress and muslin scarf, trivial and empty in point of +art, yet linked in Aldous's mind with a hundred touching recollections, +buried all of them in the silence of an unbroken reserve. She had died +in childbirth when he was nine; her baby had died with her, and her +husband, Lord Maxwell's only son and surviving child, fell a victim two +years later to a deadly form of throat disease, one of those ills which +come upon strong men by surprise, and excite in the dying a sense of +helpless wrong which even religious faith can only partially soothe. + +Aldous remembered his mother's death; still more his father's, that +father who could speak no last message to his son, could only lie dumb +upon his pillows, with those eyes full of incommunicable pain, and the +hand now restlessly seeking, now restlessly putting aside the small and +trembling hand of the son. His boyhood had been spent under the shadow +of these events, which had aged his grandfather, and made him too early +realise himself as standing alone in the gap of loss, the only hope left +to affection and to ambition. This premature development, amid the most +melancholy surroundings, of the sense of personal importance--not in any +egotistical sense, but as a sheer matter of fact--had robbed a nervous +and sensitive temperament of natural stores of gaiety and elasticity +which it could ill do without. Aldous Raeburn had been too much thought +for and too painfully loved. But for Edward Hallin he might well have +acquiesced at manhood in a certain impaired vitality, in the scholar's +range of pleasures, and the landowner's customary round of duties. + +It was to Edward Hallin he was writing to-night, for the stress and stir +of feeling caused by the events of the day, and not least by his +grandfather's outburst, seemed to put sleep far off. On the table before +him stood a photograph of Hallin, besides a miniature of his mother as a +girl. He had drawn the miniature closer to him, finding sympathy and joy +in its youth, in the bright expectancy of the eyes, and so wrote, as it +were, having both her and his friend in mind and sight. + +To Hallin he had already spoken of Miss Boyce, drawing her in light, +casual, and yet sympathetic strokes as the pretty girl in a difficult +position whom one would watch with curiosity and some pity. To-night his +letter, which should have discussed a home colonisation scheme of +Hallin's, had but one topic, and his pen flew. + +"Would you call her beautiful? I ask myself again and again, trying to +put myself behind your eyes. She has nothing, at any rate, in common +with the beauties we have down here, or with those my aunt bade me +admire in London last May. The face has a strong Italian look, but not +Italian of to-day. Do you remember the Ghirlandajo frescoes in Santa +Maria Novella, or the side groups in Andrea's frescoes at the +Annunziata? Among them, among the beautiful tall women of them, there +are, I am sure, noble, freely-poised, suggestive heads like hers--hair, +black wavy hair, folded like hers in large simple lines, and faces +with the same long, subtle curves. It is a face of the Renaissance, +extraordinarily beautiful, as it seems to me, in colour and expression; +imperfect in line, as the beauty which marks the meeting point +between antique perfection and modern character must always be. It +has _morbidezza_--unquiet melancholy charm, then passionate +gaiety--everything that is most modern grafted on things Greek and old. +I am told that Burne Jones drew her several times while she was in +London, with delight. It is the most _artistic_ beauty, having both the +harmonies and the dissonances that a full-grown art loves. + +"She may be twenty or rather more. The mind has all sorts of ability; +comes to the right conclusion by a divine instinct, ignoring the how and +why. What does such a being want with the drudgery of learning? to such +keenness life will be master enough. Yet she has evidently read a good +deal--much poetry, some scattered political economy, some modern +socialistic books, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Carlyle. She takes everything +dramatically, imaginatively, goes straight from it to life, and back +again. Among the young people with whom she made acquaintance while she +was boarding in London and working at South Kensington, there seem to +have been two brothers, both artists, and both Socialists; ardent young +fellows, giving all their spare time to good works, who must have +influenced her a great deal. She is full of angers and revolts, which +you would delight in. And first of all, she is applying herself to her +father's wretched village, which will keep her hands full. A large and +passionate humanity plays about her. What she says often seems to me +foolish--in the ear; but the inner sense, the heart of it, command me. + +"Stare as you please, Ned! Only write to me, and come down here as soon +as you can. I can and will hide nothing from you, so you will believe me +when I say that all is uncertain, that I know nothing, and, though I +hope everything, may just as well fear everything too. But somehow I am +another man, and the world shines and glows for me by day and night." + +Aldous Raeburn rose from his chair and, going to the window, stood +looking out at the splendour of the autumn moon. Marcella moved across +the whiteness of the grass; her voice was still speaking to his inward +ear. His lips smiled; his heart was in a wild whirl of happiness. + +Then he walked to the table, took up his letter, read it, tore it +across, and locked the fragments in a drawer. + +"Not yet, Ned--not yet, dear old fellow, even to you," he said to +himself, as he put out his lamp. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Three days passed. On the fourth Marcella returned late in the afternoon +from a round of parish visits with Mary Harden. As she opened the oak +doors which shut off the central hall of Mellor from the outer +vestibule, she saw something white lying on the old cut and disused +billiard table, which still occupied the middle of the floor till +Richard Boyce, in the course of his economies and improvements, could +replace it by a new one. + +She ran forward and took up a sheaf of cards, turning them over in a +smiling excitement. "Viscount Maxwell," "Mr. Raeburn," "Miss Raeburn," +"Lady Winterbourne and the Misses Winterbourne," two cards of Lord +Winterbourne's--all perfectly in form. + +Then a thought flashed upon her. "Of course it is his doing--and I asked +him!" + +The cards dropped from her hand on the billiard table, and she stood +looking at them, her pride fighting with her pleasure. There was +something else in her feeling too--the exultation of proved power over a +person not, as she guessed, easily influenced, especially by women. + +"Marcella, is that you?" + +It was her mother's voice. Mrs. Boyce had come in from the garden +through the drawing-room, and was standing at the inner door of the +hall, trying with shortsighted eyes to distinguish her daughter among +the shadows of the great bare place. A dark day was drawing to its +close, and there was little light left in the hall, except in one corner +where a rainy sunset gleam struck a grim contemporary portrait of Mary +Tudor, bringing out the obstinate mouth and the white hand holding a +jewelled glove. + +Marcella turned, and by the same gleam her mother saw her flushed and +animated look. + +"Any letters?" she asked. + +"No; but there are some cards. Oh yes, there is a note," and she pounced +upon an envelope she had overlooked. "It is for you, mother--from the +Court." + +Mrs. Boyce came up and took note and cards from her daughter's hand. +Marcella watched her with quick breath. + +Her mother looked through the cards, slowly putting them down one by one +without remark. + +"Oh, mother! do read the note!" Marcella could not help entreating. + +Mrs. Boyce drew herself together with a quick movement as though her +daughter jarred upon her, and opened the note. Marcella dared not look +over her. There was a dignity about her mother's lightest action, about +every movement of her slender fingers and fine fair head, which had +always held the daughter in check, even while she rebelled. + +Mrs. Boyce read it, and then handed it to Marcella. + +"I must go and make the tea," she said, in a light, cold tone, and +turning, she went back to the drawing-room, whither afternoon tea had +just been carried. + +Marcella followed, reading. The note was from Miss Raeburn, and it +contained an invitation to Mrs. Boyce and her daughter to take luncheon +at the Court on the following Friday. The note was courteously and +kindly worded. "We should be so glad," said the writer, "to show you and +Miss Boyce our beautiful woods while they are still at their best, in +the way of autumn colour." + +"How will mamma take it?" thought Marcella anxiously. "There is not a +word of papa!" + +When she entered the drawing-room, she caught her mother standing +absently at the tea-table. The little silver caddy was still in her hand +as though she had forgotten to put it down; and her eyes, which +evidently saw nothing, were turned to the window, the brows frowning. +The look of suffering for an instant was unmistakable; then she started +at the sound of Marcella's step, and put down the caddy amid the +delicate china crowded on the tray, with all the quiet precision of her +ordinary manner. + +"You will have to wait for your tea," she said, "the water doesn't +nearly boil." + +Marcella went up to the fire and, kneeling before it, put the logs with +which it was piled together. But she could not contain herself for long. + +"Will you go to the Court, mamma?" she asked quickly, without turning +round. + +There was a pause. Then Mrs. Boyce said drily-- + +"Miss Raeburn's proceedings are a little unexpected. We have been here +four months, within two miles of her, and it has never occurred to her +to call. Now she calls and asks us to luncheon in the same afternoon. +Either she took too little notice of us before, or she takes too much +now--don't you think so?" + +Marcella was silent a moment. Should she confess? It began to occur to +her for the first time that in her wild independence she had been taking +liberties with her mother. + +"Mamma!" + +"Yes." + +"I asked Mr. Aldous Raeburn the other day whether everybody here was +going to cut us! Papa told me that Lord Maxwell had written him an +uncivil letter and--" + +"You--asked--Mr. Raeburn--" said Mrs. Boyce, quickly. "What do you +mean?" + +Marcella turned round and met the flash of her mother's eyes. + +"I couldn't help it," she said in a low hurried voice. "It seemed so +horrid to feel everybody standing aloof--we were walking together--he +was very kind and friendly--and I asked him to explain." + +"I see!" said Mrs. Boyce. "And he went to his aunt--and she went to Lady +Winterbourne--they were compassionate--and there are the cards. You have +certainly taken us all in hand, Marcella!" + +Marcella felt an instant's fear--fear of the ironic power in the +sparkling look so keenly fixed on her offending self; she shrank before +the proud reserve expressed in every line of her mother's fragile +imperious beauty. Then a cry of nature broke from the girl. + +"You have got used to it, mamma! I feel as if it would kill me to live +here, shut off from everybody--joining with nobody--with no friendly +feelings or society. It was bad enough in the old lodging-house days; +but here--why _should_ we?" + +Mrs. Boyce had certainly grown pale. + +"I supposed you would ask sooner or later," she said in a low determined +voice, with what to Marcella was a quite new note of reality in it. +"Probably Mr. Raeburn told you--but you must of course have guessed it +long ago--that society does not look kindly on us--and has its reasons. +I do not deny in the least that it has its reasons. I do not accuse +anybody, and resent nothing. But the question with me has always been, +Shall I accept pity? I have always been able to meet it with a No! You +are very different from me--but for you also I believe it would be the +happiest answer." + +The eyes of both met--the mother's full of an indomitable fire which had +for once wholly swept away her satiric calm of every day; the daughter's +troubled and miserable. + +"I want friends!" said Marcella, slowly. "There are so many things I +want to do here, and one can do nothing if every one is against you. +People would be friends with you and me--and with papa too,--through us. +Some of them wish to be kind"--she added insistently, thinking of Aldous +Raeburn's words and expression as he bent to her at the gate--"I know +they do. And if we can't hold our heads high because--because of things +in the past--ought we to be so proud that we won't take their hands when +they stretch them out--when they write so kindly and nicely as this?" + +And she laid her fingers almost piteously on the note upon her knee. + +Mrs. Boyce tilted the silver urn and replenished the tea-pot. Then with +a delicate handkerchief she rubbed away a spot from the handle of a +spoon near her. + +"You shall go," she said presently--"you wish it--then go--go by all +means. I will write to Miss Raeburn and send you over in the carriage. +One can put a great deal on health--mine is quite serviceable in the way +of excuses. I will try and do you no harm, Marcella. If you have chosen +your line and wish to make friends here--very well--I will do what I can +for you so long as you do not expect me to change my life--for which, my +dear, I am grown too crotchety and too old." + +Marcella looked at her with dismay and a yearning she had never felt +before. + +"And you will never go out with me, mamma?" + +There was something childlike and touching in the voice, something which +for once suggested the normal filial relation. But Mrs. Boyce did not +waver. She had long learnt perhaps to regard Marcella as a girl +singularly well able to take care of herself; and had recognised the +fact with relief. + +"I will not go to the Court with you anyway," she said, daintily sipping +her tea--"in your interests as well as mine. You will make all the +greater impression, my dear, for I have really forgotten how to behave. +Those cards shall be properly returned, of course. For the rest--let no +one disturb themselves till they must. And if I were you, Marcella, I +would hardly discuss the family affairs any more--with Mr. Raeburn or +anybody else." + +And again her keen glance disconcerted the tall handsome girl, whose +power over the world about her had never extended to her mother. +Marcella flushed and played with the fire. + +"You see, mamma," she said after a moment, still looking at the logs and +the shower of sparks they made as she moved them about, "you never let +me discuss them with you." + +"Heaven forbid!" said Mrs. Boyce, quickly; then, after a pause: "You +will find your own line in a little while, Marcella, and you will see, +if you so choose it, that there will be nothing unsurmountable in your +way. One piece of advice let me give you. Don't be too _grateful_ to +Miss Raeburn, or anybody else! You take great interest in your Boyce +belongings, I perceive. You may remember too, perhaps, that there is +other blood in you--and that no Merritt has ever submitted quietly to +either patronage or pity." + +Marcella started. Her mother had never named her own kindred to her +before that she could remember. She had known for many years that there +was a breach between the Merritts and themselves. The newspapers had +told her something at intervals of her Merritt relations, for they were +fashionable and important folk, but no one of them had crossed the +Boyces' threshold since the old London days, wherein Marcella could +still dimly remember the tall forms of certain Merritt uncles, and even +a stately lady in a white cap whom she knew to have been her mother's +mother. The stately lady had died while she was still a child at her +first school; she could recollect her own mourning frock; but that was +almost the last personal remembrance she had, connected with the +Merritts. + +And now this note of intense personal and family pride, under which Mrs. +Boyce's voice had for the first time quivered a little! Marcella had +never heard it before, and it thrilled her. She sat on by the fire, +drinking her tea and every now and then watching her companion with a +new and painful curiosity. The tacit assumption of many years with her +had been that her mother was a dry limited person, clever and determined +in small ways, that affected her own family, but on the whole +characterless as compared with other people of strong feelings and +responsive susceptibilities. But her own character had been rapidly +maturing of late, and her insight sharpening. During these recent weeks +of close contact, her mother's singularity had risen in her mind to the +dignity at least of a problem, an enigma. + +Presently Mrs. Boyce rose and put the scones down by the fire. + +"Your father will be in, I suppose. Yes, I hear the front door." + +As she spoke she took off her velvet cloak, put it carefully aside on a +sofa, and sat down again, still in her bonnet, at the tea-table. Her +dress was very different from Marcella's, which, when they were not in +mourning, was in general of the ample "aesthetic" type, and gave her a +good deal of trouble out of doors. Marcella wore "art serges" and +velveteens; Mrs. Boyce attired herself in soft and costly silks, +generally black, closely and fashionably made, and completed by various +fanciful and distinguished trifles--rings, an old chatelaine, a diamond +brooch--which Marcella remembered, the same, and worn in the same way, +since her childhood. Mrs. Boyce, however, wore her clothes so daintily, +and took such scrupulous and ingenious care of them, that her dress +cost, in truth, extremely little--certainly less than Marcella's. + +There were sounds first of footsteps in the hall, then of some scolding +of William, and finally Mr. Boyce entered, tired and splashed from +shooting, and evidently in a bad temper. + +"Well, what are you going to do about those cards?" he asked his wife +abruptly when she had supplied him with tea, and he was beginning to dry +by the fire. He was feeling ill and reckless; too tired anyway to +trouble himself to keep up appearances with Marcella. + +"Return them," said Mrs. Boyce, calmly, blowing out the flame of her +silver kettle. + +"_I_ don't want any of their precious society," he said irritably. "They +should have done their calling long ago. There's no grace in it now; I +don't know that one isn't inclined to think it an intrusion." + +But the women were silent. Marcella's attention was diverted from her +mother to the father's small dark head and thin face. There was a great +repulsion and impatience in her heart, an angry straining against +circumstance and fate; yet at the same time a mounting voice of natural +affection, an understanding at once sad and new, which paralysed and +silenced her. He stood in her way--terribly in her way--and yet it +strangely seemed to her, that never before till these last few weeks had +she felt herself a daughter. + +"You are very wet, papa," she said to him as she took his cup; "don't +you think you had better go at once and change?" + +"I'm all right," he said shortly--"as right as I'm likely to be, anyway. +As for the shooting, it's nothing but waste of time and shoe leather. I +shan't go out any more. The place has been clean swept by some of those +brutes in the village--your friends, Marcella. By the way, Evelyn, I +came across young Wharton in the road just now." + +"Wharton?" said his wife, interrogatively. "I don't remember--ought I?" + +"Why, the Liberal candidate for the division, of course," he said +testily. "I wish you would inform yourself of what goes on. He is +working like a horse, he tells me. Dodgson, the Raeburns' candidate, has +got a great start; this young man will want all his time to catch him +up. I like him. I won't vote for him; but I'll see fair play. I've asked +him to come to tea here on Saturday, Evelyn. He'll be back again by the +end of the week. He stays at Dell's farm when he comes--pretty bad +accommodation, I should think. We must show him some civility." + +He rose and stood with his back to the fire, his spare frame stiffening +under his nervous determination to assert himself--to hold up his head +physically and morally against those who would repress him. + +Richard Boyce took his social punishment badly. He had passed his first +weeks at Mellor in a tremble of desire that his father's old family and +country friends should recognise him again and condone his +"irregularities." All sorts of conciliatory ideas had passed through +his head. He meant to let people see that he would be a good neighbour +if they would give him the chance--not like that miserly fool, his +brother Robert. The past was so much past; who now was more respectable +or more well intentioned than he? He was an impressionable imaginative +man in delicate health; and the tears sometimes came into his eyes as he +pictured himself restored to society--partly by his own efforts, +partly, no doubt, by the charms and good looks of his wife and +daughter--forgiven for their sake, and for the sake also of that store +of virtue he had so laboriously accumulated since that long-past +catastrophe. Would not most men have gone to the bad altogether, after +such a lapse? He, on the contrary, had recovered himself, had neither +drunk nor squandered, nor deserted his wife and child. These things, if +the truth were known, were indeed due rather to a certain lack of +physical energy and vitality, which age had developed in him, than to +self-conquest; but he was no doubt entitled to make the most of them. +There were signs indeed that his forecast had been not at all +unreasonable. His womenkind _were_ making their way. At the very moment +when Lord Maxwell had written him a quelling letter, he had become aware +that Marcella was on good terms with Lord Maxwell's heir. Had he not +also been stopped that morning in a remote lane by Lord Winterbourne and +Lord Maxwell on their way back from the meet, and had not both +recognised and shaken hands with him? And now there were these cards. + +Unfortunately, in spite of Raeburn's opinion to the contrary, no man in +such a position and with such a temperament ever gets something without +claiming more--and more than he can conceivably or possibly get. +Startled and pleased at first by the salutation which Lord Maxwell and +his companion had bestowed upon him, Richard Boyce had passed his +afternoon in resenting and brooding over the cold civility of it. So +these were the terms he was to be on with them--the deuce take them and +their pharisaical airs! If all the truth were known, most men would look +foolish; and the men who thanked God that they were not as other men, +soonest of all. He wished he had not been taken by surprise; he wished +he had not answered them; he would show them in the future that he would +eat no dirt for them or anybody else. + +So on the way home there had been a particular zest in his chance +encounter with the young man who was likely to give the Raeburns and +their candidate--so all the world said--a very great deal of trouble. +The seat had been held to be an entirely safe one for the Maxwell +nominee. Young Wharton, on the contrary, was making way every day, and, +what with securing Aldous's own seat in the next division, and helping +old Dodgson in this, Lord Maxwell and his grandson had their hands full. +Dick Boyce was glad of it. He was a Tory; but all the same he wished +every success to this handsome, agreeable young man, whose deferential +manners to him at the end of the day had come like ointment to a wound. + +The three sat on together for a little while in silence. Marcella kept +her seat by the fire on the old gilt fenderstool, conscious in a +dreamlike way of the room in front of her--the stately room with its +stucco ceiling, its tall windows, its Prussian-blue wall-paper behind +the old cabinets and faded pictures, and the chair covers in Turkey-red +twill against the blue, which still remained to bear witness at once to +the domestic economies and the decorative ideas of old Robert +Boyce--conscious also of the figures on either side of her, and of her +own quick-beating youth betwixt them. She was sore and unhappy; yet, on +the whole, what she was thinking most about was Aldous Raeburn. What had +he said to Lord Maxwell?--and to the Winterbournes? She wished she could +know. She wished with leaping pulse that she could see him again +quickly. Yet it would be awkward too. + + * * * * * + +Presently she got up and went away to take off her things. As the door +closed behind her, Mrs. Boyce held out Miss Raeburn's note, which +Marcella had returned to her, to her husband. + +"They have asked Marcella and me to lunch," she said. "I am not going, +but I shall send her." + +He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the most +contradictory effects upon him. + +"Why don't you go?" he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for a +moment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour. + +"I have lost the habit of going out," she said quietly, "and am too old +to begin again." + +"What! you mean to say," he asked her angrily, raising his voice, "that +you have never _meant_ to do your duties here--the duties of your +position?" + +"I did not foresee many, outside this house and land. Why should we +change our ways? We have done very well of late. I have no mind to risk +what I have got." + +He glanced round at her in a quick nervous way, and then looked back +again at the fire. The sight of her delicate blanched face had in some +respects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on. +His anger sank into moroseness. + +"Then why do you let Marcella go? What good will it do her to go about +without her parents? People will only despise her for a girl of no +spirit--as they ought." + +"It depends upon how it is done. I can arrange it, I think," said Mrs. +Boyce. "A woman has always convenient limitations to plead in the way of +health. She need never give offence if she has decent wits. It will be +understood that I do not go out, and then someone--Miss Raeburn or Lady +Winterbourne--will take up Marcella and mother her." + +She spoke with her usual light gentleness, but he was not appeased. + +"If you were to talk of _my_ health, it would be more to the purpose," +he said, with grim inconsequence. And raising his heavy lids he looked +at her full. + +She got up and went over to him. + +"Do you feel worse again? Why will you not change your things directly +you come in? Would you like Dr. Clarke sent for?" + +She was standing close beside him; her beautiful hand, for which in +their young days it had pleased his pride to give her rings, almost +touched him. A passionate hunger leapt within him. She would stoop and +kiss him if he asked her; he knew that. But he would not ask her; he did +not want it; he wanted something that never on this earth would she give +him again. + +Then moral discomfort lost itself in physical. + +"Clarke does me no good--not an atom," he said, rising. "There--don't +you come. I Can look after myself." + +He went, and Mrs. Boyce remained alone in the great fire-lit room. She +put her hands on the mantelpiece, and dropped her head upon them, and so +stood silent for long. There was no sound audible in the room, or from +the house outside. And in the silence a proud and broken heart once more +nerved itself to an endurance that brought it peace with neither man nor +God. + + * * * * * + +"I shall go, for all our sakes," thought Marcella, as she stood late +that night brushing her hair before her dimly-lighted and rickety +dressing-table. "We have, it seems, no right to be proud." + +A rush of pain and bitterness filled her heart--pain, new-born and +insistent, for her mother, her father, and herself. Ever since Aldous +Raeburn's hesitating revelations, she had been liable to this sudden +invasion of a hot and shamed misery. And to-night, after her talk with +her mother, it could not but overtake her afresh. + +But her strong personality, her passionate sense of a moral independence +not to be undone by the acts of another, even a father, made her soon +impatient of her own distress, and she flung it from her with decision. + +"No, we have no right to be proud," she repeated to herself. "It must be +all true what Mr. Raeburn said--probably a great deal more. Poor, poor +mamma! But, all the same, there is nothing to be got out of empty +quarrelling and standing alone. And it was so long ago." + +Her hand fell, and she stood absently looking at her own black and white +reflection in the old flawed glass. + +She was thinking, of course, of Mr. Raeburn. He had been very prompt in +her service. There could be no question but that he was specially +interested in her. + +And he was not a man to be lightly played upon--nay, rather a singularly +reserved and scrupulous person. So, at least, it had been always held +concerning him. Marcella was triumphantly conscious that he had not from +the beginning given _her_ much trouble. But the common report of him +made his recent manner towards her, this last action of his, the more +significant. Even the Hardens--so Marcella gathered from her friend and +admirer Mary--unworldly dreamy folk, wrapt up in good works, and in the +hastening of Christ's kingdom, were on the alert and beginning to take +note. + +It was not as though he were in the dark as to her antecedents. He knew +all--at any rate, more than she did--and yet it might end in his asking +her to marry him. What then? + +Scarcely a quiver in the young form before the glass! _Love_, at such a +thought, must have sunk upon its knees and hid its face for tender +humbleness and requital. Marcella only looked quietly at the beauty +which might easily prove to be so important an arrow in her quiver. + +What was stirring in her was really a passionate ambition--ambition to +be the queen and arbitress of human lives--to be believed in by her +friends, to make a mark for herself among women, and to make it in the +most romantic and yet natural way, without what had always seemed to her +the sordid and unpleasant drudgeries of the platform, of a tiresome +co-operation with, or subordination to others who could not understand +your ideas. + +Of course, if it happened, people would say that she had tried to +capture Aldous Raeburn for his money and position's sake. Let them say +it. People with base minds must think basely; there was no help for it. +Those whom she would make her friends would know very well for what +purpose she wanted money, power, and the support of such a man, and such +a marriage. Her modern realism played with the thought quite freely; her +maidenliness, proud and pure as it was, being nowise ashamed. Oh! for +something to carry her _deep_ into life; into the heart of its widest +and most splendid opportunities! + +She threw up her hands, clasping them above her head amid her clouds of +curly hair--a girlish excited gesture. + +"I could revive the straw-plaiting; give them better teaching and better +models. The cottages should be rebuilt. Papa would willingly hand the +village over to me if I found the money! We would have a parish +committee to deal with the charities--oh! the Hardens would come in. The +old people should have their pensions as of right. No hopeless old age, +no cringing dependence! We would try co-operation on the land, and pull +it through. And not in Mellor only. One might be the ruler, the +regenerator of half a county!" + +Memory brought to mind in vivid sequence the figures and incidents of +the afternoon, of her village round with Mary Harden. + +"_As the eyes of servants towards the hand of their mistress_"--the old +words occurred to her as she thought of herself stepping in and out of +the cottages. Then she was ashamed of herself and rejected the image +with vehemence. Dependence was the curse of the poor. Her whole aim, of +course, should be to teach them to stand on their own feet, to know +themselves as men. But naturally they would be grateful, they would let +themselves be led. Intelligence and enthusiasm give power, and ought to +give it--power for good. No doubt, under Socialism, there will be less +scope for either, because there will be less need. But Socialism, as a +system, will not come in our generation. What we have to think for is +the transition period. The Cravens had never seen that, but Marcella saw +it. She began to feel herself a person of larger experience than they. + +As she undressed, it seemed to her as though she still felt the clinging +hands of the Hurd children round her knees, and through them, symbolised +by them, the suppliant touch of hundreds of other helpless creatures. + +She was just dropping to sleep when her own words to Aldous Raeburn +flashed across her,-- + +"Everybody is so ready to take charge of other people's lives, and look +at the result!" + +She must needs laugh at herself, but it made little matter. She fell +asleep cradled in dreams. Aldous Raeburn's final part in them was not +great! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Mrs. Boyce wrote her note to Miss Raeburn, a note containing cold though +civil excuses as to herself, while accepting the invitation for +Marcella, who should be sent to the Court, either in the carriage or +under the escort of a maid who could bring her back. Marcella found her +mother inclined to insist punctiliously on conventions of this kind. It +amused her, in submitting to them, to remember the free and easy ways of +her London life. But she submitted--and not unwillingly. + +On the afternoon of the day which intervened between the Maxwells' call +and her introduction to the Court, Marcella walked as usual down to the +village. She was teeming with plans for her new kingdom, and could not +keep herself out of it. And an entry in one of the local papers had +suggested to her that Hurd might possibly find work in a parish some +miles from Mellor. She must go and send him off there. + +When Mrs. Hurd opened the door to her, Marcella was astonished to +perceive behind her the forms of several other persons filling up the +narrow space of the usually solitary cottage--in fact, a tea-party. + +"Oh, come in, miss," said Mrs. Hurd, with some embarrassment, as though +it occurred to her that her visitor might legitimately wonder to find a +person of her penury entertaining company. Then, lowering her voice, +she hurriedly explained: "There's Mrs. Brunt come in this afternoon to +help me wi' the washin' while I finished my score of plait for the woman +who takes 'em into town to-morrow. And there's old Patton an' his +wife--you know 'em, miss?--them as lives in the parish houses top o' the +common. He's walked out a few steps to-day. It's not often he's able, +and when I see him through the door I said to 'em, 'if you'll come in +an' take a cheer, I dessay them tea-leaves 'ull stan' another wettin'. I +haven't got nothink else.' And there's Mrs. Jellison, she came in along +o' the Pattons. You can't say her no, she's a queer one. Do you know +her, miss?" + +"Oh, bless yer, yes, yes. She knows me!" said a high, jocular voice, +making Mrs. Hurd start; "she couldn't be long hereabouts without makkin' +eëaste to know me. You coom in, miss. We're not afraid o' you--Lor' +bless you!" + +Mrs. Hurd stood aside for her visitor to pass in, looking round her the +while, in some perplexity, to see whether there was a spare chair and +room to place it. She was a delicate, willowy woman, still young in +figure, with a fresh colour, belied by the grey circles under the eyes +and the pinched sharpness of the features. The upper lip, which was +pretty and childish, was raised a little over the teeth; the whole +expression of the slightly open mouth was unusually soft and sensitive. +On the whole, Minta Hurd was liked in the village, though she was +thought a trifle "fine." The whole family, indeed, "kept theirsels to +theirsels," and to find Mrs. Hurd with company was unusual. Her name, +of course, was short for Araminta. + +Marcella laughed as she caught Mrs. Jellison's remarks, and made her way +in, delighted. For the present, these village people affected her like +figures in poetry or drama. She saw them with the eye of the imagination +through a medium provided by Socialist discussion, or by certain phases +of modern art; and the little scene of Mrs. Hurd's tea-party took for +her in an instant the dramatic zest and glamour. + +"Look here, Mrs. Jellison," she said, going up to her; "I was just going +to leave these apples for your grandson. Perhaps you'll take them, now +you're here. They're quite sweet, though they look green. They're the +best we've got, the gardener says." + +"Oh, they are, are they?" said Mrs. Jellison, composedly, looking up at +her. "Well, put 'em down, miss. I dare say he'll eat 'em. He eats most +things, and don't want no doctor's stuff nayther, though his mother do +keep on at me for spoilin' his stummuck." + +"You are just fond of that boy, aren't you, Mrs. Jellison?" said +Marcella, taking a wooden stool, the only piece of furniture left in the +tiny cottage on which it was possible to sit, and squeezing herself into +a corner by the fire, whence she commanded the whole group. "No! don't +you turn Mr. Patton out of that chair, Mrs. Hurd, or I shall have to go +away." + +For Mrs. Hurd, in her anxiety, was whispering in old Patton's ear that +it might be well for him to give up her one wooden arm-chair, in which +he was established, to Miss Boyce. But he, being old, deaf, and +rheumatic, was slow to move, and Marcella's peremptory gesture bade her +leave him in peace. + +"Well, it's you that's the young 'un, ain't it, miss?" said Mrs. +Jellison, cheerfully. "Poor old Patton, he do get slow on his legs, +don't you, Patton? But there, there's no helping it when you're turned +of eighty." + +And she turned upon him a bright, philosophic eye, being herself a young +thing not much over seventy, and energetic accordingly. Mrs. Jellison +passed for the village wit, and was at least talkative and excitable +beyond her fellows. + +"Well, _you_ don't seem to mind getting old, Mrs. Jellison," said +Marcella, smiling at her. + +The eyes of all the old people round their tea-table were by now drawn +irresistibly to Miss Boyce in the chimney corner, to her slim grace, and +the splendour of her large black hat and feathers. The new squire's +daughter had so far taken them by surprise. Some of them, however, were +by now in the second stage of critical observation--none the less +critical because furtive and inarticulate. + +"Ah?" said Mrs. Jellison, interrogatively, with a high, long-drawn note +peculiar to her. "Well, I've never found you get forrarder wi' snarlin' +over what you can't help. And there's mercies. When you've had a husband +in his bed for fower year, miss, and he's took at last, you'll _know_." + +She nodded emphatically. Marcella laughed. + +"I know you were very fond of him, Mrs. Jellison, and looked after him +very well, too." + +"Oh, I don't say nothin' about that," said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "But +all the same you kin reckon it up, and see for yoursen. Fower year--an' +fire upstairs, an' fire downstairs, an' fire all night, an' soomthin' +allus wanted. An' he such an objeck afore he died! It do seem like a +holiday now to sit a bit." + +And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of content. A +lock of grey hair had escaped from her bonnet, across her wrinkled +forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish air. Her youth of long +ago--a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity for +physical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, even +through her load of years. But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, +as of one fed with humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the +trouble of communicating them. + +"Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you," said Mrs. Brunt, with a +sigh, "though she took a deal more lookin' after nor your good man, Mrs. +Jellison." + +Mrs. Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in another of the +village almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and was always ready to +help her neighbours in their domestic toils. Her last remaining +daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal disease, had died some nine or +ten months before the Boyces arrived at Mellor. Marcella had already +heard the story several times, but it was part of her social gift that +she was a good listener to such things even at the twentieth hearing. + +"You wouldn't have her back though," she said gently, turning towards +the speaker. + +"No, I wouldn't have her back, miss," said Mrs. Brunt, raising her hand +to brush away a tear, partly the result of feeling, partly of a +long-established habit. "But I do miss her nights terrible! 'Mother, +ain't it ten o'clock?--mother, look at the clock, do, mother--ain't it +time for my stuff, mother--oh, I do _hope_ it is.' That was her stuff, +miss, to make her sleep. And when she'd got it, she'd _groan_--you'd +think she couldn't be asleep, and yet she was, dead-like--for two hours. +I didn't get no rest with her, and now I don't seem to get no rest +without her." + +And again Mrs. Brunt put her hand up to her eyes. + +"Ah, you were allus one for toilin' an' frettin'," said Mrs. Jellison, +calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's there, but I don't +hold wi' thinkin' about it when it's done." + +"I know one," said old Patton, slily, "that fretted about _her_ darter +when it didn't do her no good." + +He had not spoken so far, but had sat with his hands on his stick, a +spectator of the women's humours. He was a little hunched man, twisted +and bent double with rheumatic gout, the fruit of seventy years of field +work. His small face was almost lost, dog-like, under shaggy hair and +overgrown eyebrows, both snow-white. He had a look of irritable +eagerness, seldom, however, expressed in words. A sudden passion in the +faded blue eyes; a quick spot of red in his old cheeks; these Marcella +had often noticed in him, as though the flame of some inner furnace +leapt. He had been a Radical and a rebel once in old rick-burning days, +long before he lost the power in his limbs and came down to be thankful +for one of the parish almshouses. To his social betters he was now a +quiet and peaceable old man, well aware of the cakes and ale to be got +by good manners; but in the depths of him there were reminiscences and +the ghosts of passions, which were still stirred sometimes by causes not +always intelligible to the bystander. + +He had rarely, however, physical energy enough to bring any +emotion--even of mere worry at his physical ills--to the birth. The +pathetic silence of age enwrapped him more and more. Still he could gibe +the women sometimes, especially Mrs. Jellison, who was in general too +clever for her company. + +"Oh, you may talk, Patton!" said Mrs. Jellison, with a little flash of +excitement. "You do like to have your talk, don't you! Well, I dare say +I _was_ orkard with Isabella. I won't go for to say I _wasn't_ orkard, +for I _was_. She should ha' used me to 't before, if she wor took that +way. She and I had just settled down comfortable after my old man went, +and I didn't see no sense in it, an' I don't now. She might ha' let the +men alone. She'd seen enough o' the worrit ov 'em." + +"Well, she did well for hersen," said Mrs. Brunt, with the same gentle +melancholy. "She married a stiddy man as 'ull keep her well all her +time, and never let her want for nothink." + +"A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew," said Mrs. Jellison, +grudgingly. "I don't have nothink to say to him, nor he to me. He thinks +hissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they gi'en him his uniform, and made +him full keeper. A nassty, domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allus +makin' bad blood wi' the yoong fellers when he don't need. It's the way +he's got wi' 'im. But _I_ don't make no account of 'im, an' I let 'im +see 't." + +All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd. The village was well +acquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her son-in-law, +George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison at the mature age of +thirty-five to leave her mother and marry him, and was now one of Lord +Maxwell's keepers, with good pay, and an excellent cottage some little +way out of the village. Mrs. Jellison had never forgiven her daughter +for deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with her +son-in-law; but their only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft +spot in his grandmother, and her favourite excitement in life, now that +he was four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him on +the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved. + +Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile. At the mention of Westall, +she got up hastily, and began to put away the tea things. + +Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful. + +"You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs. Jellison?" she +said, looking up. "Is there much poaching in this village now, do you +think?" + +There was a dead silence. Mrs. Hurd was at the other end of the cottage +with her back to Marcella; at the question, her hands paused an instant +in their work. The eyes of all the old people--of Patton and his wife, +of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs. Brunt--were fixed on the speaker, but +nobody said a word, not even Mrs. Jellison. Marcella coloured. + +"Oh, you needn't suppose--" she said, throwing her beautiful head back, +"you needn't suppose that _I_ care about the game, or that I would ever +be mean enough to tell anything that was told me. I know it _does_ +cause a great deal of quarrelling and bad blood. I believe it does +here--and I should like to know more about it. I want to make up my mind +what to think. Of course, my father has got his land and his own +opinions. And Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like +either of them--I should like you to understand that. It seems to me +right about all such things that people should enquire and find out for +themselves." + +Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a sly +provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to poke +him in the ribs. But she was not going to help him out; and at last the +one male in the company found himself obliged to clear his throat for +reply. + +"We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We don't hear talk +o' things now like as we did when we were younger. If you ast Mr. Harden +he'll tell you, I dessay." + +Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jellison, he +thought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to the best way of +dealing with the gentry. + +But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes. + +"I had rather ask in the village," she said. "If you don't know how it +is now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when you were young. Was +the preserving very strict about here? Were there often fights, with the +keepers--long ago?--in my grandfather's days?--and do you think men +poached because they were hungry, or because they wanted sport?" + +Patton looked at her fixedly a moment undecided, then her strong +nervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on him; perhaps, +too, the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared his throat again, and +tried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be sure to let him hear of it +again, whatever he said. + +"Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure, but if you ast _me_, I +b'lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in human natur, +when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as he shouldn't want ter +have 'is sport with the wild creeturs. Perhaps he see 'em when ee's +going to the wood with a wood cart--or he cooms across 'em in the +turnips--wounded birds, you understan', miss, perhaps the day after the +gentry 'as been bangin' at 'em all day. An' ee don't see, not for the +life of 'im, why ee shouldn't have 'em. Ther's bin lots an' lots for the +rich folks, an' he don't see why _ee_ shouldn't have a few arter they've +enjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week--an' +two-threy little chillen--you understan', miss?" + +"Of course I understand!" said Marcella, eagerly, her dark cheek +flushing. "Of course I do! But there's a good deal of game given away in +these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Maxwell does, and they say Lord +Winterbourne gives all his labourers rabbits, almost as many as they +want." + +Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been a disused clock. +He began to feel a whirr among his creaking wheels, a shaking of all his +rusty mind. + +"Perhaps they do, miss," he said, and his wife saw that he was beginning +to tremble. "I dessay they do--I don't say nothink agen it--though +theer's none of it cooms my way. But that isn't all the rights on it +nayther--no, that it ain't. The labourin' man ee's glad enough to get a +hare or a rabbit for 'is eatin'--but there's more in it nor that, miss. +Ee's allus in the fields, that's where it is--ee can't help seein' the +hares and the rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver +so. Ee knows ivery run ov ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest +corner o' t' field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because he's +allus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to take his +mind off like. And then he sets a snare or two--an' ee gits very sharp +at settin' on 'em--an' ee'll go out nights for the sport of it. Ther +isn't many things _ee's_ got to liven him up; an' ee takes 'is chances +o' goin' to jail--it's wuth it, ee thinks." + +The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visibly. Bygones of +his youth had come back to him. + +"Oh, I know! I know!" cried Marcella, with an accent half of +indignation, half of despair. "It's the whole wretched system. It spoils +those who've got, and those who haven't got. And there'll be no mending +it till the _people_ get the land back again, and till the rights on it +are common to all." + +"My! she do speak up, don't she?" said Mrs. Jellison, grinning again at +her companions. Then, stooping forward with one of her wild movements, +she caught Marcella's arm--"I'd like to hear yer tell that to Lord +Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I do." + +Marcella flushed and laughed. + +"I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Maxwell," she said +proudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think." + +"No, I'll bet you ain't," said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her hand. "Now +then, Patton, you say what _you_ thinks. You ain't got no vote now +you're in the parish houses--I minds that. The quality don't trouble +_you_ at 'lection times. This yoong man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' +round so free, promisin' yer the sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote +for 'im, so th' men say--_ee_ don't coom an' set down along o' you an' +me, an' cocker of us up as ee do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But that +don't matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, anyway." + +But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, and there was +no more to be got out of him. + +Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont, but in his +cloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was speaking, the +inevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the poor towards the +richer class. This young lady, with her strange talk, was the new +squire's daughter. And the village had already made up its mind that +Richard Boyce was "a poor sort," and "a hard sort" too, in his landlord +capacity. He wasn't going to be any improvement on his brother--not a +haporth! What was the good of this young woman talking, as she did, when +there were three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell, just taken out by +the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages? And not a +farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps the bits of +food that the young lady herself brought down to the village now and +then, for which no one, in truth, felt any cause to be particularly +grateful. Besides, what did she mean by asking questions about the +poaching? Old Patton knew as well as anybody else in the village, that +during Robert Boyce's last days, and after the death of his sportsman +son, the Mellor estate had become the haunt of poachers from far and +near, and that the trouble had long since spread into the neighbouring +properties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded it +their most arduous business to keep watch on the men of Mellor. Of +course the young woman knew it all, and she and her father wanted to +know more. That was why she talked. Patton hardened himself against the +creeping ways of the quality. + +"I don't think nought," he said roughly in answer to Mrs. Jellison. +"Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin when I'm took. I've +no call to think, I tell yer." + +Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling. + +"Oh, but, Mr. Patton!" she cried, leaning forward to him, "won't it +comfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to think there's a +better time coming? There must be. People can't go on like this +always--hating each other and trampling on each other. They're beginning +to see it now, they are! When I was living in London, the persons I was +with talked and thought of it all day. Some day, whenever the people +choose--for they've got the power now they've got the vote--there'll be +land for everybody, and in every village there'll be a council to +manage things, and the labourer will count for just as much as the +squire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and better fed, and +care for many things he doesn't care for now. But all the same, if he +wants sport and shooting, it will be there for him to get. For everybody +will have a chance and a turn, and there'll be no bitterness between +classes, and no hopeless pining and misery as there is now!" + +The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say these +things to these people, to these poor tottering old things who had lived +out their lives to the end under the pressure of an iron system, and had +no lien on the future, whatever Paradise it might bring. Again the +situation had something foreseen and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as +the preacher, sitting on her stool beside the poor grate--she realised +as a spectator the figures of the women and the old man played on by the +firelight--the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in +the background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd, who +was standing with her back to the dresser, and her head bent forward, +listening to the talk while her fingers twisted the straw she plaited +eternally from morning till night, for a wage of about 1s. 3d. a week: + +Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance--defiance of her +father, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him come, her friend, and see +for himself what she thought it right to do and say in this miserable +village. Her soul challenged him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was +soon to meet him, and in a new and more significant relation and +environment. The fact made her perception of the whole situation the +more rich and vibrant. + +Patton, while these broken thoughts and sensations were coursing through +Marcella's head, was slowly revolving what she had been saying, and the +others were waiting for him. + +At last he rolled his tongue round his dry lips and delivered himself by +a final effort. + +"Them as likes, miss, may believe as how things are going to happen that +way, but yer won't ketch me! Them as have got 'ull _keep_"--he let his +stick sharply down on the floor--"an' them as 'aven't got 'ull 'ave to +go without and _lump it_--as long as you're alive, miss, you mark my +words!" + +"Oh, Lor', you wor allus one for makin' a poor mouth, Patton!" said Mrs. +Jellison. She had been sitting with her arms folded across her chest, +part absent, part amused, part malicious. "The young lady speaks +beautiful, just like a book she do. An' she's likely to know a deal +better nor poor persons like you and me. All _I_ kin say is,--if there's +goin' to be dividin' up of other folks' property, when I'm gone, I hope +George Westall won't get nothink ov it! He's bad enough as 'tis. +Isabella 'ud have a fine time if _ee_ took to drivin' ov his carriage." + +The others laughed out, Marcella at their head, and Mrs. Jellison +subsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her eyes shining +as though a host of entertaining notions were trooping through +her--which, however, she preferred to amuse herself with rather than the +public. Marcella looked at Patton thoughtfully. + +"You've been all your life in this village, haven't you, Mr. Patton?" +she asked him. + +"Born top o' Witchett's Hill, miss. An' my wife here, she wor born just +a house or two further along, an' we two bin married sixty-one year come +next March." + +He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little plaintive. +His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long +fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth +set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most +of her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate +quaver. + +"D'ye know, miss," said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Patton, "as she +kep' school when she was young?" + +"Did you, Mrs. Patton?" asked Marcella in her tone of sympathetic +interest. "The school wasn't very big then, I suppose?" + +"About forty, miss," said Mrs. Patton, with a sigh. "There was eighteen +the Rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid for, and the rest paid +for themselves." + +Her voice dropped gently, and she sighed again like one weighted with an +eternal fatigue. + +"And what did you teach them?" + +"Well, I taught them the plaitin', miss, and as much readin' and writin' +as I knew myself. It wasn't as high as it is now, you see, miss," and a +delicate flush dawned on the old cheek as Mrs. Patton threw a glance +round her companions as though appealing to them not to tell stories of +her. + +But Mrs. Jellison was implacable. "It wor she taught _me_," she said, +nodding at Marcella and pointing sideways to Mrs. Patton. "She had a +queer way wi' the hard words, I can tell yer, miss. When she couldn't +tell 'em herself she'd never own up to it. 'Say Jerusalem, my dear, and +pass on.' That's what she'd say, she would, sure's as you're alive! I've +heard her do it times. An' when Isabella an' me used to read the Bible, +nights, I'd allus rayther do 't than be beholden to me own darter. It +gets yer through, anyway." + +"Well, it wor a good word," said Mrs. Patton, blushing and mildly +defending herself. "It didn't do none of yer any harm." + +"Oh, an' before her, miss, I went to a school to another woman, as lived +up Shepherd's Row. You remember her, Betsy Brunt?" + +Mrs. Brunt's worn eyes began already to gleam and sparkle. + +"Yis, I recolleck very well, Mrs. Jellison. She wor Mercy Moss, an' a +goodish deal of trouble you'd use to get me into wi' Mercy Moss, all +along o' your tricks." + +Mrs. Jellison, still with folded arms, began to rock herself gently up +and down as though to stimulate memory. + +"My word, but Muster Maurice--he wor the clergyman here then, miss--wor +set on Mercy Moss. He and his wife they flattered and cockered her up. +Ther wor nobody like her for keepin' school, not in their eyes--till one +midsummer--she--well she--I don't want to say nothink onpleasant--_but +she transgressed_," said Mrs. Jellison, nodding mysteriously, +triumphant however in the unimpeachable delicacy of her language, and +looking round the circle for approval. + +"What do you say?" asked Marcella, innocently. "What did Mercy Moss do?" + +Mrs. Jellison's eyes danced with malice and mischief, but her mouth shut +like a vice. Patton leaned forward on his stick, shaken with a sort of +inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed under her breath till she +must needs sigh because laughter tired her old bones. Mrs. Brunt gurgled +gently. And finally Mrs. Jellison was carried away. + +"Oh, my goodness me, don't you make me tell tales o' Mercy Moss!" she +said at last, dashing the water out of her eyes with an excited +tremulous hand. "She's bin dead and gone these forty year--married and +buried mos' respeckable--it 'ud be a burning shame to bring up tales +agen her now. Them as tittle-tattles about dead folks needn't look to +lie quiet theirselves in their graves. I've said it times, and I'll say +it again. What are you lookin' at me for, Betsy Brunt?" + +And Mrs. Jellison drew up suddenly with a fierce glance at Mrs. Brunt. + +"Why, Mrs. Jellison, I niver meant no offence," said Mrs. Brunt, +hastily. + +"I won't stand no insinooating," said Mrs. Jellison, with energy. "If +you've got soomthink agen me, you may out wi' 't an' niver mind the +young lady." + +But Mrs. Brunt, much flurried, retreated amid a shower of excuses, +pursued by her enemy, who was soon worrying the whole little company, as +a dog worries a flock of sheep, snapping here and teasing there, +chattering at the top of her voice in broad dialect, as she got more and +more excited, and quite as ready to break her wit on Marcella as on +anybody else. As for the others, most of them had known little else for +weeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused +and excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is by +his favourite low comedian at his favourite music-hall. They played +chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn against +his will into a caustic sociability. + +Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand, and her +full glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorbing it all +with a covetous curiosity. + +The light-heartedness, the power of enjoyment left in these old folk +struck her dumb. Mrs. Brunt had an income of two-and-sixpence a week, +_plus_ two loaves from the parish, and one of the parish or "charity" +houses, a hovel, that is to say, of one room, scarcely fit for human +habitation at all. She had lost five children, was allowed two shillings +a week by two labourer sons, and earned sixpence a week--about--by +continuous work at "the plait." Her husband had been run over by a farm +cart and killed; up to the time of his death his earnings averaged about +twenty-eight pounds a year. Much the same with the Pattons. They had +lost eight children out of ten, and were now mainly supported by the +wages of a daughter in service. Mrs. Patton had of late years suffered +agonies and humiliations indescribable, from a terrible illness which +the parish doctor was quite incompetent to treat, being all through a +singularly sensitive woman, with a natural instinct for the decorous and +the beautiful. + +Amazing! Starvation wages; hardships of sickness and pain; horrors of +birth and horrors of death; wholesale losses of kindred and friends; the +meanest surroundings; the most sordid cares--of this mingled cup of +village fate every person in the room had drunk, and drunk deep. Yet +here in this autumn twilight, they laughed and chattered, and +joked--weird, wrinkled children, enjoying an hour's rough play in a +clearing of the storm! Dependent from birth to death on squire, parson, +parish, crushed often, and ill-treated, according to their own ideas, +but bearing so little ill-will; amusing themselves with their own +tragedies even, if they could but sit by a fire and drink a neighbour's +cup of tea. + +Her heart swelled and burned within her. Yes, the old people were past +hoping for; mere wreck and driftwood on the shore, the spring-tide of +death would soon have swept them all into unremembered graves. But the +young men and women, the children, were they too to grow up, and grow +old like these--the same smiling, stunted, ignobly submissive creatures? +One woman at least would do her best with her one poor life to rouse +some of them to discontent and revolt! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The fire sank, and Mrs. Hurd made no haste to light her lamp. Soon the +old people were dim chattering shapes in a red darkness. Mrs. Hurd still +plaited, silent and upright, lifting her head every now and then at each +sound upon the road. + +At last there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Hurd ran to open it. + +"Mother, I'm going your way," said a strident voice. "I'll help you home +if you've a mind." + +On the threshold stood Mrs. Jellison's daughter, Mrs. Westall, with her +little boy beside her, the woman's broad shoulders and harsh striking +head standing out against the pale sky behind. Marcella noticed that she +greeted none of the old people, nor they her. And as for Mrs. Hurd, as +soon as she saw the keeper's wife, she turned her back abruptly on her +visitor, and walked to the other end of the kitchen. + +"Are you comin', mother?" repeated Isabella. + +Mrs. Jellison grumbled, gibed at her, and made long leave-takings, while +the daughter stood silent, waiting, and every now and then peering at +Marcella, who had never seen her before. + +"I don' know where yur manners is," said Mrs. Jellison sharply to her, +as though she had been a child of ten, "that you don't say good evenin' +to the young lady." + +Mrs. Westall curtsied low, and hoped she might be excused, as it had +grown so dark. Her tone was smooth and servile, and Marcella disliked +her as she shook hands with her. + +The other old people, including Mrs. Brunt, departed a minute or two +after the mother and daughter, and Marcella was left an instant with +Mrs. Hurd. + +"Oh, thank you, thank you kindly, miss," said Mrs. Hurd, raising her +apron to her eyes to staunch some irrepressible tears, as Marcella +showed her the advertisement which it might possibly be worth Hurd's +while to answer. "He'll try, you may be sure. But I can't think as how +anythink 'ull come ov it." + +And then suddenly, as though something unexplained had upset her +self-control, the poor patient creature utterly broke down. Leaning +against the bare shelves which held their few pots and pans, she threw +her apron over her head and burst into the forlornest weeping. "I wish I +was dead; I wish I was dead, an' the chillen too!" + +Marcella hung over her, one flame of passionate pity, comforting, +soothing, promising help. Mrs. Hurd presently recovered enough to tell +her that Hurd had gone off that morning before it was light to a farm +near Thame, where it had been told him he might possibly find a job. + +"But he'll not find it, miss, he'll not find it," she said, twisting her +hands in a sort of restless misery; "there's nothing good happens to +such as us. An' he wor allus a one to work if he could get it." + +There was a sound outside. Mrs. Hurd flew to the door, and a short, +deformed man, with a large head and red hair, stumbled in blindly, +splashed with mud up to his waist, and evidently spent with long +walking. + +He stopped on the threshold, straining his eyes to see through the +fire-lit gloom. + +"It's Miss Boyce, Jim," said his wife. "Did you hear of anythink?" + +"They're turnin' off hands instead of takin' ov 'em on," he said +briefly, and fell into a chair by the grate. + +He had hardly greeted Marcella, who had certainly looked to be greeted. +Ever since her arrival in August, as she had told Aldous Raeburn, she +had taken a warm interest in this man and his family. There was +something about them which marked them out a bit from their +fellows--whether it was the husband's strange but not repulsive +deformity, contrasted with the touch of plaintive grace in the wife, or +the charm of the elfish children, with their tiny stick-like arms and +legs, and the glancing wildness of their blue eyes, under the frizzle of +red hair, which shone round their little sickly faces. Very soon she had +begun to haunt them in her eager way, to try and penetrate their peasant +lives, which were so full of enigma and attraction to her, mainly +because of their very defectiveness, their closeness to an animal +simplicity, never to be reached by any one of her sort. She soon +discovered or imagined that Hurd had more education than his neighbours. +At any rate, he would sit listening to her--and smoking, as she made him +do--while she talked politics and socialism to him; and though he said +little in return, she made the most of it, and was sure anyway that he +was glad to see her come in, and must some time read the labour +newspapers and Venturist leaflets she brought him, for they were always +well thumbed before they came back to her. + +But to-night his sullen weariness would make no effort, and the hunted +restless glances he threw from side to side as he sat crouching over the +fire--the large mouth tight shut, the nostrils working--showed her that +he would be glad when she went away. + +Her young exacting temper was piqued. She had been for some time trying +to arrange their lives for them. So, in spite of his dumb resistance, +she lingered on, questioning and suggesting. As to the advertisement she +had brought down, he put it aside almost without looking at it. "There +ud be a hun'erd men after it before ever he could get there," was all he +would say to it. Then she inquired if he had been to ask the steward of +the Maxwell Court estate for work. He did not answer, but Mrs. Hurd said +timidly that she heard tell a new drive was to be made that winter for +the sake of giving employment. But their own men on the estate would +come first, and there were plenty of them out of work. + +"Well, but there is the game," persisted Marcella. "Isn't it possible +they might want some extra men now the pheasant shooting has begun. I +might go and inquire of Westall--I know him a little." + +The wife made a startled movement, and Hurd raised his misshapen form +with a jerk. + +"Thank yer, miss, but I'll not trouble yer. I don't want nothing to do +with Westall." + +And taking up a bit of half-burnt wood which lay on the hearth, he threw +it violently back into the grate. Marcella looked from one to the other +with surprise. Mrs. Hurd's expression was one of miserable discomfort, +and she kept twisting her apron in her gnarled hands. + +"Yes, I _shall_ tell, Jim!" she broke out. "I shall. I know Miss Boyce +is one as ull understand--" + +Hurd turned round and looked at his wife full. But she persisted. + +"You see, miss, they don't speak, don't Jim and George Westall. When Jim +was quite a lad he was employed at Mellor, under old Westall, George's +father as was. Jim was 'watcher,' and young George he was assistant. +That was in Mr. Robert's days, you understand, miss--when Master Harold +was alive; and they took a deal o' trouble about the game. An' George +Westall, he was allays leading the others a life--tale-bearing an' +spyin', an' settin' his father against any of 'em as didn't give in to +him. An', oh, he behaved _fearful_ to Jim! Jim ull tell you. Now, Jim, +what's wrong with you--why shouldn't I tell?" + +For Hurd had risen, and as he and his wife looked at each other a sort +of mute conversation seemed to pass between them. Then he turned +angrily, and went out of the cottage by the back door into the garden. + +The wife sat in some agitation a moment, then she resumed. "He can't +bear no talk about Westall--it seems to drive him silly. But I say as +how people _should_ know." + +Her wavering eye seemed to interrogate her companion. Marcella was +puzzled by her manner--it was so far from simple. + +"But that was long ago, surely," she said. + +"Yes, it wor long ago, but you don't forget them things, miss! An' +Westall, he's just the same sort as he was then, so folks say," she +added hurriedly. "You see Jim, miss, how he's made? His back was twisted +that way when he was a little un. His father was a good old +man--everybody spoke well of 'im--but his mother, she was a queer mad +body, with red hair, just like Jim and the children, and a temper! my +word. They do say she was an Irish girl, out of a gang as used to work +near here--an' she let him drop one day when she was in liquor, an' +never took no trouble about him afterwards. He was a poor sickly lad, he +was! you'd wonder how he grew up at all. And oh! George Westall he +treated him _cruel_. He'd kick and swear at him; then he'd dare him to +fight, an' thrash him till the others came in, an' got him away. Then +he'd carry tales to his father, and one day old Westall beat Jim within +an inch of 'is life, with a strap end, because of a lie George told 'im. +The poor chap lay in a ditch under Disley Wood all day, because he was +that knocked about he couldn't walk, and at night he crawled home on his +hands and knees. He's shown me the place many a time! Then he told his +father, and next morning he told me, as he couldn't stand it no longer, +an' he never went back no more." + +"And he told no one else?--he never complained?" asked Marcella, +indignantly. + +"What ud ha been the good o' that, miss?" Mrs. Hurd said, wondering. +"Nobody ud ha taken his word agen old Westall's. But he come and told +me. I was housemaid at Lady Leven's then, an' he and his father were old +friends of ourn. And I knew George Westall too. He used to walk out with +me of a Sunday, just as civil as could be, and give my mother rabbits +now and again, and do anything I'd ask him. An' I up and told him he was +a brute to go ill-treatin' a sickly fellow as couldn't pay him back. +That made him as cross as vinegar, an' when Jim began to be about with +me ov a Sunday sometimes, instead of him, he got madder and madder. An' +Jim asked me to marry him--he begged of me--an' I didn't know what to +say. For Westall had asked me twice; an' I was afeard of Jim's health, +an' the low wages he'd get, an' of not bein' strong myself. But one day +I was going up a lane into Tudley End woods, an' I heard George Westall +on tother side of the hedge with a young dog he was training. Somethin' +crossed him, an' he flew into a passion with it. It turned me _sick_. I +ran away and I took against him there and then. I was frightened of him. +I duresn't trust myself, and I said to Jim I'd take him. So you can +understan', miss, can't you, as Jim don't want to have nothing to do +with Westall? Thank you kindly, all the same," she added, breaking off +her narrative with the same uncertainty of manner, the same timid +scrutiny of her visitor that Marcella had noticed before. + +Marcella replied that she could certainly understand. + +"But I suppose they've not got in each other's way of late years," she +said as she rose to go. + +"Oh! no, miss, no," said Mrs. Hurd as she went hurriedly to fetch a fur +tippet which her visitor had laid down on the dresser. + +"There is _one_ person I can speak to," said Marcella, as she put on the +wrap. "And I will." Against her will she reddened a little; but she had +not been able to help throwing out the promise. "And now, you won't +despair, will you? You'll trust me? I could always do something." + +She took Mrs. Hurd's hand with a sweet look and gesture. Standing there +in her tall vigorous youth, her furs wrapped about her, she had the air +of protecting and guiding this poverty that could not help itself. The +mother and wife felt herself shy, intimidated. The tears came back to +her brown eyes. + + * * * * * + +When Miss Boyce had gone, Minta Hurd went to the fire and put it +together, sighing all the time, her face still red and miserable. + +The door opened and her husband came in. He carried some potatoes in his +great earth-stained hands. + +"You're goin' to put that bit of hare on? Well, mak' eëaste, do, for I'm +starvin'. What did she want to stay all that time for? You go and get +it. I'll blow the fire up--damn these sticks!--they're as wet as Dugnall +pond." + +Nevertheless, as she sadly came and went, preparing the supper, she saw +that he was appeased, in a better temper than before. + +"What did you tell 'er?" he asked abruptly. + +"What do you spose I'd tell her? I acted for the best. I'm always +thinkin' for you!" she said as though with a little cry, "or we'd soon +be in trouble--worse trouble than we are!" she added miserably. + +He stopped working the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his long +chin, stared into the flames. With his deformity, his earth-stains, his +blue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he had +the look of some strange gnome crouching there. + +"I don't know what you're at, I'll swear," he said after a pause. "I +ain't in any pertickler trouble just now--if yer wouldn't send a fellow +stumpin' the country for nothink. If you'll just let me alone I'll get a +livin' for you and the chillen right enough. Don't you trouble +yourself--an' hold your tongue!" + +She threw down her apron with a gesture of despair as she stood beside +him, in front of the fire, watching the pan. + +"What am I to do, Jim, an' them chillen--when you're took to prison?" +she asked him vehemently. + +"I shan't get took to prison, I tell yer. All the same, Westall got holt +o' me this mornin'. I thought praps you'd better know." + +Her exclamation of terror, her wild look at him, were exactly what he +had expected; nevertheless, he flinched before them. His brutality was +mostly assumed. He had adopted it as a mask for more than a year past, +because he _must_ go his way, and she worried him. + +"Now look here," he said resolutely, "it don't matter. I'm not goin' to +be took by Westall. I'd kill him or myself first. But he caught me +lookin' at a snare this mornin'--it wor misty, and I didn't see no one +comin'. It wor close to the footpath, and it worn't my snare." + +"'Jim, my chap,' says he, mockin', 'I'm sorry for it, but I'm going to +search yer, so take it quietly,' says he. He had young Dynes with +him--so I didn't say nought--I kep' as still as a mouse, an' sure enough +he put his ugly han's into all my pockets. An' what do yer think he +foun'?" + +"What?" she said breathlessly. + +"Nothink!" he laughed out. "Nary an end o' string, nor a kink o' +wire--nothink. I'd hidden the two rabbits I got las' night, and all my +bits o' things in a ditch far enough out o' his way. I just laughed at +the look ov 'im. 'I'll have the law on yer for assault an' battery, yer +damned miscalculatin' brute!' says I to him--'why don't yer get that boy +there to teach yer your business?' An' off I walked. Don't you be +afeared--'ee'll never lay hands on me!" + +But Minta was sore afraid, and went on talking and lamenting while she +made the tea. He took little heed of her. He sat by the fire quivering +and thinking. In a public-house two nights before this one, overtures +had been made to him on behalf of a well-known gang of poachers with +head-quarters in a neighbouring county town, who had their eyes on the +pheasant preserves in Westall's particular beat--the Tudley End +beat--and wanted a local watcher and accomplice. He had thought the +matter at first too dangerous to touch. Moreover, he was at that moment +in a period of transition, pestered by Minta to give up "the poachin'," +and yet drawn back to it after his spring and summer of field work by +instincts only recently revived, after long dormancy, but now hard to +resist. + +Presently he turned with anger upon one of Minta's wails which happened +to reach him. + +"Look 'ere!" said he to her, "where ud you an' the chillen be this night +if I 'adn't done it? 'Adn't we got rid of every stick o' stuff we iver +'ad? 'Ere's a well-furnished place for a chap to sit in!"--he glanced +bitterly round the bare kitchen, which had none of the little properties +of the country poor, no chest, no set of mahogany drawers, no +comfortable chair, nothing, but the dresser and the few rush chairs and +the table, and a few odds and ends of crockery and household +stuff--"wouldn't we all a bin on the parish, if we 'adn't starved +fust--_wouldn't_ we?--jes' answer me that! _Didn't_ we sit here an' +starve, till the bones was comin' through the chillen's skin?--didn't +we?" + +That he could still argue the point with her showed the inner +vulnerableness, the inner need of her affection and of peace with her, +which he still felt, far as certain new habits were beginning to sweep +him from her. + +"It's Westall or Jenkins (Jenkins was the village policeman) havin' the +_law_ on yer, Jim," she said with emphasis, putting down a cup and +looking at him--it's the thought of _that_ makes me cold in my back. +None o' _my_ people was ever in prison--an' if it 'appened to you I +should just die of shame!" + +"Then yer'd better take and read them papers there as _she_ brought," he +said impatiently, first jerking his finger over his shoulder in the +direction of Mellor to indicate Miss Boyce, and then pointing to a heap +of newspapers which lay on the floor in a corner, "they'd tell yer +summat about the shame o' _makin_' them game-laws--not o' breakin' ov +'em. But I'm sick o' this! Where's them chillen? Why do yer let that boy +out so late?" + +And opening the door he stood on the threshold looking up and down the +village street, while Minta once more gave up the struggle, dried her +eyes, and told herself to be cheerful. But it was hard. She was far +better born and better educated than her husband. Her father had been a +small master chair-maker in Wycombe, and her mother, a lackadaisical +silly woman, had given her her "fine" name by way of additional proof +that she and her children were something out of the common. Moreover, +she had the conforming law-abiding instincts of the well-treated +domestic servant, who has lived on kindly terms with the gentry and +shared their standards. And for years after their marriage Hurd had +allowed her to govern him. He had been so patient, so hard-working, such +a kind husband and father, so full of a dumb wish to show her he was +grateful to her for marrying such a fellow as he. The quarrel with +Westall seemed to have sunk out of his mind. He never spoke to or of +him. Low wages, the burden of quick-coming children, the bad sanitary +conditions of their wretched cottage, and poor health, had made their +lives one long and sordid struggle. But for years he had borne his load +with extraordinary patience. He and his could just exist, and the man +who had been in youth the lonely victim of his neighbours' scorn had +found a woman to give him all herself and children to love. Hence years +of submission, a hidden flowering time for both of them. + +Till that last awful winter!--the winter before Richard Boyce's +succession to Mellor--when the farmers had been mostly ruined, and half +the able-bodied men of Mellor had tramped "up into the smoke," as the +village put it, in search of London work--then, out of actual sheer +starvation--that very rare excuse of the poacher!--Hurd had gone one +night and snared a hare on the Mellor land. Would the wife and mother +ever forget the pure animal satisfaction of that meal, or the fearful +joy of the next night, when he got three shillings from a local publican +for a hare and two rabbits? + +But after the first relief Minta had gone in fear and trembling. For the +old woodcraft revived in Hurd, and the old passion for the fields and +their chances which he had felt as a lad before his "watcher's" place +had been made intolerable to him by George Westall's bullying. He became +excited, unmanageable. Very soon he was no longer content with Mellor, +where, since the death of young Harold, the heir, the keepers had been +dismissed, and what remained of a once numerous head of game lay open to +the wiles of all the bold spirits of the neighbourhood. He must needs go +on to those woods of Lord Maxwell's, which girdled the Mellor estate on +three sides. And here he came once more across his enemy. For George +Westall was now in the far better-paid service of the Court--and a very +clever keeper, with designs on the head keeper's post whenever it might +be vacant. In the case of a poacher he had the scent of one of his own +hares. It was known to him in an incredibly short time that that "low +caselty fellow Hurd" was attacking "his" game. + +Hurd, notwithstanding, was cunning itself, and Westall lay in wait for +him in vain. Meanwhile, all the old hatred between the two men revived. +Hurd drank this winter more than he had ever drunk yet. It was +necessary to keep on good terms with one or two publicans who acted as +"receivers" of the poached game of the neighbourhood. And it seemed to +him that Westall pursued him into these low dens. The keeper--big, +burly, prosperous--would speak to him with insolent patronage, watching +him all the time, or with the old brutality, which Hurd dared not +resent. Only in his excitable dwarf's sense hate grew and throve, very +soon to monstrous proportions. Westall's menacing figure darkened all +his sky for him. His poaching, besides a means of livelihood, became +more and more a silent duel between him and his boyhood's tyrant. + +And now, after seven months of regular field-work and respectable +living, it was all to begin again with the new winter! The same shudders +and terrors, the same shames before the gentry and Mr. Harden!--the +soft, timid woman with her conscience could not endure the prospect. For +some weeks after the harvest was over she struggled. He had begun to go +out again at nights. But she drove him to look for employment, and lived +in tears when he failed. + +As for him, she knew that he was glad to fail; there was a certain ease +and jauntiness in his air to-night as he stood calling the children: + +"Will!--you come in at once! Daisy!--Nellie!" + +Two little figures came pattering up the street in the moist October +dusk, a third, panted behind. The girls ran in to their mother +chattering and laughing. Hurd lifted the boy in his arm. + +"Where you bin, Will? What were yo out for in this nasty damp? I've +brought yo a whole pocket full o' chestnuts, and summat else too." + +He carried him in to the fire and sat him on his knees. The little +emaciated creature, flushed with the pleasure of his father's company, +played contentedly in the intervals of coughing with the shining +chestnuts, or ate his slice of the fine pear--the gift of a friend in +Thame--which proved to be the "summat else" of promise. The curtains +were close-drawn; the paraffin lamp flared on the table, and as the +savoury smell of the hare and onions on the fire filled the kitchen, the +whole family gathered round watching for the moment of eating. The fire +played on the thin legs and pinched faces of the children; on the baby's +cradle in the further corner; on the mother, red-eyed still, but able to +smile and talk again; on the strange Celtic face and matted hair of the +dwarf. Family affection--and the satisfaction of the simpler physical +needs--these things make the happiness of the poor. For this hour, +to-night, the Hurds were happy. + +Meanwhile, in the lane outside, Marcella, as she walked home, passed a +tall broad-shouldered man in a velveteen suit and gaiters, his gun over +his shoulder and two dogs behind him, his pockets bulging on either +side. He walked with a kind of military air, and touched his cap to her +as he passed. + +Marcella barely nodded. + +"Tyrant and bully!" she thought to herself with Mrs. Hurd's story in her +mind. "Yet no doubt he is a valuable keeper; Lord Maxwell would be sorry +to lose him! It is the system makes such men--and must have them." + +The clatter of a pony carriage disturbed her thoughts. A small, elderly +lady, in a very large mushroom hat, drove past her in the dusk and bowed +stiffly. Marcella was so taken by surprise that she barely returned the +bow. Then she looked after the carriage. That was Miss Raeburn. + +To-morrow! + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +"Won't you sit nearer to the window? We are rather proud of our view at +this time of year," said Miss Raeburn to Marcella, taking her visitor's +jacket from her as she spoke, and laying it aside. "Lady Winterbourne is +late, but she will come, I am sure. She is very precise about +engagements." + +Marcella moved her chair nearer to the great bow-window, and looked out +over the sloping gardens of the Court, and the autumn splendour of the +woods girdling them in on all sides. She held her head nervously erect, +was not apparently much inclined to talk, and Miss Raeburn, who had +resumed her knitting within a few paces of her guest, said to herself +presently after a few minutes' conversation on the weather and the walk +from Mellor: "Difficult--decidedly difficult--and too much manner for a +young girl. But the most picturesque creature I ever set eyes on!" + +Lord Maxwell's sister was an excellent woman, the inquisitive, +benevolent despot of all the Maxwell villages; and one of the soundest +Tories still left to a degenerate party and a changing time. Her brother +and her great-nephew represented to her the flower of human kind; she +had never been capable, and probably never would be capable, of +quarrelling with either of them on any subject whatever. At the same +time she had her rights with them. She was at any rate their natural +guardian in those matters, relating to womankind, where men are +confessedly given to folly. She had accordingly kept a shrewd eye in +Aldous's interest on all the young ladies of the neighbourhood for many +years past; knew perfectly well all that he might have done, and sighed +over all that he had so far left undone. + +At the present moment, in spite of the even good-breeding with which she +knitted and chattered beside Marcella, she was in truth consumed with +curiosity, conjecture, and alarm on the subject of this Miss Boyce. +Profoundly as they trusted each other, the Raeburns were not on the +surface a communicative family. Neither her brother nor Aldous had so +far bestowed any direct confidence upon her; but the course of affairs +had, notwithstanding, aroused her very keenest attention. In the first +place, as we know, the mistress of Maxwell Court had left Mellor and its +new occupants unvisited; she had plainly understood it to be her +brother's wish that she should do so. How, indeed, could you know the +women without knowing Richard Boyce? which, according to Lord Maxwell, +was impossible. And now it was Lord Maxwell who had suggested not only +that after all it would be kind to call upon the poor things, who were +heavily weighted enough already with Dick Boyce for husband and father, +but that it would be a graceful act on his sister's part to ask the girl +and her mother to luncheon. Dick Boyce of course must be made to keep +his distance, but the resources of civilisation were perhaps not unequal +to the task of discriminating, if it were prudently set about. At any +rate Miss Raeburn gathered that she was expected to try, and instead of +pressing her brother for explanations she held her tongue, paid her call +forthwith, and wrote her note. + +But although Aldous, thinking no doubt that he had been already +sufficiently premature, had said nothing at all as to his own feelings +to his great-aunt, she knew perfectly well that he had said a great deal +on the subject of Miss Boyce and her mother to Lady Winterbourne, the +only woman in the neighbourhood with whom he was ever really +confidential. No woman, of course, in Miss Raeburn's position, and with +Miss Raeburn's general interest in her kind, could have been ignorant +for any appreciable number of days after the Boyces' arrival at Mellor +that they possessed a handsome daughter, of whom the Hardens in +particular gave striking but, as Miss Raeburn privately thought, by no +means wholly attractive accounts. And now, after all these somewhat +agitating preliminaries, here was the girl established in the Court +drawing-room, Aldous more nervous and preoccupied than she had ever seen +him, and Lord Maxwell expressing a particular anxiety to return from his +Board meeting in good time for luncheon, to which he had especially +desired that Lady Winterbourne should be bidden, and no one else! It may +well be supposed that Miss Raeburn was on the alert. + +As for Marcella, she was on her side keenly conscious of being observed, +of having her way to make. Here she was alone among these formidable +people, whose acquaintance she had in a manner compelled. Well--what +blame? What was to prevent her from doing the same thing again +to-morrow? Her conscience was absolutely clear. If they were not ready +to meet her in the same spirit in which through Mr. Raeburn she had +approached them, she would know perfectly well how to protect +herself--above all, how to live out her life in the future without +troubling them. + +Meanwhile, in spite of her dignity and those inward propitiations it +from time to time demanded, she was, in her human vivid way, full of an +excitement and curiosity she could hardly conceal as perfectly as she +desired--curiosity as to the great house and the life in it, especially +as to Aldous Raeburn's part therein. She knew very little indeed of the +class to which by birth she belonged; great houses and great people were +strange to her. She brought her artist's and student's eyes to look at +them with; she was determined not to be dazzled or taken in by them. At +the same time, as she glanced every now and then round the splendid room +in which they sat, with its Tudor ceiling, its fine pictures, its +combination of every luxury with every refinement, she was distinctly +conscious of a certain thrill, a romantic drawing towards the +stateliness and power which it all implied, together with a proud and +careless sense of equality, of kinship so to speak, which she made light +of, but would not in reality have been without for the world. + +In birth and blood she had nothing to yield to the Raeburns--so her +mother assured her. If things were to be vulgarly measured, this fact +too must come in. But they should not be vulgarly measured. She did not +believe in class or wealth--not at all. Only--as her mother had told +her--she must hold her head up. An inward temper, which no doubt led to +that excess of manner of which Miss Raeburn was meanwhile conscious. + +Where were the gentlemen? Marcella was beginning to resent and tire of +the innumerable questions as to her likes and dislikes, her +accomplishments, her friends, her opinions of Mellor and the +neighbourhood, which this knitting lady beside her poured out upon her +so briskly, when to her great relief the door opened and a footman +announced "Lady Winterbourne." + +A very tall thin lady in black entered the room at the words. "My dear!" +she said to Miss Raeburn, "I am very late, but the roads are abominable, +and those horses Edward has just given me have to be taken such tiresome +care of. I told the coachman next time he might wrap them in shawls and +put them to bed, and _I_ should walk." + +"You are quite capable of it, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, kissing her. +"We know you! Miss Boyce--Lady Winterbourne." + +Lady Winterbourne shook hands with a shy awkwardness which belied her +height and stateliness. As she sat down beside Miss Raeburn the contrast +between her and Lord Maxwell's sister was sufficiently striking. Miss +Raeburn was short, inclined to be stout, and to a certain gay profusion +in her attire. Her cap was made of a bright silk handkerchief edged with +lace; round her neck were hung a number of small trinkets on various +gold chains; she abounded too in bracelets, most of which were clearly +old-fashioned mementos of departed relatives or friends. Her dress was +a cheerful red verging on crimson; and her general air suggested energy, +bustle, and a good-humoured common sense. + +Lady Winterbourne, on the other hand, was not only dressed from head to +foot in severe black without an ornament; her head and face belonged +also to the same impression, as of some strong and forcible study in +black and white. The attitude was rigidly erect; the very dark eyes, +under the snowy and abundant hair, had a trick of absent staring; in +certain aspects the whole figure had a tragic, nay, formidable dignity, +from which one expected, and sometimes got, the tone and gesture of +tragic acting. Yet at the same time, mixed in therewith, a curious +strain of womanish, nay childish, weakness, appealingness. Altogether, a +great lady, and a personality--yet something else too--something +ill-assured, timid, incongruous--hard to be defined. + +"I believe you have not been at Mellor long?" the new-comer asked, in a +deep contralto voice which she dragged a little. + +"About seven weeks. My father and mother have been there since May." + +"You must of course think it a very interesting old place?" + +"Of course I do; I love it," said Marcella, disconcerted by the odd +habit Lady Winterbourne had of fixing her eyes upon a person, and then, +as it were, forgetting what she had done with them. + +"Oh, I haven't been there, Agneta," said the new-comer, turning after a +pause to Miss Raeburn, "since that summer--_you_ remember that party +when the Palmerstons came over--so long ago--twenty years!" + +Marcella sat stiffly upright. Lady Winterbourne grew a little nervous +and flurried. + +"I don't think I ever saw your mother, Miss Boyce--I was much away from +home about then. Oh, yes, I did once--" + +The speaker stopped, a sudden red suffusing her pale cheeks. She had +felt certain somehow, at sight of Marcella, that she should say or do +something untoward, and she had promptly justified her own prevision. +The only time she had ever seen Mrs. Boyce had been in court, on the +last day of the famous trial in which Richard Boyce was concerned, when +she had made out the wife sitting closely veiled as near to her husband +as possible, waiting for the verdict. As she had already confided this +reminiscence to Miss Raeburn, and had forgotten she had done so, both +ladies had a moment of embarrassment. + +"Mrs. Boyce, I am sorry to say, does not seem to be strong," said Miss +Raeburn, bending over the heel of her stocking. "I wish we could have +had the pleasure of seeing her to-day." + +There was a pause. Lady Winterbourne's tragic eyes were once more +considering Marcella. + +"I hope you will come and see me," she said at last abruptly--"and Mrs. +Boyce too." + +The voice was very soft and refined though so deep, and Marcella looking +up was suddenly magnetised. + +"Yes, I will," she said, all her face melting into sensitive life. +"Mamma won't go anywhere, but I will come, if you will ask me." + +"Will you come next Tuesday?" said Lady Winterbourne quickly--"come to +tea, and I will drive you back. Mr. Raeburn told me about you. He +says--you read a great deal." + +The solemnity of the last words, the fixedness of the tragic look, were +not to be resisted. Marcella laughed out, and both ladies simultaneously +thought her extraordinarily radiant and handsome. + +"How can he know? Why, I have hardly talked about books to him at all." + +"Well! here he comes," said Lady Winterbourne, smiling suddenly; "so I +can ask him. But I am sure he did say so." + +It was now Marcella's turn to colour. Aldous Raeburn crossed the room, +greeted Lady Winterbourne, and next moment she felt her hand in his. + +"You did tell me, Aldous, didn't you," said Lady Winterbourne, "that +Miss Boyce was a great reader?" + +The speaker had known Aldous Raeburn as a boy, and was, moreover, a sort +of cousin, which explained the Christian name. + +Aldous smiled. + +"I said I thought Miss Boyce was like you and me, and had a weakness +that way, Lady Winterbourne. But I won't be cross-examined!" + +"I don't think I am a great reader," said Marcella, bluntly--"at least I +read a great deal, but I hardly ever read a book through. I haven't +patience." + +"You want to get at everything so quickly?" said Miss Raeburn, looking +up sharply. + +"I suppose so!" said Marcella. "There seems to be always a hundred +things tearing one different ways, and no time for any of them." + +"Yes, when one is young one feels like that," said Lady Winterbourne, +sighing. "When one is old one accepts one's limitations. When I was +twenty I never thought that I should still be an ignorant and +discontented woman at nearly seventy." + +"It is because you are so young still, Lady Winterbourne, that you feel +so," said Aldous, laughing at her, as one does at an old friend. "Why, +you are younger than any of us! I feel all brushed and stirred up--a boy +at school again--after I have been to see you!" + +"Well, I don't know what you mean, I'm sure," said Lady Winterbourne, +sighing again. Then she looked at the pair beside her--at the alert +brightness in the man's strong and quiet face as he sat stooping +forward, with his hands upon his knees, hardly able to keep his eyes for +an instant from the dark apparition beside him--at the girl's evident +shyness and pride. + +"My dear!" she said, turning suddenly to Miss Raeburn, "have you heard +what a monstrosity Alice has produced this last time in the way of a +baby? It was born with four teeth!" + +Miss Raeburn's astonishment fitted the provocation, and the two old +friends fell into a gossip on the subject of Lady Winterbourne's +numerous family, which was clearly meant for a _tęte-ŕ-tęte_. + +"Will you come and look at our tapestry?" said Aldous to his neighbour, +after a few nothings had passed between them as to the weather and her +walk from Mellor. "I think you would admire it, and I am afraid my +grandfather will be a few minutes yet. He hoped to get home earlier than +this, but his Board meeting was very long and important, and has kept +him an unconscionable time." + +Marcella rose, and they moved together towards the south end of the room +where a famous piece of Italian Renaissance tapestry entirely filled the +wall from side to side. + +"How beautiful!" cried the girl, her eyes filling with delight. "What a +delicious thing to live with." + +And, indeed, it was the most adorable medley of forms, tints, +suggestions, of gods and goddesses, nymphs and shepherds, standing in +flowery grass under fruit-laden trees and wreathed about with roses. +Both colour and subject were of fairyland. The golds and browns and +pinks of it, the greens and ivory whites had been mellowed and pearled +and warmed by age into a most glowing, delicate, and fanciful beauty. It +was Italy at the great moment--subtle, rich, exuberant. + +Aldous enjoyed her pleasure. + +"I thought you would like it; I hoped you would. It has been my special +delight since I was a child, when my mother first routed it out of a +garret. I am not sure that I don't in my heart prefer it to any of the +pictures." + +"The flowers!" said Marcella, absorbed in it--"look at them--the irises, +the cyclamens, the lilies! It reminds one of the dreams one used to have +when one was small of what it would be like to have _flowers enough_. I +was at school, you know, in a part of England where one seemed always +cheated out of them! We walked two and two along the straight roads, and +I found one here and one there--but such a beggarly, wretched few, for +all one's trouble. I used to hate the hard dry soil, and console myself +by imagining countries where the flowers grew like this--yes, just like +this, in a gold and pink and blue mass, so that one might thrust one's +hands in and gather and gather till one was really _satisfied_! That is +the worst of being at school when you are poor! You never get enough of +anything. One day it's flowers--but the next day it is pudding--and the +next frocks." + +Her eye was sparkling, her tongue loosened. Not only was it pleasant to +feel herself beside him, enwrapped in such an atmosphere of admiration +and deference, but the artistic sensitive chord in her had been struck, +and vibrated happily. + +"Well, only wait till May, and the cowslips in your own fields will make +up to you!" he said, smiling at her. "But now, I have been wondering to +myself in my room upstairs what you would like to see. There are a good +many treasures in this house, and you will care for them, because you +are an artist. But you shall not be bored with them! You shall see what +and as much as you like. You had about a quarter of an hour's talk with +my aunt, did you not?" he asked, in a quite different tone. + +So all the time while she and Miss Raeburn had been making acquaintance, +he had known that she was in the house, and he had kept away for his own +purposes! Marcella felt a colour she could not restrain leap into her +cheek. + +"Miss Raeburn was very kind," she said, with a return of shyness, which +passed however the next moment by reaction, into her usual daring. "Yes, +she was very kind!--but all the same she doesn't like me--I don't think +she is going to like me--I am not her sort." + +"Have you been talking Socialism to her?" he asked her, smiling. + +"No, not yet--not yet," she said emphatically. "But I am dreadfully +uncertain--I can't always hold my tongue--I am afraid you will be sorry +you took me up." + +"Are you so aggressive? But Aunt Neta is so mild!--she wouldn't hurt a +fly. She mothers every one in the house and out of it. The only people +she is hard upon are the little servant girls, who will wear feathers in +their hats!" + +"There!" cried Marcella, indignantly. "Why shouldn't they wear feathers +in their hats? It is their form of beauty--their tapestry!" + +"But if one can't have both feathers and boots?" he asked her humbly, a +twinkle in his grey eye. "If one hasn't boots, one may catch a cold and +die of it--which is, after all, worse than going featherless." + +"But why _can't_ they have feathers and boots? It is because +you--we--have got too much. You have the tapestry--and--and the +pictures"--she turned and looked round the room--"and this wonderful +house--and the park. Oh, no--I think it is Miss Raeburn has too many +feathers!" + +"Perhaps it is," he admitted, in a different tone, his look changing and +saddening as though some habitual struggle of thought were recalled to +him. "You see I am in a difficulty. I want to show you our feathers. I +think they would please you--and you make me ashamed of them." + +"How absurd!" cried Marcella, "when I told you how I liked the school +children bobbing to me!" + +They laughed, and then Aldous looked round with a start--"Ah, here is my +grandfather!" + +Then he stood back, watching the look with which Lord Maxwell, after +greeting Lady Winterbourne, approached Miss Boyce. He saw the old man's +somewhat formal approach, the sudden kindle in the blue eyes which +marked the first effect of Marcella's form and presence, the bow, the +stately shake of the hand. The lover hearing his own heart beat, +realised that his beautiful lady had so far done well. + +"You must let me say that I see a decided likeness in you to your +grandfather," said Lord Maxwell, when they were all seated at lunch, +Marcella on his left hand, opposite to Lady Winterbourne. "He was one of +my dearest friends." + +"I'm afraid I don't know much about him," said Marcella, rather bluntly, +"except what I have got out of old letters. I never saw him that I +remember." + +Lord Maxwell left the subject, of course, at once, but showed a great +wish to talk to her, and make her talk. He had pleasant things to say +about Mellor and its past, which could be said without offence; and some +conversation about the Boyce monuments in Mellor church led to a +discussion of the part played by the different local families in the +Civil Wars, in which it seemed to Aldous that his grandfather tried in +various shrewd and courteous ways to make Marcella feel at ease with +herself and her race, accepted, as it were, of right into the local +brotherhood, and so to soothe and heal those bruised feelings he could +not but divine. + +The girl carried herself a little loftily, answering with an +independence and freedom beyond her age and born of her London life. She +was not in the least abashed or shy. Yet it was clear that Lord +Maxwell's first impressions were favourable. Aldous caught every now and +then his quick, judging look sweeping over her and instantly +withdrawn--comparing, as the grandson very well knew, every point, and +tone, and gesture with some inner ideal of what a Raeburn's wife should +be. How dream-like the whole scene was to Aldous, yet how exquisitely +real! The room, with its carved and gilt cedar-wood panels, its +Vandykes, its tall windows opening on the park, the autumn sun flooding +the gold and purple fruit on the table, and sparkling on the glass and +silver, the figures of his aunt and Lady Winterbourne, the moving +servants, and dominant of it all, interpreting it all for him anew, the +dark, lithe creature beside his grandfather, so quick, sensitive, +extravagant, so much a woman, yet, to his lover's sense, so utterly +unlike any other woman he had ever seen--every detail of it was charged +to him with a thousand new meanings, now oppressive, now delightful. + +For he was passing out of the first stage of passion, in which it is, +almost, its own satisfaction, so new and enriching is it to the whole +nature, into the second stage--the stage of anxiety, incredulity. +Marcella, sitting there on his own ground, after all his planning, +seemed to him not nearer, but further from him. She was terribly on her +dignity! Where was all that girlish abandonment gone which she had shown +him on that walk, beside the gate? There had been a touch of it, a +divine touch, before luncheon. How could he get her to himself again? + +Meanwhile the conversation passed to the prevailing local topic--the +badness of the harvest, the low prices of everything, the consequent +depression among the farmers, and stagnation in the villages. + +"I don't know what is to be done for the people this winter," said Lord +Maxwell, "without pauperising them, I mean. To give money is easy +enough. Our grandfathers would have doled out coal and blankets, and +thought no more of it. We don't get through so easily." + +"No," said Lady Winterbourne, sighing. "It weighs one down. Last winter +was a nightmare. The tales one heard, and the faces one saw!--though we +seemed to be always giving. And in the middle of it Edward would buy me +a new set of sables. I begged him not, but he laughed at me." + +"Well, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, cheerfully, "if nobody bought +sables, there'd be other poor people up in Russia, isn't it?--or +Hudson's Bay?--badly off. One has, to think of that. Oh, you needn't +talk, Aldous! I know you say it's a fallacy. _I_ call it common sense." + +She got, however, only a slight smile from Aldous, who had long ago left +his great-aunt to work out her own economics. And, anyway, she saw that +he was wholly absorbed from his seat beside Lady Winterbourne in +watching Miss Boyce. + +"It's precisely as Lord Maxwell says," replied Lady Winterbourne; "that +kind of thing used to satisfy everybody. And our grandmothers were very +good women. I don't know why we, who give ourselves so much more trouble +than they did, should carry these thorns about with us, while they went +free." + +She drew herself up, a cloud over her fine eyes. Miss Raeburn, looking +round, was glad to see the servants had left the room. + +"Miss Boyce thinks we are all in a very bad way, I'm sure. I have heard +tales of Miss Boyce's opinions!" said Lord Maxwell, smiling at her, with +an old man's indulgence, as though provoking her to talk. + +Her slim fingers were nervously crumbling some bread beside her; her +head was drooped a little. At his challenge she looked up with a start. +She was perfectly conscious of him, as both the great magnate on his +native heath, and as the trained man of affairs condescending to a +girl's fancies. But she had made up her mind not to be afraid. + +"What tales have you heard?" she asked him. + +"You alarm us, you know," he said gallantly, waiving her question. "We +can't afford a prophetess to the other side, just now." + +Miss Raeburn drew herself up, with a sharp dry look at Miss Boyce, which +escaped every one but Lady Winterbourne. + +"Oh! I am not a Radical!" said Marcella, half scornfully. "We +Socialists don't fight for either political party as such. We take what +we can get out of both." + +"So you call yourself a Socialist? A real full-blown one?" + +Lord Maxwell's pleasant tone masked the mood of a man who after a +morning of hard work thinks himself entitled to some amusement at +luncheon. + +"Yes, I am a Socialist," she said slowly, looking at him. "At least I +ought to be--I am in my conscience." + +"But not in your judgment?" he said laughing. "Isn't that the condition +of most of us?" + +"No, not at all!" she exclaimed, both her vanity and her enthusiasm +roused by his manner. "Both my judgment and my conscience make me a +Socialist. It's only one's wretched love for one's own little luxuries +and precedences--the worst part of one--that makes me waver, makes me a +traitor! The people I worked with in London would think me a traitor +often, I know." + +"And you really think that the world ought to be 'hatched over again and +hatched different'? That it ought to be, if it could be?" + +"I think that things are intolerable as they are," she broke out, after +a pause. "The London poor were bad enough; the country poor seem to me +worse! How can any one believe that such serfdom and poverty--such +mutilation of mind and body--were meant to go on for ever!" + +Lord Maxwell's brows lifted. But it certainly was no wonder that Aldous +should find those eyes of hers superb? + +"Can you really imagine, my dear young lady," he asked her mildly, +"that if all property were divided to-morrow the force of natural +inequality would not have undone all the work the day after, and given +us back our poor?" + +The "newspaper cant" of this remark, as the Cravens would have put it, +brought a contemptuous look for an instant into the girl's face. She +began to talk eagerly and cleverly, showing a very fair training in the +catch words of the school, and a good memory--as one uncomfortable +person at the table soon perceived--for some of the leading arguments +and illustrations of a book of Venturist Essays which had lately been +much read and talked of in London. + +Then, irritated more and more by Lord Maxwell's gentle attention, and +the interjections he threw in from time to time, she plunged into +history, attacked the landowning class, spoke of the Statute of +Labourers, the Law of Settlement, the New Poor Law, and other great +matters, all in the same quick flow of glancing, picturesque speech, and +all with the same utter oblivion--so it seemed to her stiff indignant +hostess at the other end of the table--of the manners and modesty proper +to a young girl in a strange house, and that young girl Richard Boyce's +daughter! + +Aldous struck in now and then, trying to soothe her by supporting her to +a certain extent, and so divert the conversation. But Marcella was soon +too excited to be managed; and she had her say; a very strong say often +as far as language went: there could be no doubt of that. + +"Ah, well," said Lord Maxwell, wincing at last under some of her +phrases, in spite of his courteous _savoir-faire_, "I see you are of the +same opinion as a good man whose book I took up yesterday: 'The +landlords of England have always shown a mean and malignant passion for +profiting by the miseries of others?' Well, Aldous, my boy, we are +judged, you and I--no help for it!" + +The man whose temper and rule had made the prosperity of a whole country +side for nearly forty years, looked at his grandson with twinkling eyes. +Miss Raeburn was speechless. Lady Winterbourne was absently staring at +Marcella, a spot of red on each pale cheek. + +Then Marcella suddenly wavered, looked across at Aldous, and broke down. + +"Of course, you think me very ridiculous," she said, with a tremulous +change of tone. "I suppose I am. And I am as inconsistent as anybody--I +hate myself for it. Very often when anybody talks to me on the other +side, I am almost as much persuaded as I am by the Socialists: they +always told me in London I was the prey of the last speaker. But it +can't make any difference to one's _feeling_: nothing touches that." + +She turned to Lord Maxwell, half appealing-- + +"It is when I go down from our house to the village; when I see the +places the people live in; when one is comfortable in the carriage, and +one passes some woman in the rain, ragged and dirty and tired, trudging +back from her work; when one realises that they have no _rights_ when +they come to be old, nothing to look to but charity, for which _we_, who +have everything, expect them to be grateful; and when I know that every +one of them has done more useful work in a year of their life than I +shall ever do in the whole of mine, then I feel that the whole state of +things is _somehow_ wrong and topsy-turvy and _wicked_." Her voice rose +a little, every emphasis grew more passionate. "And if I don't do +something--the little such a person as I can--to alter it before I die, +I might as well never have lived." + +Everybody at table started. Lord Maxwell looked at Miss Raeburn, his +mouth twitching over the humour of his sister's dismay. Well! this was a +forcible young woman: was Aldous the kind of man to be able to deal +conveniently with such eyes, such emotions, such a personality? + +Suddenly Lady Winterbourne's deep voice broke in: + +"I never could say it half so well as that, Miss Boyce; but I agree with +you. I may say that I have agreed with you all my life." + +The girl turned to her, grateful and quivering. + +"At the same time," said Lady Winterbourne, relapsing with a long breath +from tragic emphasis into a fluttering indecision equally +characteristic, "as you say, one is inconsistent. I was poor once, +before Edward came to the title, and I did not at all like it--not at +all. And I don't wish my daughters to marry poor men; and what I should +do without a maid or a carriage when I wanted it, I cannot imagine. +Edward makes the most of these things. He tells me I have to choose +between things as they are, and a graduated income tax which would leave +nobody--not even the richest--more than four hundred a year." + +"Just enough, for one of those little houses on your station road," +said Lord Maxwell, laughing at her. "I think you might still have a +maid." + +"There, you laugh," said Lady Winterbourne, vehemently: "the men do. But +I tell you it is no laughing matter to feel that your _heart_ and +_conscience_ have gone over to the enemy. You want to feel with your +class, and you can't. Think of what used to happen in the old days. My +grandmother, who was as good and kind a woman as ever lived, was driving +home through our village one evening, and a man passed her, a labourer +who was a little drunk, and who did not take off his hat to her. She +stopped, made her men get down and had him put in the stocks there and +then--the old stocks were still standing on the village green. Then she +drove home to her dinner, and said her prayers no doubt that night with +more consciousness than usual of having done her duty. But if the power +of the stocks still remained to us, my dear friend"--and she laid her +thin old woman's hand, flashing with diamonds, on Lord Maxwell's +arm--"we could no longer do it, you or I. We have lost the sense of +_right_ in our place and position--at least I find I have. In the old +days if there was social disturbance the upper class could put it down +with a strong hand." + +"So they would still," said Lord Maxwell, drily, "if there were +violence. Once let it come to any real attack on property, and you will +see where all these Socialist theories will be. And of course it will +not be _we_--not the landowners or the capitalists--who will put it +down. It will be the hundreds and thousands of people with something to +lose--a few pounds in a joint-stock mill, a house of their own built +through a co-operative store, an acre or two of land stocked by their +own savings--it is they, I am afraid, who will put Miss Boyce's friends +down so far as they represent any real attack on property--and brutally, +too, I fear, if need be." + +"I dare say," exclaimed Marcella, her colour rising again. "I never can +see how we Socialists are to succeed. But how can any one _rejoice_ in +it? How can any one _wish_ that the present state of things should go +on? Oh! the horrors one sees in London. And down here, the cottages, and +the starvation wages, and the ridiculous worship of game, and then, of +course, the poaching--" + +Miss Raeburn pushed back her chair with a sharp noise. But her brother +was still peeling his pear, and no one else moved. Why did he let such +talk go on? It was too unseemly. + +Lord Maxwell only laughed. "My dear young lady," he said, much amused, +"are you even in the frame of mind to make a hero of a poacher? +Disillusion lies that way!--it does indeed. Why--Aldous!--I have been +hearing such tales from Westall this morning. I stopped at Corbett's +farm a minute or two on the way home, and met Westall at the gate coming +out. He says he and his men are being harried to death round about +Tudley End by a gang of men that come, he thinks, from Oxford, a driving +gang with a gig, who come at night or in the early morning--the smartest +rascals out, impossible to catch. But he says he thinks he will soon +have his hand on the local accomplice--a Mellor man--a man named Hurd: +not one of our labourers, I think." + +"Hurd!" cried Marcella, in dismay. "Oh no, it _can't_ be--impossible!" + +Lord Maxwell looked at her in astonishment. + +"Do you know any Hurds? I am afraid your father will find that Mellor is +a bad place for poaching." + +"If it is, it is because they are so starved and miserable," said +Marcella, trying hard to speak coolly, but excited almost beyond bounds +by the conversation and all that it implied. "And the Hurds--I don't +believe it a bit! But if it were true--oh! they have been in such +straits--they were out of work most of last winter; they are out of work +now, No one _could_ grudge them. I told you about them, didn't I?" she +said, suddenly glancing at Aldous. "I was going to ask you to-day, if +you could help them?" Her prophetess air had altogether left her. She +felt ready to cry; and nothing could have been more womanish than her +tone. + +He bent across to her. Miss Raeburn, invaded by a new and intolerable +sense of calamity, could have beaten him for what she read in his +shining eyes, and in the flush on his usually pale cheek. + +"Is he still out of work?" he said. "And you are unhappy about it? But I +am sure we can find him work: I am just now planning improvements at the +north end of the park. We can take him on; I am certain of it. You must +give me his full name and address." + +"And let him beware of Westall," said Lord Maxwell, kindly. "Give him a +hint, Miss Boyce, and nobody will rake up bygones. There is nothing I +dislike so much as rows about the shooting. All the keepers know that." + +"And of course," said Miss Raeburn, coldly, "if the family are in real +distress there are plenty of people at hand to assist them. The man need +not steal." + +"Oh, charity!" cried Marcella, her lip curling. + +"A worse crime than poaching, you think," said Lord Maxwell, laughing. +"Well, these are big subjects. I confess, after my morning with the +lunatics, I am half inclined, like Horace Walpole, to think everything +serious ridiculous. At any rate shall we see what light a cup of coffee +throws upon it? Agneta, shall we adjourn?" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Lord Maxwell closed the drawing-room door behind Aldous and Marcella. +Aldous had proposed to take their guest to see the picture gallery, +which was on the first floor, and had found her willing. + +The old man came back to the two other women, running his hand nervously +through his shock of white hair--a gesture which Miss Raeburn well knew +to show some disturbance of mind. + +"I should like to have your opinion of that young lady," he said +deliberately, taking a chair immediately in front of them. + +"I like her," said Lady Winterbourne, instantly. "Of course she is crude +and extravagant, and does not know quite what she may say. But all that +will improve. I like her, and shall make friends with her." + +Miss Raeburn threw up her hands in angry amazement. + +"Most forward, conceited, and ill-mannered," she said with energy. "I am +certain she has no proper principles, and as to what her religious views +may be, I dread to think of them! If _that_ is a specimen of the girls +of the present day--" + +"My dear," interrupted Lord Maxwell, laying a hand on her knee, "Lady +Winterbourne is an old friend, a very old friend. I think we may be +frank before her, and I don't wish you to say things you may regret. +Aldous has made up his mind to get that girl to marry him, if he can." + +Lady Winterbourne was silent, having in fact been forewarned by that odd +little interview with Aldous in her own drawing-room, when he had +suddenly asked her to call on Mrs. Boyce. But she looked at Miss +Raeburn. That lady took up her knitting, laid it down again, resumed it, +then broke out-- + +"How did it come about? Where have they been meeting?" + +"At the Hardens mostly. He seems to have been struck from the beginning, +and now there is no question as to his determination. But she may not +have him; he professes to be still entirely in the dark." + +"Oh!" cried Miss Raeburn, with a scornful shrug, meant to express all +possible incredulity. Then she began to knit fast and furiously, and +presently said in great agitation,-- + +"What can he be thinking of? She is very handsome, of course, but--" +then her words failed her. "When Aldous remembers his mother, how can +he?--undisciplined! self-willed! Why, she laid down the law to _you_, +Henry, as though you had nothing to do but to take your opinions from a +chit of a girl like her. Oh! no, no; I really can't; you must give me +time. And her father--the disgrace and trouble of it! I tell you, Henry, +it will bring misfortune!" + +Lord Maxwell was much troubled. Certainly he should have talked to +Agneta beforehand. But the fact was he had his cowardice, like other +men, and he had been trusting to the girl herself, to this beauty he +heard so much of, to soften the first shock of the matter to the present +mistress of the Court. + +"We will hope not, Agneta," he said gravely. "We will hope not. But you +must remember Aldous is no boy. I cannot coerce him. I see the +difficulties, and I have put them before him. But I am more favourably +struck with the girl than you are. And anyway, if it comes about, we +must make the best of it." + +Miss Raeburn made no answer, but pretended to set her heel, her needles +shaking. Lady Winterbourne was very sorry for her two old friends. + +"Wait a little," she said, laying her hand lightly on Miss Raeburn's. +"No doubt with her opinions she felt specially drawn to assert herself +to-day. One can imagine it very well of a girl, and a generous girl in +her position. You will see other sides of her, I am sure you will. And +you would never--you could never--make a breach with Aldous." + +"We must all remember," said Lord Maxwell, getting up and beginning to +walk up and down beside them, "that Aldous is in no way dependent upon +me. He has his own resources. He could leave us to-morrow. Dependent on +me! It is the other way, I think, Agneta--don't you?" + +He stopped and looked at her, and she returned his look in spite of +herself. A tear dropped on her stocking which she hastily brushed away. + +"Come, now," said Lord Maxwell, seating himself; "let us talk it over +rationally. Don't go, Lady Winterbourne." + +"Why, they may be settling it at this moment," cried Miss Raeburn, +half-choked, and feeling as though "the skies were impious not to fall." + +"No, no!" he said smiling. "Not yet, I think. But let us prepare +ourselves." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile the cause of all this agitation was sitting languidly in a +great Louis Quinze chair in the picture gallery upstairs, with Aldous +beside her. She had taken off her big hat as though it oppressed her, +and her black head lay against a corner of the chair in fine contrast to +its mellowed golds and crimsons. Opposite to her were two famous Holbein +portraits, at which she looked from time to time as though attracted to +them in spite of herself, by some trained sense which could not be +silenced. But she was not communicative, and Aldous was anxious. + +"Do you think I was rude to your grandfather?" she asked him at last +abruptly, cutting dead short some information she had stiffly asked him +for just before, as to the date of the gallery and its collection. + +"Rude!" he said startled. "Not at all. Not in the least. Do you suppose +we are made of such brittle stuff, we poor landowners, that we can't +stand an argument now and then?" + +"Your aunt thought I was rude," she said unheeding. "I think I was. But +a house like this excites me." And with a little reckless gesture she +turned her head over her shoulder and looked down the gallery. A +Velasquez was beside her; a great Titian over the way; a priceless +Rembrandt beside it. On her right hand stood a chair of carved steel, +presented by a German town to a German emperor, which, had not its +equal in Europe; the brocade draping the deep windows in front of her +had been specially made to grace a state visit to the house of Charles +II. + +"At Mellor," she went on, "we are old and tumble-down. The rain comes +in; there are no shutters to the big hall, and we can't afford to put +them--we can't afford even to have the pictures cleaned. I can pity the +house and nurse it, as I do the village. But here--" + +And looking about her, she gave a significant shrug. + +"What--our feathers again!" he said laughing. "But consider. Even you +allow that Socialism cannot begin to-morrow. There must be a transition +time, and clearly till the State is ready to take over the historical +houses and their contents, the present nominal owners of them are bound, +if they can, to take care of them. Otherwise the State will be some day +defrauded." + +She could not be insensible to the charm of his manner towards her. +There was in it, no doubt, the natural force and weight of the man older +and better informed than his companion, and amused every now and then by +her extravagance. But even her irritable pride could not take offence. +For the intellectual dissent she felt at bottom was tempered by a moral +sympathy of which the gentleness and warmth touched and moved her in +spite of herself. And now that they were alone he could express himself. +So long as they had been in company he had seemed to her, as often +before, shy, hesitating, and ineffective. But with the disappearance of +spectators, who represented to him, no doubt, the harassing claim of +the critical judgment, all was freer, more assured, more natural. + +She leant her chin on her hand, considering his plea. + +"Supposing you live long enough to see the State take it, shall you be +able to reconcile yourself to it? Or shall you feel it a wrong, and go +out a rebel?" + +A delightful smile was beginning to dance in the dark eyes. She was +recovering the tension of her talk with Lord Maxwell. + +"All must depend, you see, on the conditions--on how you and your +friends are going to manage the transition. You may persuade +me--conceivably--or you may eject me with violence." + +"Oh, no!" she interposed quickly. "There will be no violence. Only we +shall gradually reduce your wages. Of course, we can't do without +leaders--we don't want to do away with the captains of any industry, +agricultural or manufacturing. Only we think you overpaid. You must be +content with less." + +"Don't linger out the process," he said laughing, "otherwise it will be +painful. The people who are condemned to live in these houses before the +Commune takes to them, while your graduated land and income taxes are +slowly starving them out, will have a bad time of it." + +"Well, it will be your first bad time! Think of the labourer now, with +five children, of school age, on twelve shillings a week--think of the +sweated women in London." + +"Ah, think of them," he said in a different tone. + +There was a pause of silence. + +"No!" said Marcella, springing up. "Don't let's think of them. I get to +believe the whole thing a _pose_ in myself and other people. Let's go +back to the pictures. Do you think Titian 'sweated' his drapery +men--paid them starvation rates, and grew rich on their labour? Very +likely. All the same, that blue woman"--she pointed to a bending +Magdalen--"will be a joy to all time." + +They wandered through the gallery, and she was now all curiosity, +pleasure, and intelligent interest, as though she had thrown off an +oppression. Then they emerged into the upper corridor answering to the +corridor of the antiques below. This also was hung with pictures, +principally family portraits of the second order, dating back to the +Tudors--a fine series of berobed and bejewelled personages, wherein +clothes pre-dominated and character was unimportant. + +Marcella's eye was glancing along the brilliant colour of the wall, +taking rapid note of jewelled necks surmounting stiff embroidered +dresses, of the whiteness of lace ruffs, or the love-locks and gleaming +satin of the Caroline beauties, when it suddenly occurred to her,-- + +"I shall be their successor. This is already potentially mine. In a few +months, if I please, I shall be walking this house as mistress--its +future mistress, at any rate!" + +She was conscious of a quickening in the blood, a momentary blurring of +the vision. A whirlwind of fancies swept across her. She thought of +herself as the young peeress--Lord Maxwell after all was over +seventy--her own white neck blazing with diamonds, the historic jewels +of a great family--her will making law in this splendid house--in the +great domain surrounding it. What power--what a position--what a +romance! She, the out-at-elbows Marcella, the Socialist, the friend of +the people. What new lines of social action and endeavour she might +strike out! Miss Raeburn should not stop her. She caressed the thought +of the scandals in store for that lady. Only it annoyed her that her +dream of large things should be constantly crossed by this foolish +delight, making her feet dance--in this mere prospect of satin gowns and +fine jewels--of young and fęted beauty holding its brilliant court. If +she made such a marriage, it should be, it must be, on public grounds. +Her friends must have no right to blame her. + +Then she stole a glance at the tall, quiet gentleman beside her. A man +to be proud of from the beginning, and surely to be very fond of in +time. "He would always be my friend," she thought. "I could lead him. He +is very clever, one can see, and knows a great deal. But he admires what +I like. His position hampers him--but I could help him to get beyond it. +We might show the way to many!" + +"Will you come and see this room here?" he said, stopping suddenly, yet +with a certain hesitation in the voice. "It is my own sitting-room. +There are one or two portraits I should like to show you if you would +let me." + +She followed him with a rosy cheek, and they were presently standing in +front of the portrait of his mother. He spoke of his recollections of +his parents, quietly and simply, yet she felt through every nerve that +he was not the man to speak of such things to anybody in whom he did not +feel a very strong and peculiar interest. As he was talking a rush of +liking towards him came across her. How good he was--how affectionate +beneath his reserve--a woman might securely trust him with her future. + +So with every minute she grew softer, her eye gentler, and with each +step and word he seemed to himself to be carried deeper into the current +of joy. Intoxication was mounting within him, as her slim, warm youth +moved and breathed beside him; and it was natural that he should read +her changing behaviour for something other than it was. A man of his +type asks for no advance from the woman; the woman he loves does not +make them; but at the same time he has a natural self-esteem, and +believes readily in his power to win the return he is certain he will +deserve. + +"And this?" she said, moving restlessly towards his table, and taking up +the photograph of Edward Hallin. + +"Ah! that is the greatest friend I have in the world. But I am sure you +know the name. Mr. Hallin--Edward Hallin." + +She paused bewildered. + +"What! _the_ Mr. Hallin--_that_ was Edward Hallin--who settled the +Nottingham strike last month--who lectures so much in the East End, and +in the north?" + +"The same. We are old college friends. I owe him much, and in all his +excitements he does not forget old friends. There, you see--" and he +opened a blotting book and pointed smiling to some closely written +sheets lying within it--"is my last letter to him. I often write two of +those in the week, and he to me. We don't agree on a number of things, +but that doesn't matter." + +"What can you find to write about?" she said wondering. "I thought +nobody wrote letters nowadays, only notes. Is it books, or people?" + +"Both, when it pleases us!" How soon, oh! ye favouring gods, might he +reveal to her the part she herself played in those closely covered +sheets? "But he writes to me on social matters chiefly. His whole heart, +as you probably know, is in certain experiments and reforms in which he +sometimes asks me to help him." + +Marcella opened her eyes. These were new lights. She began to recall all +that she had heard of young Hallin's position in the Labour movement; +his personal magnetism and prestige; his power as a speaker. Her +Socialist friends, she remembered, thought him in the way--a force, but +a dangerous one. He was for the follies of compromise--could not be got +to disavow the principle of private property, while ready to go great +lengths in certain directions towards collective action and corporate +control. The "stalwarts" of _her_ sect would have none of him as a +leader, while admitting his charm as a human being--a charm she +remembered to have heard discussed with some anxiety among her Venturist +friends. But for ordinary people he went far enough. Her father, she +remembered, had dubbed him an "Anarchist" in connection with the terms +he had been able to secure for the Nottingham strikers, as reported in +the newspapers. It astonished her to come across the man again as Mr. +Raeburn's friend. + +They talked about Hallin a little, and about Aldous's Cambridge +acquaintance with him. Then Marcella, still nervous, went to look at the +bookshelves, and found herself in front of that working collection of +books on economics which Aldous kept in his own room under his hand, by +way of guide to the very fine special collection he was gradually making +in the library downstairs. + +Here again were surprises for her. Aldous had never made the smallest +claim to special knowledge on all those subjects she had so often +insisted on making him discuss. He had been always tentative and +diffident, deferential even so far as her own opinions were concerned. +And here already was the library of a student. All the books she had +ever read or heard discussed were here--and as few among many. The +condition of them, moreover, the signs of close and careful reading she +noticed in them, as she took them out, abashed her: _she_ had never +learnt to read in this way. It was her first contact with an exact and +arduous culture. She thought of how she had instructed Lord Maxwell at +luncheon. No doubt he shared his grandson's interests. Her cheek burned +anew; this time because it seemed to her that she had been ridiculous. + +"I don't know why you never told me you took a particular interest in +these subjects," she said suddenly, turning round upon him +resentfully--she had just laid down, of all things, a volume of +Venturist essays. "You must have thought I talked a great deal of +nonsense at luncheon." + +"Why!--I have always been delighted to find you cared for such things +and took an interest in them. How few women do!" he said quite simply, +opening his eyes. "Do you know these three pamphlets? They were +privately printed, and are very rare." + +He took out a book and showed it to her as one does to a comrade and +equal--as he might have done to Edward Hallin. But something was jarred +in her--conscience or self-esteem--and she could not recover her sense +of heroineship. She answered absently, and when he returned the book to +the shelf she said that it was time for her to go, and would he kindly +ask for her maid, who was to walk with her? + +"I will ring for her directly," he said. "But you will let me take you +home?" Then he added hurriedly, "I have some business this afternoon +with a man who lives in your direction." + +She assented a little stiffly--but with an inward thrill. His words and +manner seemed suddenly to make the situation unmistakable. Among the +books it had been for the moment obscured. + +He rang for his own servant, and gave directions about the maid. Then +they went downstairs that Marcella might say good-bye. + +Miss Raeburn bade her guest farewell, with a dignity which her small +person could sometimes assume, not unbecomingly. Lady Winterbourne held +the girl's hand a little, looked her out of countenance, and insisted on +her promising again to come to Winterbourne Park the following Tuesday. +Then Lord Maxwell, with old-fashioned politeness, made Marcella take his +arm through the hall. + +"You must come and see us again," he said smiling; "though we are such +belated old Tories, we are not so bad as we sound." + +And under cover of his mild banter he fixed a penetrating attentive look +upon her. Flushed and embarrassed! Had it indeed been done already? or +would Aldous settle it on this walk? To judge from his manner and hers, +the thing was going with rapidity. Well, well, there was nothing for it +but to hope for the best. + +On their way through the hall she stopped him, her hand still in his +arm. Aldous was in front, at the door, looking for a light shawl she had +brought with her. + +"I should like to thank you," she said shyly, "about the Hurds. It will +be very kind of you and Mr. Raeburn to find them work." + +Lord Maxwell was pleased; and with the usual unfair advantage of beauty +her eyes and curving lips gave her little advance a charm infinitely +beyond what any plainer woman could have commanded. + +"Oh, don't thank me!" he said cheerily. "Thank Aldous. He does all that +kind of thing. And if in your good works you want any help we can give, +ask it, my dear young lady. My old comrade's grand-daughter will always +find friends in this house." + +Lord Maxwell would have been very much astonished to hear himself making +this speech six weeks before. As it was, he handed her over gallantly to +Aldous, and stood on the steps looking after them in a stir of mind not +unnoted by the confidential butler who held the door open behind him. +Would Aldous insist on carrying his wife off to the dower house on the +other side of the estate? or would they be content to stay in the old +place with the old people? And if so, how were that girl and his sister +to get on? As for himself, he was of a naturally optimist temper, and +ever since the night of his first interview with Aldous on the subject, +he had been more and more inclining to take a cheerful view. He liked to +see a young creature of such evident character and cleverness holding +opinions and lines of her own. It was infinitely better than mere +nonentity. Of course, she was now extravagant and foolish, perhaps vain +too. But that would mend with time--mend, above all, with her position +as Aldous's wife. Aldous was a strong man--how strong, Lord Maxwell +suspected that this impetuous young lady hardly knew. No, he thought the +family might be trusted to cope with her when once they got her among +them. And she would certainly be an ornament to the old house. + +Her father of course was, and would be, the real difficulty, and the +blight which had descended on the once honoured name. But a man so +conscious of many kinds of power as Lord Maxwell could not feel much +doubt as to his own and his grandson's competence to keep so poor a +specimen of humanity as Richard Boyce in his place. How wretchedly ill, +how feeble, both in body and soul, the fellow had looked when he and +Winterbourne met him! + +The white-haired owner of the Court walked back slowly to his library, +his hands in his pockets, his head bent in cogitation. Impossible to +settle to the various important political letters lying on his table, +and bearing all of them on that approaching crisis in the spring which +must put Lord Maxwell and his friends in power. He was over seventy, but +his old blood quickened within him as he thought of those two on this +golden afternoon, among the beech woods. How late Aldous had left all +these experiences! His grandfather, by twenty, could have shown him the +way. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile the two in question were walking along the edge of the hill +rampart overlooking the plain, with the road on one side of them, and +the falling beech woods on the other. They were on a woodland path, just +within the trees, sheltered, and to all intents and purposes alone. The +maid, with leisurely discretion, was following far behind them on the +high road. + +Marcella, who felt at moments as though she could hardly breathe, by +reason of a certain tumult of nerve, was yet apparently bent on +maintaining a conversation without breaks. As they diverged from the +road into the wood-path, she plunged into the subject of her companion's +election prospects. How many meetings did he find that he must hold in +the month? What places did he regard as his principal strongholds? She +was told that certain villages, which she named, were certain to go +Radical, whatever might be the Tory promises. As to a well-known +Conservative League, which was very strong in the country, and to which +all the great ladies, including Lady Winterbourne, belonged, was he +actually going to demean himself by accepting its support? How was it +possible to defend the bribery, buns, and beer by which it won its +corrupting way? + +Altogether, a quick fire of questions, remarks, and sallies, which +Aldous met and parried as best he might, comforting himself all the time +by thought of those deeper and lonelier parts of the wood which lay +before them. At last she dropped out, half laughing, half defiant, words +which arrested him,-- + +"Well, I shall know what the other side think of their prospects very +soon. Mr. Wharton is coming to lunch with us to-morrow." + +"Harry Wharton!" he said astonished. "But Mr. Boyce is not supporting +him. Your father, I think, is Conservative?" + +One of Dick Boyce's first acts as owner of Mellor, when social +rehabilitation had still looked probable to him, had been to send a +contribution to the funds of the League aforesaid, so that Aldous had +public and conspicuous grounds for his remark. + +"Need one measure everything by politics?" she asked him a little +disdainfully. "Mayn't one even feed a Radical?" + +He winced visibly a moment, touched in his philosopher's pride. + +"You remind me," he said, laughing and reddening--"and justly--that an +election perverts all one's standards and besmirches all one's morals. +Then I suppose Mr. Wharton is an old friend?" + +"Papa never saw him before last week," she said carelessly. "Now he +talks of asking him to stay some time, and says that, although he won't +vote for him, he hopes that he will make a good fight." + +Raeburn's brow contracted in a puzzled frown. + +"He will make an excellent fight," he said rather shortly. "Dodgson +hardly hopes to get in. Harry Wharton is a most taking speaker, a very +clever fellow, and sticks at nothing in the way of promises. Ah, you +will find him interesting, Miss Boyce! He has a co-operative farm on his +Lincolnshire property. Last year he started a Labour paper--which I +believe you read. I have heard you quote it. He believes in all that you +hope for--great increase in local government and communal control--the +land for the people--graduated income-tax--the extinction of landlord +and capitalist as soon as may be--_e tutti quanti_. He talks with great +eloquence and ability. In our villages I find he is making way every +week. The people think his manners perfect. ''Ee 'as a way wi' un,' said +an old labourer to me last week. 'If 'ee wor to coe the wild birds, I do +believe, Muster Raeburn, they'd coom to un!'" + +"Yet you dislike him!" said Marcella, a daring smile dancing on the dark +face she turned to him. "One can hear it in every word you say." + +He hesitated, trying, even at the moment that an impulse of jealous +alarm which astonished himself had taken possession of him, to find the +moderate and measured phrase. + +"I have known him from a boy," he said. "He is a connection of the +Levens, and used to be always there in old days. He is very brilliant +and very gifted--" + +"Your 'but' must be very bad," she threw in, "it is so long in coming." + +"Then I will say, whatever opening it gives you," he replied with +spirit, "that I admire him without respecting him." + +"Who ever thought otherwise of a clever opponent?" she cried. "It is the +stock formula." + +The remark stung, all the more because Aldous was perfectly conscious +that there was much truth in her implied charge of prejudice. He had +never been very capable of seeing this particular man in the dry light +of reason, and was certainly less so than before, since it had been +revealed to him that Wharton and Mr. Boyce's daughter were to be +brought, before long, into close neighbourhood. + +"I am sorry that I seem to you such a Pharisee," he said, turning upon +her a look which had both pain and excitement in it. + +She was silent, and they walked on a few yards without speaking. The +wood had thickened around them: The high road was no longer visible. No +sound of wheels or footsteps reached them. The sun struck freely through +the beech-trees, already half bared, whitening the grey trunks at +intervals to an arrowy distinctness and majesty, or kindling the slopes +of red and freshly fallen leaves below into great patches of light and +flame. Through the stems, as always, the girdling blues of the plain, +and in their faces a gay and buoyant breeze, speaking rather of spring +than autumn. Robins, "yellow autumn's nightingales," sang in the hedge +to their right. In the pause between them, sun, wind, birds made their +charm felt. Nature, perpetual chorus as she is to man, stole in, urging, +wooing, defining. Aldous's heart leapt to the spur of a sudden resolve. + +Instinctively she turned to him at the same moment as he to her, and +seeing his look she paled a little. + +"Do you guess at all why it hurts me to jar with you?" he said--finding +his words in a rush, he did not know how--"Why every syllable of yours +matters to me? It is because I have hopes--dreams--which have become my +life! If you could accept this--this--feeling--this devotion--which has +grown up in me--if you could trust yourself to me--you should have no +cause, I think--ever--to think me hard or narrow towards any person, any +enthusiasm for which you had sympathy. May I say to you all that is in +my mind--or--or--am I presuming?" + +She looked away from him, crimson again. A great wave of +exultation--boundless, intoxicating--swept through her. Then it was +checked by a nobler feeling--a quick, penitent sense of his nobleness. + +"You don't know me," she said hurriedly: "you think you do. But I am all +odds and ends. I should annoy--wound--disappoint you." + +His quiet grey eyes flamed. + +"Come and sit down here, on these dry roots," he said, taking already +joyous command of her. "We shall be undisturbed. I have so much to say!" + +She obeyed trembling. She felt no passion, but the strong thrill of +something momentous and irreparable, together with a swelling +pride--pride in such homage from such a man. + +He led her a few steps down the slope, found a place for her against a +sheltering trunk, and threw himself down beside her. As he looked up at +the picture she made amid the autumn branches, at her bent head, her +shy moved look, her white hand lying ungloved on her black dress, +happiness overcame him. He took her hand, found she did not resist, drew +it to him, and clasping it in both his, bent his brow, his lips upon it. +It shook in his hold, but she was passive. The mixture of emotion and +self-control she showed touched him deeply. In his chivalrous modesty he +asked for nothing else, dreamt of nothing more. + +Half an hour later they were still in the same spot. There had been much +talk between them, most of it earnest, but some of it quite gay, broken +especially by her smiles. Her teasing mood, however, had passed away. +She was instead composed and dignified, like one conscious that life had +opened before her to great issues. + +Yet she had flinched often before that quiet tone of eager joy in which +he had described his first impressions of her, his surprise at finding +in her ideals, revolts, passions, quite unknown to him, so far, in the +women of his own class. Naturally he suppressed, perhaps he had even +forgotten, the critical amusement and irritation she had often excited +in him. He remembered, he spoke only of sympathy, delight, pleasure--of +his sense, as it were, of slaking some long-felt moral thirst at the +well of her fresh feeling. So she had attracted him first,--by a certain +strangeness and daring--by what she _said_-- + +"Now--and above all by what you _are_!" he broke out suddenly, moved out +of his even speech. "Oh! it is too much to believe--to dream of! Put +your hand in mine, and say again that it is really _true_ that we two +are to go forward together--that you will be always there to inspire--to +help--" + +And as she gave him the hand, she must also let him--in this first +tremor of a pure passion--take the kiss which was now his by right. That +she should flush and draw away from him as she did, seemed to him the +most natural thing in the world, and the most maidenly. + +Then, as their talk wandered on, bit by bit, he gave her all his +confidence, and she had felt herself honoured in receiving it. She +understood now at least something--a first fraction--of that inner life, +masked so well beneath his quiet English capacity and unassuming manner. +He had spoken of his Cambridge years, of his friend, of the desire of +his heart to make his landowner's power and position contribute +something towards that new and better social order, which he too, like +Hallin--though more faintly and intermittently--believed to be +approaching. The difficulties of any really new departure were +tremendous; he saw them more plainly and more anxiously than Hallin. Yet +he believed that he had thought his way to some effective reform on his +grandfather's large estate, and to some useful work as one of a group of +like-minded men in Parliament. She must have often thought him careless +and apathetic towards his great trust. But he was not so--not +careless--but paralysed often by intellectual difficulty, by the claims +of conflicting truths. + +She, too, explained herself most freely, most frankly. She would have +nothing on her conscience. + +"They will say, of course," she said with sudden nervous abruptness, +"that I am marrying you for wealth and position. And in a sense I shall +be. No! don't stop me! I should not marry you if--if--I did not like +you. But you can give me--you have--great opportunities. I tell you +frankly, I shall enjoy them and use them. Oh! do think well before you +do it. I shall _never_ be a meek, dependent wife. A woman, to my mind, +is bound to cherish her own individuality sacredly, married or not +married. Have you thought that I may often think it right to do things +you disagree with, that may scandalise your relations?" + +"You shall be free," he said steadily. "I have thought of it all." + +"Then there is my father," she said, turning her head away. "He is +ill--he wants pity, affection. I will accept no bond that forces me to +disown him." + +"Pity and affection are to me the most sacred things in the world," he +said, kissing her hand gently. "Be content--be at rest--my beautiful +lady!" + +There was again silence, full of thought on her side, of heavenly +happiness on his. The sun had sunk almost to the verge of the plain, the +wind had freshened. + +"We _must_ go home," she said, springing up. "Taylor must have got there +an hour ago. Mother will be anxious, and I must--I must tell them." + +"I will leave you at the gate," he suggested as they walked briskly; +"and you will ask your father, will you not, if I may see him to-night +after dinner?" + +The trees thinned again in front of them, and the path curved inward to +the front. Suddenly a man, walking on the road, diverged into the path +and came towards them. He was swinging a stick and humming. His head was +uncovered, and his light chestnut curls were blown about his forehead by +the wind. Marcella, looking up at the sound of the steps, had a sudden +impression of something young and radiant, and Aldous stopped with an +exclamation. + +The new-comer perceived them, and at sight of Aldous smiled, and +approached, holding out his hand. + +"Why, Raeburn, I seem to have missed you twenty times a day this last +fortnight. We have been always on each other's tracks without meeting. +Yet I think, if we had met, we could have kept our tempers." + +"Miss Boyce, I think you do not know Mr. Wharton," said Aldous, stiffly. +"May I introduce you?" + +The young man's blue eyes, all alert and curious at the mention of +Marcella's name, ran over the girl's face and form. Then he bowed with a +certain charming exaggeration--like an eighteenth-century beau with his +hand upon his heart--and turned back with them a step or two towards the +road. + + + + + +BOOK II. + + +"A woman has enough to govern wisely +Her own demeanours, passions and divisions." + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +On a certain night in the December following the engagement of Marcella +Boyce to Aldous Raeburn, the woods and fields of Mellor, and all the +bare rampart of chalk down which divides the Buckinghamshire plain from +the forest upland of the Chilterns lay steeped in moonlight, and in the +silence which belongs to intense frost. + +Winter had set in before the leaf had fallen from the last oaks; already +there had been a fortnight or more of severe cold, with hardly any snow. +The pastures were delicately white; the ditches and the wet furrows in +the ploughed land, the ponds on Mellor common, and the stagnant pool in +the midst of the village, whence it drew its main water supply, were +frozen hard. But the ploughed chalk land itself lay a dull grey beside +the glitter of the pastures, and the woods under the bright sun of the +days dropped their rime only to pass once more with the deadly cold of +the night under the fantastic empire of the frost. Every day the veil of +morning mist rose lightly from the woods, uncurtaining the wintry +spectacle, and melting into the brilliant azure of an unflecked sky; +every night the moon rose without a breath of wind, without a cloud; and +all the branch-work of the trees, where they stood in the open fields, +lay reflected clean and sharp on the whitened ground. The bitter cold +stole into the cottages, marking the old and feeble with the touch of +Azrael; while without, in the field solitudes, bird and beast cowered +benumbed and starving in hole and roosting place. + +How still it was--this midnight--on the fringe of the woods! Two men +sitting concealed among some bushes at the edge of Mr. Boyce's largest +cover, and bent upon a common errand, hardly spoke to each other, so +strange and oppressive was the silence. One was Jim Hurd; the other was +a labourer, a son of old Patton of the almshouses, himself a man of +nearly sixty, with a small wizened face showing sharp and white to-night +under his slouched hat. + +They looked out over a shallow cup of treeless land to a further bound +of wooded hill, ending towards the north in a bare bluff of down shining +steep under the moon. They were in shadow, and so was most of the wide +dip of land before them; but through a gap to their right, beyond the +wood, the moonbeams poured, and the farms nestling under the opposite +ridge, the plantations ranging along it, and the bald beacon hill in +which it broke to the plain, were all in radiant light. + +Not a stir of life anywhere. Hurd put up his hand to his ear, and +leaning forward listened intently. Suddenly--a vibration, a dull +thumping sound in the soil of the bank immediately beside him. He +started, dropped his hand, and, stooping, laid his ear to the ground. + +"Gi' us the bag," he said to his companion, drawing himself upright. +"You can hear 'em turnin' and creepin' as plain as anything. Now then, +you take these and go t' other side." + +He handed over a bundle of rabbit nets. Patton, crawling on hands and +knees, climbed over the low overgrown bank on which the hedge stood into +the precincts of the wood itself. The state of the hedge, leaving the +cover practically open and defenceless along its whole boundary, showed +plainly enough that it belonged to the Mellor estate. But the field +beyond was Lord Maxwell's. + +Hurd applied himself to netting the holes on his own side, pushing the +brambles and undergrowth aside with the sure hand of one who had already +reconnoitred the ground. Then he crept over to Patton to see that all +was right on the other side, came back, and went for the ferrets, of +whom he had four in a closely tied bag. + +A quarter of an hour of intense excitement followed. In all, five +rabbits bolted--three on Hurd's side, two on Patton's. It was all the +two men could do to secure their prey, manage the ferrets, and keep a +watch on the holes. Hurd's great hands--now fixing the pegs that held +the nets, now dealing death to the entangled rabbit, whose neck he broke +in an instant by a turn of the thumb, now winding up the line that held +the ferret--seemed to be everywhere. + +At last a ferret "laid up," the string attached to him having either +slipped or broken, greatly to the disgust of the men, who did not want +to be driven either to dig, which made a noise and took time, or to lose +their animal. The rabbits made no more sign, and it was tolerably +evident that they had got as much as they were likely to get out of +that particular "bury." + +Hurd thrust his arm deep into the hole where he had put the ferret. +"Ther's summat in the way," he declared at last. "Mos' likely a dead un. +Gi' me the spade." + +He dug away the mouth of the hole, making as little noise as possible, +and tried again. + +"'Ere ee be," he cried, clutching at something, drew it out, exclaimed +in disgust, flung it away, and pounced upon a rabbit which on the +removal of the obstacle followed like a flash, pursued by the lost +ferret. Hurd caught the rabbit by the neck, held it by main force, and +killed it; then put the ferret into his pocket. "Lord!" he said, wiping +his brow, "they do come suddent." + +What he had pulled out was a dead cat; a wretched puss, who on some +happy hunt had got itself wedged in the hole, and so perished there +miserably. He and Patton stooped over it wondering; then Hurd walked +some paces along the bank, looking warily out to the right of him across +the open country all the time. He threw the poor malodorous thing far +into the wood and returned. + +The two men lit their pipes under the shelter of the bushes, and rested +a bit, well hidden, but able to see out through a break in the bit of +thicket. + +"Six on 'em," said Hurd, looking at the stark creatures beside him. "I +be too done to try another bury. I'll set a snare or two, an' be off +home." + +Patton puffed silently. He was wondering whether Hurd would give him one +rabbit or two. Hurd had both "plant" and skill, and Patton would have +been glad enough to come for one. Still he was a plaintive man with a +perpetual grievance, and had already made up his mind that Hurd would +treat him shabbily to-night, in spite of many past demonstrations that +his companion was on the whole of a liberal disposition. + +"You bin out workin' a day's work already, han't yer?" he said +presently. He himself was out of work, like half the village, and had +been presented by his wife with boiled swede for supper. But he knew +that Hurd had been taken on at the works at the Court, where the new +drive was being made, and a piece of ornamental water enlarged and +improved--mainly for the sake of giving employment in bad times. He, +Patton, and some of his mates, had tried to get a job there. But the +steward had turned them back. The men off the estate had first claim, +and there was not room for all of them. Yet Hurd had been taken on, +which had set people talking. + +Hurd nodded, and said nothing. He was not disposed to be communicative +on the subject of his employment at the Court. + +"An' it be true as _she_ be goin' to marry Muster Raeburn?" + +Patton jerked his head towards the right, where above a sloping hedge +the chimneys of Mellor and the tops of the Mellor cedars, some two or +three fields away, showed distinct against the deep night blue. + +Hurd nodded again, and smoked diligently. Patton, nettled by this +parsimony of speech, made the inward comment that his companion was "a +deep un." The village was perfectly aware of the particular friendship +shown by Miss Boyce to the Hurds. He was goaded into trying a more +stinging topic. + +"Westall wor braggin' last night at Bradsell's"--(Bradsell was the +landlord of "The Green Man" at Mellor)--"ee said as how they'd taken you +on at the Court--but that didn't prevent 'em knowin' as you was a bad +lot. Ee said _ee_ 'ad 'is eye on yer--ee 'ad warned yer twoice last +year--" + +"That's a lie!" said Hurd, removing his pipe an instant and putting it +back again. + +Patton looked more cheerful. + +"Well, ee spoke cru'l. Ee was certain, ee said, as you could tell a +thing or two about them coverts at Tudley End, if the treuth were known. +You wor allus a loafer, an' a loafer you'd be. Yer might go snivellin' +to Miss Boyce, ee said, but yer wouldn't do no honest work--ee said--not +if yer could help it--that's what ee said." + +"Devil!" said Hurd between his teeth, with a quick lift of all his great +misshapen chest. He took his pipe out of his mouth, rammed it down +fiercely with his thumb, and put it in his pocket. + +"Look out!" exclaimed Patton with a start. + +A whistle!--clear and distinct--from the opposite side of the hollow. +Then a man's figure, black and motionless an instant on the whitened +down, with a black speck beside it; lastly, another figure higher up +along the hill, in quick motion towards the first, with other specks +behind it. The poachers instantly understood that it was Westall--whose +particular beat lay in this part of the estate--signalling to his night +watcher, Charlie Dynes, and that the two men would be on them in no +time. It was the work of a few seconds to efface as far as possible the +traces of their raid, to drag some thick and trailing brambles which +hung near over the mouth of the hole where there had been digging, to +catch up the ferrets and game, and to bid Hurd's lurcher to come to +heel. The two men crawled up the ditch with their burdens as far away to +leeward as they could get from the track by which the keepers would +cross the field. The ditch was deeply overgrown, and when the +approaching voices warned them to lie close, they crouched under a dense +thicket of brambles and overhanging bushes, afraid of nothing but the +noses of the keepers' dogs. + +Dogs and men, however, passed unsuspecting. + +"Hold still!" said Hurd, checking Patton's first attempt to move. "He'll +be back again mos' like. It's 'is dodge." + +And sure enough in twenty minutes or so the men reappeared. They +retraced their steps from the further corner of the field, where some +preserves of Lord Maxwell's approached very closely to the big Mellor +wood, and came back again along the diagonal path within fifty yards or +so of the men in the ditch. + +In the stillness the poachers could hear Westall's harsh and peremptory +voice giving some orders to his underling, or calling to the dogs, who +had scattered a little in the stubble. Hurd's own dog quivered beside +him once or twice. + +Then steps and voices faded into the distance and all was safe. + +The poachers crept out grinning, and watched the keepers' progress +along the hill-face, till they disappeared into the Maxwell woods. + +"_Ee_ be sold again--blast 'im!" said Hurd, with a note of quite +disproportionate exultation in his queer, cracked voice. "Now I'll set +them snares. But you'd better git home." + +Patton took the hint, gave a grunt of thanks as his companion handed him +two rabbits, which he stowed away in the capacious pockets of his +poacher's coat, and slouched off home by as sheltered and roundabout a +way as possible. + +Hurd, left to himself, stowed his nets and other apparatus in a hidden +crevice of the bank, and strolled along to set his snares in three +hare-runs, well known to him, round the further side of the wood. + +Then he waited impatiently for the striking of the clock in Mellor +church. The cold was bitter, but his night's work was not over yet, and +he had had very good reasons for getting rid of Patton. + +Almost immediately the bell rang out, the echo rolling round the bend of +the hills in the frosty silence. Half-past twelve Hurd scrambled over +the ditch, pushed his way through the dilapidated hedge, and began to +climb the ascent of the wood. The outskirts of it were filled with a +thin mixed growth of sapling and underwood, but the high centre of it +was crowned by a grove of full-grown beeches, through which the moon, +now at its height, was playing freely, as Hurd clambered upwards amid +the dead leaves just freshly strewn, as though in yearly festival, about +their polished trunks. Such infinite grace and strength in the line work +of the branches!--branches not bent into gnarled and unexpected +fantasies, like those of the oak, but gathered into every conceivable +harmony of upward curve and sweep, rising all together, black against +the silvery light, each tree related to and completing its neighbour, as +though the whole wood, so finely rounded on itself and to the hill, were +but one majestic conception of a master artist. + +But Hurd saw nothing of this as he plunged through the leaves. He was +thinking that it was extremely likely a man would be on the look-out for +him to-night under the big beeches--a man with some business to propose +to him. A few words dropped in his ear at a certain public-house the +night before had seemed to him to mean this, and he had accordingly sent +Patton out of the way. + +But when he got to the top of the hill no one was to be seen or heard, +and he sat him down on a fallen log to smoke and wait awhile. + +He had no sooner, however, taken his seat than he shifted it uneasily, +turning himself round so as to look in the other direction. For in front +of him, as he was first placed, there was a gap in the trees, and over +the lower wood, plainly visible and challenging attention, rose the dark +mass of Mellor House. And the sight of Mellor suggested reflections just +now that were not particularly agreeable to Jim Hurd. + +He had just been poaching Mr. Boyce's rabbits without any sort of +scruple. But the thought of _Miss_ Boyce was not pleasant to him when he +was out on these nightly raids. + +Why had she meddled? He bore her a queer sort of grudge for it. He had +just settled down to the bit of cobbling which, together with his wife's +plait, served him for a blind, and was full of a secret excitement as to +various plans he had in hand for "doing" Westall, combining a maximum of +gain for the winter with a maximum of safety, when Miss Boyce walked in, +radiant with the news that there was employment for him at the Court, on +the new works, whenever he liked to go and ask for it. + +And then she had given him an odd look. + +"And I was to pass you on a message from Lord Maxwell, Hurd," she had +said: "'You tell him to keep out of Westall's way for the future, and +bygones shall be bygones.' Now, I'm not going to ask what that means. If +you've been breaking some of our landlords' law, I'm not going to say +I'm shocked. I'd alter the law to-morrow, if I could!--you know I would. +But I do say you're a fool if you go on with it, now you've got good +work for the winter; you must please remember your wife and children." + +And there he had sat like a log, staring at her--both he and Minta not +knowing where to look, or how to speak. Then at last his wife had broken +out, crying: + +"Oh, miss! we should ha starved--" + +And Miss Boyce had stopped her in a moment, catching her by the hand. +Didn't she know it? Was she there to preach to them? Only Hurd must +promise not to do it any more, for his wife's sake. + +And he--stammering--left without excuse or resource, either against her +charge, or the work she offered him--had promised her, and promised her, +moreover--in his trepidation--with more fervency than he at all liked +to remember. + +For about a fortnight, perhaps, he had gone to the Court by day, and had +kept indoors by night. Then, just as the vagabond passions, the Celtic +instincts, so long repressed, so lately roused, were goading at him +again, he met Westall in the road--Westall, who looked him over from top +to toe with an insolent smile, as much as to say, "Well, my man, we've +got the whip hand of you now!" That same night he crept out again in the +dark and the early morning, in spite of all Minta's tears and scolding. + +Well, what matter? As towards the rich and the law, he had the morals of +the slave, who does not feel that he has had any part in making the +rules he is expected to keep, and breaks them when he can with glee. It +made him uncomfortable, certainly, that Miss Boyce should come in and +out of their place as she did, should be teaching Willie to read, and +bringing her old dresses to make up for Daisy and Nellie, while he was +making a fool of her in this way. Still he took it all as it came. One +sensation wiped out another. + +Besides, Miss Boyce had, after all, much part in this double life of +his. Whenever he was at home, sitting over the fire with a pipe, he read +those papers and things she had brought him in the summer. He had not +taken much notice of them at first. Now he spelled them out again and +again. He had always thought "them rich people took advantage of yer." +But he had never supposed, somehow, they were such thieves, such mean +thieves, as it appeared, they were. A curious ferment filled his +restless, inconsequent brain. The poor were downtrodden, but they were +coming to their rights. The land and its creatures were for the people! +not for the idle rich. Above all, Westall was a devil, and must be put +down. For the rest, if he could have given words to experience, he would +have said that since he began to go out poaching he had burst his prison +and found himself. A life which was not merely endurance pulsed in him. +The scent of the night woods, the keenness of the night air, the tracks +and ways of the wild creatures, the wiles by which he slew them, the +talents and charms of his dog Bruno--these things had developed in him +new aptitudes both of mind and body, which were in themselves +exhilaration. He carried his dwarf's frame more erect, breathed from an +ampler chest. As for his work at the Court, he thought of it often with +impatience and disgust. It was a more useful blind than his cobbling, or +he would have shammed illness and got quit of it. + +"Them were sharp uns that managed that business at Tudley End!" He fell +thinking about it and chuckling over it as he smoked. Two of Westall's +best coverts swept almost clear just before the big shoot in +November!--and all done so quick and quiet, before you could say "Jack +Robinson." Well, there was plenty more yet, more woods, and more birds. +There were those coverts down there, on the Mellor side of the +hollow--they had been kept for the last shoot in January. Hang him! why +wasn't that fellow up to time? + +But no one came, and he must sit on, shivering and smoking, a sack +across his shoulders. As the stir of nerve and blood caused by the +ferreting subsided, his spirits began to sink. Mists of Celtic +melancholy, perhaps of Celtic superstition, gained upon him. He found +himself glancing from side to side, troubled by the noises in the wood. +A sad light wind crept about the trunks like a whisper; the owls called +overhead; sometimes there was a sudden sharp rustle or fall of a branch +that startled him. Yet he knew every track, every tree in that wood. Up +and down that field outside he had followed his father at the plough, a +little sickly object of a lad, yet seldom unhappy, so long as childhood +lasted, and his mother's temper could be fled from, either at school or +in the fields. Under that boundary hedge to the right he had lain +stunned and bleeding all a summer afternoon, after old Westall had +thrashed him, his heart scorched within him by the sense of wrong and +the craving for revenge. On that dim path leading down the slope of the +wood, George Westall had once knocked him down for disturbing a sitting +pheasant. He could see himself falling--the tall, powerful lad standing +over him with a grin. + +Then, inconsequently, he began to think of his father's death. He made a +good end did the old man. "Jim, my lad, the Lord's verra merciful," or +"Jim, you'll look after Ann." Ann was the only daughter. Then a sigh or +two, and a bit of sleep, and it was done. + +And everybody must go the same way, must come to the same stopping of +the breath, the same awfulness--in a life of blind habit--of a moment +that never had been before and never could be again? He did not put it +to these words, but the shudder that is in the thought for all of us, +seized him. He was very apt to think of dying, to ponder in his secret +heart _how_ it would be, and when. And always it made him very soft +towards Minta and the children. Not only did the _life_ instinct cling +to them, to the warm human hands and faces hemming him in and protecting +him from that darkness beyond with its shapes of terror. But to think of +himself as sick, and gasping to his end, like his father, was to put +himself back in his old relation to his wife, when they were first +married. He might cross Minta now, but if he came to lie sick, he could +see himself there, in the future, following her about with his eyes, and +thanking her, and doing all she told him, just as he'd used to do. He +couldn't die without her to help him through. The very idea of her being +taken first, roused in him a kind of spasm--a fierceness, a clenching of +the hands. But all the same, in this poaching matter, he must have, his +way, and she must just get used to it. + +Ah! a low whistle from the further side of the wood. He replied, and was +almost instantly joined by a tall slouching youth, by day a blacksmith's +apprentice at Gairsley, the Maxwells' village, who had often brought him +information before. + +The two sat talking for ten minutes or so on the log. Then they parted; +Hurd went back to the ditch where he had left the game, put two rabbits +into his pockets, left the other two to be removed in the morning when +he came to look at his snares, and went off home, keeping as much as +possible in the shelter of the hedges. On one occasion he braved the +moonlight and the open field, rather than pass through a woody corner +where an old farmer had been found dead some six years before. Then he +reached a deep lane leading to the village, and was soon at his own +door. + +As he climbed the wooden ladder leading to the one bedroom where he, his +wife, and his four children slept, his wife sprang up in bed. + +"Jim, you must be perished--such a night as 't is. Oh, Jim--where ha' +you bin?" + +She was a miserable figure in her coarse nightgown, with her grizzling +hair wild about her, and her thin arms nervously outstretched along the +bed. The room was freezing cold, and the moonlight stealing through the +scanty bits of curtains brought into dismal clearness the squalid bed, +the stained walls, and bare uneven floor. On an iron bedstead, at the +foot of the large bed, lay Willie, restless and coughing, with the elder +girl beside him fast asleep; the other girl lay beside her mother, and +the wooden box with rockers, which held the baby, stood within reach of +Mrs. Hurd's arm. + +He made her no answer, but went to look at the coughing boy, who had +been in bed for a week with bronchitis. + +"You've never been and got in Westall's way again?" she said anxiously. +"It's no good my tryin' to get a wink o' sleep when you're out like +this." + +"Don't you worrit yourself," he said to her, not roughly, but decidedly. +"I'm all right. This boy's bad, Minta." + +"Yes, an' I kep' up the fire an' put the spout on the kettle, too." She +pointed to the grate and to the thin line of steam, which was doing its +powerless best against the arctic cold of the room. + +Hurd bent over the boy and tried to put him comfortable. The child, weak +and feverish, only began to cry--a hoarse bronchial crying, which +threatened to wake the baby. He could not be stopped, so Hurd made haste +to take off his own coat and boots, and then lifted the poor soul in his +arms. + +"You'll be quiet, Will, and go sleep, won't yer, if daddy takes keer on +you?" + +He wrapped his own coat round the little fellow, and lying down beside +his wife, took him on his arm and drew the thin brown blankets over +himself and his charge. He himself was warm with exercise, and in a +little while the huddling creatures on either side of him were warm too. +The quick, panting breath of the boy soon showed that he was asleep. His +father, too, sank almost instantly into deep gulfs of sleep. Only the +wife--nervous, overdone, and possessed by a thousand fears--lay tossing +and wakeful hour after hour, while the still glory of the winter night +passed by. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Well, Marcella, have you and Lady Winterbourne arranged your classes?" + +Mrs. Boyce was stooping over a piece of needlework beside a window in +the Mellor drawing-room, trying to catch the rapidly failing light. It +was one of the last days of December. Marcella had just come in from the +village rather early, for they were expecting a visitor to arrive about +tea time, and had thrown herself, tired, into a chair near her mother. + +"We have got about ten or eleven of the younger women to join; none of +the old ones will come," said Marcella. "Lady Winterbourne has heard of +a capital teacher from Dunstable, and we hope to get started next week. +There is money enough to pay wages for three months." + +In spite of her fatigue, her eye was bright and restless. The energy of +thought and action from which she had just emerged still breathed from +every limb and feature. + +"Where have you got the money?" + +"Mr. Raeburn has managed it," said Marcella, briefly. + +Mrs. Boyce gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. + +"And afterwards--what is to become of your product?" + +"There is a London shop Lady Winterbourne knows will take what we make +if it turns out well. Of course, we don't expect to pay our way." + +Marcella gave her explanations with a certain stiffness of self-defence. +She and Lady Winterbourne had evolved a scheme for reviving and +improving the local industry of straw-plaiting, which after years of +decay seemed now on the brink of final disappearance. The village women +who could at present earn a few pence a week by the coarser kinds of +work were to be instructed, not only in the finer and better paid sorts, +but also in the making up of the plait when done, and the "blocking" of +hats and bonnets--processes hitherto carried on exclusively at one or +two large local centres. + +"You don't expect to pay your way?" repeated Mrs. Boyce. "What, never?" + +"Well, we shall give twelve to fourteen shillings a week wages. We shall +find the materials, and the room--and prices are very low, the whole +trade depressed." + +Mrs. Boyce laughed. + +"I see. How many workers do you expect to get together?" + +"Oh! eventually, about two hundred in the three villages. It will +regenerate the whole life!" said Marcella, a sudden ray from the inner +warmth escaping her, against her will. + +Mrs. Boyce smiled again, and turned her work so as to see it better. + +"Does Aldous understand what you are letting him in for?" + +Marcella flushed. + +"Perfectly. It is 'ransom'--that's all." + +"And he is ready to take your view of it?" + +"Oh, he thinks us economically unsound, of course," said Marcella, +impatiently. "So we are. All care for the human being under the present +state of things is economically unsound. But he likes it no more than I +do." + +"Well, lucky for you he has a long purse," said Mrs. Boyce, lightly. +"But I gather, Marcella, you don't insist upon his spending it _all_ on +straw-plaiting. He told me yesterday he had taken the Hertford Street +house." + +"We shall live quite simply," said Marcella, quickly. + +"What, no carriage?" + +Marcella hesitated. + +"A carriage saves time. And if one goes about much, it does not cost so +much more than cabs." + +"So you mean to go about much? Lady Winterbourne talks to me of +presenting you in May." + +"That's Miss Raeburn," cried Marcella. "She says I must, and all the +family would be scandalised if I didn't go. But you can't imagine--" + +She stopped and took off her hat, pushing the hair back from her +forehead. A look of worry and excitement had replaced the radiant glow +of her first resting moments. + +"That you like it?" said Mrs. Boyce, bluntly. "Well, I don't know. Most +young women like pretty gowns, and great functions, and prominent +positions. I don't call you an ascetic, Marcella." + +Marcella winced. + +"One has to fit oneself to circumstances," she said proudly. "One may +hate the circumstances, but one can't escape them." + +"Oh, I don't think you will hate your circumstances, my dear! You would +be very foolish if you did. Have you heard finally how much the +settlement is to be?" + +"No," said Marcella, shortly. "I have not asked papa, nor anybody." + +"It was only settled this morning. Your father told me hurriedly as he +went out. You are to have two thousand a year of your own." + +The tone was dry, and the speaker's look as she turned towards her +daughter had in it a curious hostility; but Marcella did not notice her +mother's manner. + +"It is too much," she said in a low voice. + +She had thrown back her head against the chair in which she sat, and her +half-troubled eyes were wandering over the darkening expanse of lawn and +avenue. + +"He said he wished you to feel perfectly free to live your own life, and +to follow out your own projects. Oh, for a person of projects, my dear, +it is not so much. You will do well to husband it. Keep it for yourself. +Get what _you_ want out of it: not what other people want." + +Again Marcella's attention missed the note of agitation in her mother's +sharp manner. A soft look--a look of compunction--passed across her +face. Mrs. Boyce began to put her working things away, finding it too +dark to do any more. + +"By the way," said the mother, suddenly, "I suppose you will be going +over to help him in his canvassing this next few weeks? Your father says +the election will be certainly in February." + +Marcella moved uneasily. + +"He knows," she said at last, "that I don't agree with him in so many +things. He is so full of this Peasant Proprietors Bill. And I hate +peasant properties. They are nothing but a step backwards." + +Mrs. Boyce lifted her eyebrows. + +"That's unlucky. He tells me it is likely to be his chief work in the +new Parliament. Isn't it, on the whole, probable that he knows more +about the country than you do, Marcella?" + +Marcella sat up with sudden energy and gathered her walking things +together. + +"It isn't knowledge that's the question, mamma; it's the principle of +the thing. I mayn't know anything, but the people whom I follow know. +There are the two sides of thought--the two ways of looking at things. I +warned Aldous when he asked me to marry him which I belonged to. And he +accepted it." + +Mrs. Boyce's thin fine mouth curled a little. + +"So you suppose that Aldous had his wits about him on that great +occasion as much as you had?" + +Marcella first started, then quivered with nervous indignation. + +"Mother," she said, "I can't bear it. It's not the first time that you +have talked as though I had taken some unfair advantage--made an +unworthy bargain. It is too hard too. Other people may think what they +like, but that you--" + +Her voice failed her, and the tears came into her eyes. She was tired +and over-excited, and the contrast between the atmosphere of flattery +and consideration which surrounded her in Aldous's company, in the +village, or at the Winterbournes, and this tone which her mother so +often took with her when they were alone, was at the moment hardly to be +endured. + +Mrs. Boyce looked up more gravely. + +"You misunderstand me, my dear," she said quietly. "I allow myself to +wonder at you a little, but I think no hard things of you ever. I +believe you like Aldous." + +"Really, mamma!" cried Marcella, half hysterically. + +Mrs. Boyce had by now rolled up her work and shut her workbasket. + +"If you are going to take off your things," she said, "please tell +William that there will be six or seven at tea. You said, I think, that +Mr. Raeburn was going to bring Mr. Hallin?" + +"Yes, and Frank Leven is coming. When will Mr. Wharton be here?" + +"Oh, in ten minutes or so, if his train is punctual. I hear your father +just coming in." + +Marcella went away, and Mrs. Boyce was left a few minutes alone. Her +thin hands lay idle a moment on her lap, and leaning towards the window +beside her, she looked out an instant into the snowy twilight. Her mind +was full of its usual calm scorn for those--her daughter included--who +supposed that the human lot was to be mended by a rise in weekly wages, +or that suffering has any necessary dependence on the amount of +commodities of which a man disposes. What hardship is there in starving +and scrubbing and toiling? Had she ever seen a labourer's wife scrubbing +her cottage floor without envy, without moral thirst? Is it these things +that kill, or any of the great simple griefs and burdens? Doth man live +by bread alone? The whole language of social and charitable enthusiasm +often raised in her a kind of exasperation. + +So Marcella would be rich, excessively rich, even now. Outside the +amount settled upon her, the figures of Aldous Raeburn's present income, +irrespective of the inheritance which would come to him on his +grandfather's death, were a good deal beyond what even Mr. Boyce--upon +whom the daily spectacle of the Maxwell wealth exercised a certain +angering effect--had supposed. + +Mrs. Boyce had received the news of the engagement with astonishment, +but her after-acceptance of the situation had been marked by all her +usual philosophy. Probably behind the philosophy there was much secret +relief. Marcella was provided for. Not the fondest or most contriving +mother could have done more for her than she had at one stroke done for +herself. During the early autumn Mrs. Boyce had experienced some moments +of sharp prevision as to what her future relations might be towards this +strong and restless daughter, so determined to conquer a world her +mother had renounced. Now all was clear, and a very shrewd observer +could allow her mind to play freely with the ironies of the situation. + +As to Aldous Raeburn, she had barely spoken to him before the day when +Marcella announced the engagement, and the lover a few hours later had +claimed her daughter at the mother's hands with an emotion to which Mrs. +Boyce found her usual difficulty in responding. She had done her best, +however, to be gracious and to mask her surprise that he should have +proposed, that Lord Maxwell should have consented, and that Marcella +should have so lightly fallen a victim. One surprise, however, had to be +confessed, at least to herself. After her interview with her future +son-in-law, Mrs. Boyce realised that for the first time for fifteen +years she was likely to admit a new friend. The impression made upon him +by her own singular personality had translated itself in feelings and +language which, against her will as it were, established an +understanding, an affinity. That she had involuntarily aroused in him +the profoundest and most chivalrous pity was plain to her. Yet for the +first time in her life she did not resent it; and Marcella watched her +mother's attitude with a mixture of curiosity and relief. + +Then followed talk of an early wedding, communications from Lord Maxwell +to Mr. Boyce of a civil and formal kind, a good deal more notice from +the "county," and finally this definite statement from Aldous Raeburn as +to the settlement he proposed to make upon his wife, and the joint +income which he and she would have immediately at their disposal. + +Under all these growing and palpable evidences of Marcella's future +wealth and position, Mrs. Boyce had shown her usual restless and ironic +spirit. But of late, and especially to-day, restlessness had become +oppression. While Marcella was so speedily to become the rich and +independent woman, they themselves, Marcella's mother and father, were +very poor, in difficulties even, and likely to remain so. She gathered +from her husband's grumbling that the provision of a suitable trousseau +for Marcella would tax his resources to their utmost. How long would it +be before they were dipping in Marcella's purse? Mrs. Boyce's +self-tormenting soul was possessed by one of those nightmares her pride +had brought upon her in grim succession during these fifteen years. And +this pride, strong towards all the world, was nowhere so strong or so +indomitable, at this moment, as towards her own daughter. They were +practically strangers to each other; and they jarred. To inquire where +the fault lay would have seemed to Mrs. Boyce futile. + + * * * * * + +Darkness had come on fast, and Mrs. Boyce was in the act of ringing for +lights when her husband entered. + +"Where's Marcella?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair with the +air of irritable fatigue which was now habitual to him. + +"Only gone to take off her things and tell William about tea. She will +be down directly." + +"Does she know about that settlement?" + +"Yes, I told her. She thought it generous, but not--I think--unsuitable. +The world cannot be reformed on nothing." + +"Reformed!--fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Boyce, angrily. "I never saw a girl +with a head so full of nonsense in my life. Where does she get it from? +Why did you let her go about in London with those people? She may be +spoilt for good. Ten to one she'll make a laughing stock of herself and +everybody belonging to her, before she's done." + +"Well, that is Mr. Raeburn's affair. I think I should take him into +account more than Marcella does, if I were she. But probably she knows +best." + +"Of course she does. He has lost his head; any one can see that. While +she is in the room, he is like a man possessed. It doesn't sit well on +that kind of fellow. It makes him ridiculous. I told him half the +settlement would be ample. She would only spend the rest on nonsense." + +"You told him that?" + +"Yes, I did. Oh!"--with an angry look at her--"I suppose you thought I +should want to sponge upon her? I am as much obliged to you as usual!" + +A red spot rose in his wife's thin cheek. But she turned and answered +him gently, so gently that he had the rare sensation of having triumphed +over her. He allowed himself to be mollified, and she stood there over +the fire, chatting with him for some time, a friendly natural note in +her voice which was rare and, insensibly, soothed him like an opiate. +She chatted about Marcella's trousseau gowns, detailing her own +contrivances for economy; about the probable day of the wedding, the +latest gossip of the election, and so on. He sat shading his eyes from +the firelight, and now and then throwing in a word or two. The inmost +soul of him was very piteous, harrowed often by a new dread--the dread +of dying. The woman beside him held him in the hollow of her hand. In +the long wrestle between her nature and his, she had conquered. His fear +of her and his need of her had even come to supply the place of a dozen +ethical instincts he was naturally without. + +Some discomfort, probably physical, seemed at last to break up his +moment of rest. + +"Well, I tell you, I often wish it were the other man," he said, with +some impatience. "Raeburn 's so d----d superior. I suppose I offended +him by what I said of Marcella's whims, and the risk of letting her +control so much money at her age, and with her ideas. You never saw such +an air!--all very quiet, of course. He buttoned his coat and got up to +go, as though I were no more worth considering than the table. Neither +he nor his precious grandfather need alarm themselves: I shan't trouble +them as a visitor. If I shock them, they bore me--so we're quits. +Marcella'll have to come here if she wants to see her father. But owing +to your charming system of keeping her away from us all her childhood, +she's not likely to want." + +"You mean Mr. Wharton by the other man?" said Mrs. Boyce, not defending +herself or Aldous. + +"Yes, of course. But he came on the scene just too late, worse luck! Why +wouldn't he have done just as well? He's as mad as she--madder. He +believes all the rubbish she does--talks such _rot_, the people tell me, +in his meetings. But then he's good company--he amuses you--you don't +need to be on your p's and q's with _him_. Why wouldn't she have taken +up with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. _He's_ +not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just bad +luck." + +Mrs. Boyce smiled a little. + +"What there is to make you suppose that she would have inclined to him, +I don't exactly see. She has been taken up with Mr. Raeburn, really, +from the first week of her arrival here." + +"Well, I dare say--there was no one else," said her husband, testily. +"That's natural enough. It's just what I say. All I know is, Wharton +shall be free to use this house just as he pleases during his +canvassing, whatever the Raeburns may say." + +He bent forward and poked the somewhat sluggish fire with a violence +which hindered rather than helped it. Mrs. Boyce's smile had quite +vanished. She perfectly understood all that was implied, whether in his +instinctive dislike of Aldous Raeburn, or in his cordiality towards +young Wharton. + +After a minute's silence, he got up again and left the room, walking, as +she observed, with difficulty. She stopped a minute or so in the same +place after he had gone, turning her rings absently on her thin fingers. +She was thinking of some remarks which Dr. Clarke, the excellent and +experienced local doctor, had made to her on the occasion of his last +visit. With all the force of her strong will she had set herself to +disbelieve them. But they had had subtle effects already. Finally she +too went upstairs, bidding Marcella, whom she met coming down, hurry +William with the tea, as Mr. Wharton might arrive any moment. + + * * * * * + +Marcella saw the room shut up--the large, shabby, beautiful room--the +lamps brought in, fresh wood thrown on the fire to make it blaze, and +the tea-table set out. Then she sat herself down on a low chair by the +fire, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped +in front of her. Her black dress revealed her fine full throat and her +white wrists, for she had an impatience of restraint anywhere, and wore +frills and falls of black lace where other people would have followed +the fashion in high collars and close wristbands. What must have struck +any one with an observant eye, as she sat thus, thrown into beautiful +light and shade by the blaze of the wood fire, was the massiveness of +the head compared with the nervous delicacy of much of the face, the +thinness of the wrist, and of the long and slender foot raised on the +fender. It was perhaps the great thickness and full wave of the hair +which gave the head its breadth; but the effect was singular, and would +have been heavy but for the glow of the eyes, which balanced it. + +She was thinking, as a _fiancée_ should, of Aldous and their marriage, +which had been fixed for the end of February. Yet not apparently with +any rapturous absorption. There was a great deal to plan, and her mind +was full of business. Who was to look after her various village schemes +while she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London? Mary Harden had +hardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was. They must find some +capable woman and pay her. The Cravens would tell her, of course, that +she was on the high road to the most degrading of _rôles_--the _rôle_ of +Lady Bountiful. But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls. And +the _rôle_ itself was inevitable. It all depended upon how it was +managed--in the interest of what ideas. + +She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town. It would +certainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward a +little. Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over. + +All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell, +which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it was +not easy to hear. Their coming guest was not much in her mind. She +tacitly assumed that her father would look after him. On the two or +three occasions when they had met during the last three months, +including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, her +thoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice of +him--picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be. Of late he had not been +much in the neighbourhood. There had been a slack time for both +candidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hard +canvassing in view of the election which everybody expected at the end +of February. + +But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin! That interested her. She felt an +intense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certain +nervousness. The impression she might be able to make on him would be in +some sense an earnest of her future. + +Suddenly, something undefinable--a slight sound, a current of air--made +her turn her head. To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorway +looking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves. + +She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance. + +"Mr. Wharton!" + +"Oh!--must you?"--he said, with a movement of one hand, as though to +stop her. "Couldn't you stay like that? At first I thought there was +nobody in the room. Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are as +the sand of the sea for multitude, so I wandered in by myself. Then I +saw you--and the fire--and the room. It was like a bit of music. It was +mere wanton waste to interrupt it." + +Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him. + +"I did not hear the front door," she said coldly. "My mother will be +here directly. May I give you some tea?" + +"Thanks. No, I knew you did not hear me. That delighted me. It showed +what charming things there are in the world that have no spectators! +What a _delicious_ place this is!--what a heavenly old place--especially +in these half lights! There was a raw sun when I was here before, but +now--" + +He stood in front of the fire, looking round the great room, and at the +few small lamps making their scanty light amid the flame-lit darkness. +His hands were loosely crossed behind his back, and his boyish face, in +its setting of curls, shone with content and self-possession. + +"Well," said Marcella, bluntly, "I should prefer a little more light to +live by. Perhaps, when you have fallen downstairs here in the dark as +often as I have, you may too." + +He laughed. + +"But how much better, after all--don't you think so?--to have too little +of anything than too much!" + +He flung himself into a chair beside the tea-table, looking up with gay +interrogation as Marcella handed him his cup. She was a good deal +surprised by him. On the few occasions of their previous meetings, these +bright eyes, and this pronounced manner, had been--at any rate as +towards herself--much less free and evident. She began to recover the +start he had given her, and to study him with a half-unwilling +curiosity. + +"Then Mellor will please you," she said drily, in answer to his remark, +carrying her own tea meanwhile to a chair on the other side of the fire. +"My father never bought anything--my father can't. I believe we have +chairs enough to sit down upon--but we have no curtains to half the +windows. Can I give you anything?" + +For he had risen, and was looking over the tea-tray. + +"Oh! but I _must_," he said discontentedly. "I _must_ have enough sugar +in my tea!" + +"I gave you more than the average," she said, with a sudden little leap +of laughter, as she came to his aid. "Do all your principles break down +like this? I was going to suggest that you might like some of that fire +taken away?" And she pointed to the pile of blazing logs which now +filled up the great chimney. + +"That fire!" he said, shivering, and moving up to it. "Have you any idea +what sort of a wind you keep up here on these hills on a night like +this? And to think that in this weather, with a barometer that laughs in +your face when you try to move it, I have three meetings to-morrow +night!" + +"When one loves the 'People,' with a large P," said Marcella, "one +mustn't mind winds." + +He flashed a smile at her, answering to the sparkle of her look, then +applied himself to his tea and toasted bun again, with the dainty +deliberation of one enjoying every sip and bite. + +"No; but if only the People didn't live so far apart. Some murderous +person wanted them to have only one neck. I want them to have only one +ear. Only then unfortunately everybody would speak well--which would +bring things round to dulness again. Does Mr. Raeburn make you think +very bad things of me, Miss Boyce?" + +He bent forward to her as he spoke, his blue eyes all candour and mirth. + +Marcella started. + +"How can he?" she said abruptly. "I am not a Conservative." + +"Not a Conservative?" he said joyously. "Oh! but impossible! Does that +mean that you ever read my poor little speeches?" + +He pointed to the local newspaper, freshly cut, which lay on a table at +Marcella's elbow. + +"Sometimes--" said Marcella, embarrassed. "There is so little time." + +In truth she had hardly given his candidature a thought since the day +Aldous proposed to her. She had been far too much taken up with her own +prospects, with Lady Winterbourne's friendship, and her village schemes. + +He laughed. + +"Of course there is. When is the great event to be?" + +"I didn't mean that," said Marcella, stiffly. "Lady Winterbourne and I +have been trying to start some village workshops. We have been working +and talking, and writing, morning, noon, and night." + +"Oh! I know--yes, I heard of it. And you really think anything is going +to come out of finicking little schemes of that sort?" + +His dry change of tone drew a quick look from her. The fresh-coloured +face was transformed. In place of easy mirth and mischief, she read an +acute and half contemptuous attention. + +"I don't know what you mean," she said slowly, after a pause. "Or +rather--I do know quite well. You told papa--didn't you?--and Mr. +Raeburn says that you are a Socialist--not half-and-half, as all the +world is, but the real thing? And of course you want great changes: you +don't like anything that might strengthen the upper class with the +people. But that is nonsense. You can't get the changes for a long +_long_ time. And, meanwhile, people must be clothed and fed and kept +alive." + +She lay back in her high-backed chair and looked at him defiantly. His +lip twitched, but he kept his gravity. + +"You would be much better employed in forming a branch of the +Agricultural Union," he said decidedly. "What is the good of playing +Lady Bountiful to a decayed industry? All that is childish; we want _the +means of revolution_. The people who are for reform shouldn't waste +money and time on fads." + +"I understand all that," she said scornfully, her quick breath rising +and falling. "Perhaps you don't know that I was a member of the +Venturist Society in London? What you say doesn't sound very new to me!" + +His seriousness disappeared in laughter. He hastily put down his cup +and, stepping over to her, held out his hand. + +"You a Venturist? So am I. Joy! Won't you shake hands with me, as +comrades should? We are a very mixed set of people, you know, and +between ourselves I don't know that we are coming to much. But we can +make an alderman dream of the guillotine--that is always something. Oh! +but now we can talk on quite a new footing!" + +She had given him her hand for an instant, withdrawing it with shy +rapidity, and he had thrown himself into a chair again, with his arms +behind his head, and the air of one reflecting happily on a changed +situation. "Quite a new footing," he repeated thoughtfully. "But it +is--a little surprising. What does--what does Mr. Raeburn say to it?" + +"Nothing! He cares just as much about the poor as you or I, please +understand! He doesn't choose my way--but he won't interfere with it." + +"Ah! that is like him--like Aldous." + +Marcella started. + +"You don't mind my calling him by his Christian name sometimes? It drops +out. We used to meet as boys together at the Levens. The Levens are my +cousins. He was a big boy, and I was a little one. But he didn't like +me. You see--I was a little beast!" + +His air of appealing candour could not have been more engaging. + +"Yes, I fear I was a little beast. And he was, even then, and always, +'the good and beautiful.' You don't understand Greek, do you, Miss +Boyce? But he was very good to me. I got into an awful scrape once. I +let out a pair of eagle owls that used to be kept in the courtyard--Sir +Charles loved them a great deal more than his babies--I let them out at +night for pure wickedness, and they came to fearful ends in the park. I +was to have been sent home next day, in the most unnecessary and penal +hurry. But Aldous interposed--said he would look after me for the rest +of the holidays." + +"And then you tormented him?" + +"Oh no!" he said with gentle complacency. "Oh no! I never torment +anybody. But one must enjoy oneself you know; what else can one do? Then +afterwards, when we were older--somehow I don't know--but we didn't get +on. It is very sad--I wish he thought better of me." + +The last words were said with a certain change of tone, and sitting up +he laid the tips of his fingers together on his knees with a little +plaintive air. Marcella's eyes danced with amusement, but she looked +away from him to the fire, and would not answer. + +"You don't help me out. You don't console me. It's unkind of-you. Don't +you think it a melancholy fate to be always admiring the people who +detest you?" + +"Don't admire them!" she said merrily. + +His eyebrows lifted. "_That_," he said drily, "is disloyal. I call--I +call your ancestor over the mantelpiece"--he waved his hand towards a +blackened portrait in front of him--"to witness, that I am all for +admiring Mr. Raeburn, and you discourage it. Well, but now--_now_"--he +drew his chair eagerly towards hers, the pose of a minute before thrown +to the winds--"do let us understand each other a little more before +people come. You know I have a labour newspaper?" + +She nodded. + +"You read it?" + +"Is it the _Labour Clarion_? I take it in." + +"Capital!" he cried. "Then I know now why I found a copy in the village +here. You lent it to a man called Hurd?" + +"I did." + +"Whose wife worships you?--whose good angel you have been? Do I know +something about you, or do I not? Well, now, are you satisfied with that +paper? Can you suggest to me means of improving it? It wants some fresh +blood, I think--I must find it? I bought the thing last year, in a +moribund condition, with the old staff. Oh! we will certainly take +counsel together about it--most certainly! But first--I have been +boasting of knowing something about you--but I should like to ask--do +you know anything about me?" + +Both laughed. Then Marcella tried to be serious. + +"Well--I--I believe--you have some land?" + +"Eight!" he nodded--"I am a Lincolnshire landowner. I have about five +thousand acres--enough to be tolerably poor on--and enough to play +tricks with. I have a co-operative farm, for instance. At present I have +lent them a goodish sum of money--and remitted them their first +half-year's rent. Not so far a paying speculation. But it will do--some +day. Meanwhile the estate wants money--and my plans and I want +money--badly. I propose to make the _Labour Clarion_ pay--if I can. +That will give me more time for speaking and organising, for what +concerns _us_--as Venturists--than the Bar." + +"The Bar?" she said, a little mystified, but following every word with a +fascinated attention. + +"I made myself a barrister three years ago, to please my mother. She +thought I should do better in Parliament--if ever I got in. Did you ever +hear of my mother?" + +There was no escaping these frank, smiling questions. + +"No," said Marcella, honestly. + +"Well, ask Lord Maxwell," he said, laughing. "He and she came across +each other once or twice, when he was Home Secretary years ago, and she +was wild about some woman's grievance or other. She always maintains +that she got the better of him--no doubt he was left with a different +impression. Well--my mother--most people thought her mad--perhaps she +was--but then somehow--I loved her!" + +He was still smiling, but at the last words a charming vibration crept +into the words, and his eyes sought her with a young open demand for +sympathy. + +"Is that so rare?" she asked him, half laughing--instinctively defending +her own feeling lest it should be snatched from her by any make-believe. + +"Yes--as we loved each other--it is rare. My father died when I was ten. +She would not send me to school, and I was always in her pocket--I +shared all her interests. She was a wild woman--but she _lived_, as not +one person in twenty lives." + +Then he sighed. Marcella was too shy to imitate his readiness to ask +questions. But she supposed that his mother must be dead--indeed, now +vaguely remembered to have heard as much. + +There was a little silence. + +"Please tell me," she said suddenly, "why do you attack my +straw-plaiting? Is a co-operative farm any less of a stopgap?" + +Instantly his face changed. He drew up his chair again beside her, as +gay and keen-eyed as before. + +"I can't argue it out now. There is so much to say. But do listen! I +have a meeting in the village here next week to preach land +nationalisation. We mean to try and form a branch of the Labourers' +Union. Will you come?" + +Marcella hesitated. + +"I think so," she said slowly. + +There was a pause. Then she raised her eyes and found his fixed upon +her. A sudden sympathy--of youth, excitement, pleasure--seemed to rise +between them. She had a quick impression of lightness, grace; of an open +brow set in curls; of a look more intimate, inquisitive, commanding, +than any she had yet met. + +"May I speak to you, miss?" said a voice at the door. + +Marcella rose hastily. Her mother's maid was standing there. + +She hurried across the room. + +"What is the matter, Deacon?" + +"Your mother says, miss," said the maid, retreating into the hall, "I am +to tell you she can't come down. Your father is ill, and she has sent +for Dr. Clarke. But you are please not to go up. Will you give the +gentlemen their tea, and she will come down before they go, if she can." + +Marcella had turned pale. + +"Mayn't I go, Deacon? What is it?" + +"It's a bad fit of pain, your mother says, miss. Nothing can be done +till the doctor comes. She begged _particular_ that you wouldn't go up, +miss. She doesn't want any one put out." + +At the same moment there was a ring at the outer door. + +"Oh, there is Aldous," cried Marcella, with relief, and she ran out into +the hall to meet him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Aldous advanced into the inner hall at sight of Marcella, leaving his +companions behind in the vestibule taking off their coats. Marcella ran +to him. + +"Papa is ill!" she said to him hastily. "Mamma has sent for Dr. Clarke. +She won't let me go up, and wants us to take no notice and have tea +without her." + +"I am so sorry! Can we do anything? The dogcart is here with a fast +horse. If your messenger went on foot--" + +"Oh, no! they are sure to have sent the boy on the pony. I don't know +why, but I have had a presentiment for a long time past that papa was +going to be ill." + +She looked white and excited. She had turned back to the drawing-room, +forgetting the other guests, he walking beside her. As they passed along +the dim hall, Aldous had her hand close in his, and when they passed +under an archway at the further end he stooped suddenly in the shadows +and kissed the hand. Touch--kiss--had the clinging, the intensity of +passion. + +They were the expression of all that had lain vibrating at the man's +inmost heart during the dark drive, while he had been chatting with his +two companions. + +"My darling! I hope not. Would you rather not see strangers? Shall I +send Hallin and young Leven away? They would understand at once." + +"Oh, no! Mr. Wharton is here anyway--staying. Where is Mr. Hallin? I +had forgotten him." + +Aldous turned and called. Mr. Hallin and young Frank Leven, divining +something unusual, were looking at the pictures in the hall. + +Edward Hallin came up and took Marcella's offered hand. Each looked at +the other with a special attention and interest. "She holds my friend's +life in her hands--is she worthy of it?" was naturally the question +hanging suspended in the man's judgment. The girl's manner was proud and +shy, the manner of one anxious to please, yet already, perhaps, on the +defensive. + +Aldous explained the position of affairs, and Hallin expressed his +sympathy. He had a singularly attractive voice, the voice indeed of the +orator, which can adapt itself with equal charm and strength to the most +various needs and to any pitch. As he spoke, Marcella was conscious of a +sudden impression that she already knew him and could be herself with +him at once. + +"Oh, I say," broke in young Leven, who was standing behind; "don't you +be bothered with us, Miss Boyce. Just send us back at once. I'm awfully +sorry!" + +"No; you are to come in!" she said, smiling through her pallor, which +was beginning to pass away, and putting out her hand to him--the young +Eton and Oxford athlete, just home for his Christmas vacation, was a +great favourite with her--"You must come and have tea and cheer me up by +telling me all the things you have killed this week. Is there anything +left alive? You had come down to the fieldfares, you know, last +Tuesday." + +He followed her, laughing and protesting, and she led the way to the +drawing-room. But as her fingers were on the handle she once more caught +sight of the maid, Deacon, standing on the stairs, and ran to speak to +her. + +"He is better," she said, coming back with a face of glad relief. "The +attack seems to be passing off. Mamma can't come down, but she begs that +we will all enjoy ourselves." + +"We'll endeavour," said young Leven, rubbing his hands, "by the help of +tea. Miss Boyce, will you please tell Aldous and Mr. Hallin not to talk +politics when they're taking me out to a party. They should fight a man +of their own size. I'm all limp and trampled on, and want you to protect +me." + +The group moved, laughing and talking, into the drawing-room. + +"Jiminy!" said Leven, stopping short behind Aldous, who was alone +conscious of the lad's indignant astonishment; "what the deuce is _he_ +doing here?" + +For there on the rug, with his back to the fire, stood Wharton, +surveying the party with his usual smiling _aplomb_. + +"Mr. Hallin, do you know Mr. Wharton?" said Marcella. + +"Mr. Wharton and I have met several times on public platforms," said +Hallin, holding out his hand, which Wharton took with effusion. Aldous +greeted him with the impassive manner, the "three finger" manner, which +was with him an inheritance--though not from his grandfather--and did +not contribute to his popularity in the neighbourhood. As for young +Leven, he barely nodded to the Radical candidate, and threw himself into +a chair as far from the fire as possible. + +"Frank and I have met before to-day!" said Wharton, laughing. + +"Yes, I've been trying to undo some of your mischief," said the boy, +bluntly. "I found him, Miss Boyce, haranguing a lot of men at the +dinner-hour at Tudley End--one of our villages, you know--cramming them +like anything--all about the game laws, and our misdeeds--my father's, +of course." + +Wharton raised a protesting hand. + +"Oh--all very well! Of course it was us you meant! Well, when he'd +driven off, I got up on a cart and had _my_ say. I asked them whether +they didn't all come out at our big shoots, and whether they didn't have +almost as much fun as we did--why! the schoolmaster and the postman come +to ask to carry cartridges, and everybody turns out, down to the +cripples!--whether they didn't have rabbits given them all the year +round; whether half of them hadn't brothers and sons employed somehow +about the game, well-paid, and well-treated; whether any man-jack of +them would be a ha'porth better off if there were no game; whether many +of them wouldn't be worse off; and whether England wouldn't be a beastly +dull place to live in, if people like him"--he pointed to Wharton--"had +the governing of it! And I brought 'em all round too. I got them +cheering and laughing. Oh! I can tell you old Dodgson'll have to take +me on. He says he'll ask me to speak for him at several places. I'm not +half bad, I declare I'm not." + +"I thought they gave you a holiday task at Eton," observed Wharton, +blandly. + +The lad coloured hotly, then bethought himself--radiant:-- + +"I left Eton last half, as of course you know quite well. But if it had +only been last Christmas instead of this, wouldn't I have scored--by +Jove! They gave us a beastly _essay_ instead of a book. _Demagogues_!' I +sat up all night, and screwed out a page and a half. I'd have known +something about it _now_." + +And as he stood beside the tea-table, waiting for Marcella to entrust +some tea to him for distribution, he turned and made a profound bow to +his candidate cousin. + +Everybody joined in the laugh, led by Wharton. Then there was a general +drawing up of chairs, and Marcella applied herself to making tea, helped +by Aldous. Wharton alone remained standing before the fire, observant +and apart. + +Hallin, whose health at this moment made all exertion, even a drive, +something of a burden, sat a little away from the tea-table, resting, +and glad to be silent. Yet all the time he was observing the girl +presiding and the man beside her--his friend, her lover. The moment had +a peculiar, perhaps a melancholy interest for him. So close had been the +bond between himself and Aldous, that the lover's communication of his +engagement had evoked in the friend that sense--poignant, +inevitable--which in the realm of the affections always waits on +something done and finished,--a leaf turned, a chapter closed. "That sad +word, Joy!" Hallin was alone and ill when Raeburn's letter reached him, +and through the following day and night he was haunted by Landor's +phrase, long familiar and significant to him. His letter to his friend, +and the letter to Miss Boyce for which Raeburn had asked him, had cost +him an invalid's contribution of sleep and ease. The girl's answer had +seemed to him constrained and young, though touched here and there with +a certain fineness and largeness of phrase, which, if it was to be taken +as an index of character, no doubt threw light upon the matter so far as +Aldous was concerned. + +Her beauty, of which he had heard much, now that he was face to face +with it, was certainly striking enough--all the more because of its +immaturity, the subtlety and uncertainty of its promise. +_Immaturity_--_uncertainty_--these words returned upon him as he +observed her manner with its occasional awkwardness, the awkwardness +which goes with power not yet fully explored or mastered by its +possessor. How Aldous hung upon her, following every movement, +anticipating every want! After a while Hallin found himself +half-inclined to Mr. Boyce's view, that men of Raeburn's type are never +seen to advantage in this stage--this queer topsy-turvy stage--of first +passion. He felt a certain impatience, a certain jealousy for his +friend's dignity. It seemed to him too, every now and then, that +she--the girl--was teased by all this absorption, this deference. He was +conscious of watching for something in her that did not appear; and a +first prescience of things anxious or untoward stirred in his quick +sense. + +"You may all say what you like," said Marcella, suddenly, putting down +her cup, and letting her hand drop for emphasis on her knee; "but you +will never persuade me that game-preserving doesn't make life in the +country much more difficult, and the difference between classes much +wider and bitterer, than they need be." + +The remark cut across some rattling talk of Frank Leven's, who was in +the first flush of the sportsman's ardour, and, though by no means +without parts, could at the present moment apply his mind to little else +than killing of one kind or another, unless it were to the chances of +keeping his odious cousin out of Parliament. + +Leven stared. Miss Boyce's speech seemed to him to have no sort of _ŕ +propos_. Aldous looked down upon her as he stood beside her, smiling. + +"I wish you didn't trouble yourself so much about it," he said. + +"How can I help it?" she answered quickly; and then flushed, like one +who has drawn attention indiscreetly to their own personal situation. + +"Trouble herself!" echoed young Leven. "Now, look here Miss Boyce, will +you come for a walk with me? I'll convince you, as I convinced those +fellows over there. I know I could, and you won't give me the chance; +it's too bad." + +"Oh, you!" she said, with a little shrug; "what do you know about it? +One might as well consult a gambler about gambling when he is in the +middle of his first rush of luck. I have ten times more right to an +opinion than you have. I can keep my head cool, and notice a hundred +things that _you_ would never see. I come fresh into your country life, +and the first thing that strikes me is that the whole machinery of law +and order seems to exist for nothing in the world but to protect your +pheasants! There are policemen--to catch poachers; there are +magistrates--to try them. To judge from the newspapers, at least, they +have nothing else to do. And if _you_ follow your sporting instincts, +you are a very fine fellow, and everybody admires you. But if a +shoemaker's son in Mellor follows his, he is a villain and a thief, and +the policeman and the magistrate make for him at once." + +"But I don't steal his chickens!" cried the lad, choking with arguments +and exasperation; "and why should he steal my pheasants? I paid for the +eggs, I paid for the hens to sit on 'em, I paid for the coops to rear +them in, I paid the men to watch them, I paid for the barley to feed +them with: why is he to be allowed to take my property, and I am to be +sent to jail if I take his?" + +"_Property_!" said Marcella, scornfully. "You can't settle everything +nowadays by that big word. We are coming to put the public good before +property. If the nation should decide to curtail your 'right,' as you +call it, in the general interest, it will do it, and you will be left to +scream." + +She had flung her arm round the back of her chair, and all her lithe +young frame was tense with an eagerness, nay, an excitement, which drew +Hallin's attention. It was more than was warranted by the conversation, +he thought. + +"Well, if you think the abolition of game preserving would be popular in +the country, Miss Boyce, I'm certain you make a precious mistake," cried +Leven. "Why, even you don't think it would be, do you, Mr. Hallin?" he +said, appealing at random in his disgust. + +"I don't know," said Hallin, with his quiet smile. "I rather think, on +the whole, it would be. The farmers put up with it, but a great many of +them don't like it. Things are mended since the Ground Game Act, but +there are a good many grievances still left." + +"I should think there are!" said Marcella, eagerly, bending forward to +him. "I was talking to one of our farmers the other day whose land goes +up to the edge of Lord Winterbourne's woods. '_They_ don't keep their +pheasants, miss,' he said. '_I_ do. I and my corn. If I didn't send a +man up half-past five in the morning, when the ears begin to fill, +there'd be nothing left for _us_.' 'Why don't you complain to the +agent?' I said. 'Complain! Lor' bless you, miss, you may complain till +you're black in the face. I've allus found--an' I've been here, man and +boy, thirty-two year--as how _Winterbournes generally best it.'_ There +you have the whole thing in a nutshell. It's a tyranny--a tyranny of the +rich." + +Flushed and sarcastic, she looked at Frank Leven; but Hallin had an +uncomfortable feeling that the sarcasm was not all meant for him. Aldous +was sitting with his hands on his knees, and his head bent forward a +little. Once, as the talk ran on, Hallin saw him raise his grey eyes to +the girl beside him, who certainly did not notice it, and was not +thinking of him. There was a curious pain and perplexity in the +expression, but something else too--a hunger, a dependence, a yearning, +that for an instant gripped the friend's heart. + +"Well, I know Aldous doesn't agree with you, Miss Boyce," cried Leven, +looking about him in his indignation for some argument that should be +final. "You don't, do you, Aldous? You don't think the country would be +the better, if we could do away with game to-morrow?" + +"No more than I think it would be the better," said Aldous, quietly, "if +we could do away with gold-plate and false hair to-morrow. There would +be too many hungry goldsmiths and wig-makers on the streets." + +Marcella turned to him, half defiant, half softened. + +"Of course, your point lies in _to-morrow,"_ she said. "I accept that. +We can't carry reform by starving innocent people. But the question is, +what are we to work towards? Mayn't we regard the game laws as one of +the obvious crying abuses to be attacked first--in the great +campaign!--the campaign which is to bring liberty and self-respect back +to the country districts, and make the labourer feel himself as much of +a man as the squire?" + +"What a head! What an attitude!" thought Hallin, half repelled, half +fascinated. "But a girl that can talk politics--hostile politics--to her +lover, and mean them too--or am I inexperienced?--and is it merely that +she is so much interested in him that she wants to be quarrelling with +him?" + +Aldous looked up. "I am not _sure_," he said, answering her. "That is +always my difficulty, you know," and he smiled at her. "Game preserving +is not to me personally an attractive form of private property, but it +seems to me bound up with other forms, and I want to see where the +attack is going to lead me. But I would protect your farmer--mind!--as +zealously as you." + +Hallin caught the impatient quiver of the girl's lip. The tea had just +been taken away, and Marcella had gone to sit upon an old sofa near the +fire, whither Aldous had followed her. Wharton, who had so far said +nothing, had left his post of observation on the hearth-rug, and was +sitting under the lamp balancing a paper-knife with great attention on +two fingers. In the half light Hallin by chance saw a movement of +Raeburn's hand towards Marcella's, which lay hidden among the folds of +her dress--quick resistance on her part, then acquiescence. He felt a +sudden pleasure in his friend's small triumph. + +"Aldous and I have worn these things threadbare many a time," he said, +addressing his hostess. "You don't know how kind he is to my dreams. I +am no sportsman and have no landowning relations, so he ought to bid me +hold my tongue. But he lets me rave. To me the simple fact is that _game +preserving creates crime_. Agricultural life is naturally simpler--might +be, it always seems to me, so much more easily moralised and fraternised +than the industrial form. And you split it up and poison it all by the +emphasis laid on this class pleasure. It is a natural pleasure, you say. +Perhaps it is--the survival, perhaps, of some primitive instinct in our +northern blood--but, if so, why should it be impossible for the rich to +share it with the poor? I have little plans--dreams. I throw them out +sometimes to catch Aldous, but he hardly rises to them!" + +"Oh! I _say_," broke in Frank Leven, who could really bear it no longer. +"Now look here, Miss Boyce,--what do you think Mr. Hallin wants? It is +just sheer lunacy--it really is--though I know I'm impertinent, and he's +a great man. But I do declare he wants Aldous to give up a big common +there is--oh! over beyond Girtstone, down in the plain--on Lord +Maxwell's estate, and make a _labourers'_ shoot of it! Now, I ask you! +And he vows he doesn't see why they shouldn't rear pheasants if they +choose to club and pay for it. Well, I will say that much for him, +Aldous didn't see his way to _that_, though he isn't the kind of +Conservative _I_ want to see in Parliament by a long way. Besides, it's +such stuff! They say sport brutalises _us_, and then they want to go and +contaminate the labourer. But we won't take the responsibility. We've +got our own vices, and we'll stick to them; we're used to them; but we +won't hand them on: we'd scorn the action." + +The flushed young barbarian, driven to bay, was not to be resisted. +Marcella laughed heartily, and Hallin laid an affectionate hand on the +boy's shoulder, patting him as though he were a restive horse. + +"Yes, I remember I was puzzled as to the details of Hallin's scheme," +said Aldous, his mouth twitching. "I wanted to know who was to pay for +the licences; how game enough for the number of applicants was to be +got without preserving; and how men earning twelve or fourteen shillings +a week were to pay a keeper. Then I asked a clergyman who has a living +near this common what he thought would be the end of it. 'Well,' he +said, 'the first day they'd shoot every animal on the place; the second +day they'd shoot each other. Universal carnage--I should say that would +be about the end of it.' These were trifles, of course--details." + +Hallin shook his head serenely. + +"I still maintain," he said, "that a little practical ingenuity might +have found a way." + +"And I will support you," said Wharton, laying down the paper-knife and +bending over to Hallin, "with good reason. For three years and a few +months just such an idea as you describe has been carried out on my own +estate, and it has not worked badly at all." + +"There!" cried Marcella. "There! I knew something could be done, if +there was a will. I have always felt it." + +She half turned to Aldous, then bent forward instead as though listening +eagerly for what more Wharton might say, her face all alive, and +eloquent. + +"Of course, there was nothing to shoot!" exclaimed Frank Leven. + +"On the contrary," said Wharton, smiling, "we are in the middle of a +famous partridge country." + +"How your neighbours must dote on you!" cried the boy. But Wharton took +no notice. + +"And my father preserved strictly," he went on. "It is quite a simple +story. When I inherited, three years ago, I thought the whole thing +detestable, and determined I wouldn't be responsible for keeping it up. +So I called the estate together--farmers and labourers--and we worked +out a plan. There are keepers, but they are the estate servants, not +mine. Everybody has his turn according to the rules--I and my friends +along with the rest. Not everybody can shoot every year, but everybody +gets his chance, and, moreover, a certain percentage of all the game +killed is public property, and is distributed every year according to a +regular order." + +"Who pays the keepers?" interrupted Leven. + +"I do," said Wharton, smiling again. "Mayn't I--for the present--do what +I will with mine own? I return in their wages some of my ill-gotten +gains as a landowner. It is all makeshift, of course." + +"I understand!" exclaimed Marcella, nodding to him--"you could not be a +Venturist and keep up game-preserving?" + +Wharton met her bright eye with a half deprecating, reserved air. + +"You are right, of course," he said drily. "For a Socialist to be +letting his keepers run in a man earning twelve shillings a week for +knocking over a rabbit would have been a little strong. No one can be +consistent in my position--in any landowner's position--it is +impossible; still, thank Heaven, one can deal with the most glaring +matters. As Mr. Raeburn said, however, all this game business is, of +course, a mere incident of the general land and property system, as you +will hear me expound when you come to that meeting you promised me to +honour." + +He stooped forward, scanning her with smiling deference. Marcella felt +the man's hand that held her own suddenly tighten an instant. Then +Aldous released her, and rising walked towards the fire. + +"You're _not_ going to one of his meetings, Miss Boyce!" cried Frank, in +angry incredulity. + +Marcella hesitated an instant, half angry with Wharton. Then she +reddened and threw back her dark head with the passionate gesture Hallin +had already noticed as characteristic. + +"Mayn't I go where I belong?" she said--"where my convictions lead me?" + +There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Hallin got up. + +"Miss Boyce, may we see the house? Aldous has told me much of it." + + * * * * * + +Presently, in the midst of their straggling progress through the +half-furnished rooms of the garden front, preceded by the shy footman +carrying a lamp, which served for little more than to make darkness +visible, Marcella found herself left behind with Aldous. As soon as she +felt that they were alone, she realised a jar between herself and him. +His manner was much as usual, but there was an underlying effort and +difficulty which her sensitiveness caught at once. A sudden wave of +girlish trouble--remorse--swept over her. In her impulsiveness she moved +close to him as they were passing through her mother's little +sitting-room, and put her hand on his arm. + +"I don't think I was nice just now," she said, stammering. "I didn't +mean it. I seem to be always driven into opposition--into a feeling of +war--when you are so good to me--so much too good to me!" + +Aldous had turned at her first word. With a long breath, as it were of +unspeakable relief, he caught her in his arms vehemently, passionately. +So far she had been very shrinking and maidenly with him in their +solitary moments, and he had been all delicate chivalry and respect, +tasting to the full the exquisiteness of each fresh advance towards +intimacy, towards lover's privilege, adoring her, perhaps, all the more +for her reserve, her sudden flights, and stiffenings. But to-night he +asked no leave, and in her astonishment she was almost passive. + +"Oh, do let me go!" she cried at last, trying to disengage herself +completely. + +"No!" he said with emphasis, still holding her hand firmly. "Come and +sit down here. They will look after themselves." + +He put her, whether she would or no, into an arm-chair and knelt beside +her. + +"Did you think it was hardly kind," he said with a quiver of voice he +could not repress, "to let me hear for the first time, in public, that +you had promised to go to one of that man's meetings after refusing +again and again to come to any of mine?" + +"Do you want to forbid me to go?" she said quickly. There was a feeling +in her which would have been almost relieved, for the moment, if he had +said yes. + +"By no means," he said steadily. "That was not our compact. But--guess +for yourself what I want! Do you think"--he paused a moment--"do you +think I put nothing of myself into my public life--into these meetings +among the people who have known me from a boy? Do you think it is all a +convention--that my feeling, my conscience, remain outside? You can't +think that! But if not, how can I bear to live what is to be so large a +part of my life out of your ken and sight? I know--I know--you warned me +amply--you can't agree with me. But there is much besides intellectual +agreement possible--much that would help and teach us both--if only we +are together--not separated--not holding aloof--" + +He stopped, watching all the changes of her face. She was gulfed in a +deep wave of half-repentant feeling, remembering all his generosity, his +forbearance, his devotion. + +"When are you speaking next?" she half whispered. In the dim light her +softened pose, the gentle sudden relaxation of every line, were an +intoxication. + +"Next week--Friday--at Gairsly. Hallin and Aunt Neta are coming." + +"Will Miss Raeburn take me?" + +His grey eyes shone upon her, and he kissed her hand. + +"Mr. Hallin won't speak for you!" she said, after the silence, with a +return of mischief. + +"Don't be so sure! He has given me untold help in the drafting of my +Bill. If I didn't call myself a Conservative, he would vote for me +to-morrow. That's the absurdity of it. Do you know, I hear them coming +back?" + +"One thing," she said hastily, drawing him towards her, and then +holding him back, as though shrinking always from the feeling she could +so readily evoke. "I must say it; you oughtn't to give me so much money, +it is too much. Suppose I use it for things you don't like?" + +"You won't," he said gaily. + +She tried to push the subject further, but he would not have it. + +"I am all for free discussion," he said in the same tone; "but sometimes +debate must be stifled. I am going to stifle it!" + +And stooping, he kissed her, lightly, tremulously. His manner showed her +once more what she was to him--how sacred, how beloved. First it touched +and shook her; then she sprang up with a sudden disagreeable sense of +moral disadvantage--inferiority--coming she knew not whence, and undoing +for the moment all that buoyant consciousness of playing the +magnanimous, disinterested part which had possessed her throughout the +talk in the drawing-room. + +The others reappeared, headed by their lamp: Wharton first, scanning the +two who had lingered behind, with his curious eyes, so blue and +brilliant under the white forehead and the curls. + +"We have been making the wildest shots at your ancestors, Miss Boyce," +he said. "Frank professed to know everything about the pictures, and +turned out to know nothing. I shall ask for some special coaching +to-morrow morning. May I engage you--ten o'clock?" + +Marcella made some evasive answer, and they all sauntered back to the +drawing-room. + +"Shall you be at work to-morrow, Raeburn?" said Wharton. + +"Probably," said Aldous drily. Marcella, struck by the tone, looked +back, and caught an expression and bearing which were as yet new to her +in the speaker. She supposed they represented the haughtiness natural in +the man of birth and power towards the intruder, who is also the +opponent. + +Instantly the combative critical mood returned upon her, and the impulse +to assert herself by protecting Wharton. His manner throughout the talk +in the drawing-room had been, she declared to herself, excellent--modest, +and self-restrained, comparing curiously with the boyish egotism and +self-abandonment he had shown in their _tęte-ŕ-tęte_. + + * * * * * + +"Why, there is Mr. Boyce," exclaimed Wharton, hurrying forward as they +entered the drawing-room. + +There, indeed, on the sofa was the master of the house, more ghastly +black and white than ever, and prepared to claim to the utmost the +tragic pre-eminence of illness. He shook hands coldly with Aldous, who +asked after his health with the kindly brevity natural to the man who +wants no effusions for himself in public or personal matters, and +concludes therefore that other people desire none. + +"You _are_ better, papa?" said Marcella, taking his hand. + +"Certainly, my dear--better for morphia. Don't talk of me. I have got my +death warrant, but I hope I can take it quietly. Evelyn, I _specially_ +asked to have that thin cushion brought down from my dressing-room. It +is strange that no one pays any attention to my wants." + +Mrs. Boyce, almost as white, Marcella now saw, as her husband, moved +forward from the fire, where she had been speaking to Hallin, took a +cushion from a chair near, exactly similar to the one he missed, and +changed his position a little. + +"It is just the feather's weight of change that makes the difference, +isn't it?" said Wharton, softly, sitting down beside the invalid. + +Mr. Boyce turned a mollified countenance upon the speaker, and being now +free from pain, gave himself up to the amusement of hearing his guest +talk. Wharton devoted himself, employing all his best arts. + +"Dr. Clarke is not anxious about him," Mrs. Boyce said in a low voice to +Marcella as they moved away. "He does not think the attack will return +for a long while, and he has given me the means of stopping it if it +does come back." + +"How tired you look!" said Aldous, coming up to them, and speaking in +the same undertone. "Will you not let Marcella take you to rest?" + +He was always deeply, unreasonably touched by any sign of stoicism, of +defied suffering in women. Mrs. Boyce had proved it many times already. +On the present occasion she put his sympathy by, but she lingered to +talk with him. Hallin from a distance noticed first of all her tall +thinness and fairness, and her wonderful dignity of carriage; then the +cordiality of her manner to her future son-in-law. Marcella stood by +listening, her young shoulders somewhat stiffly set. Her consciousness +of her mother's respect and admiration for the man she was to marry was, +oddly enough, never altogether pleasant to her. It brought with it a +certain discomfort, a certain wish to argue things out. + +Hallin and Aldous parted with Frank Leven at Mellor gate, and turned +homeward together under a starry heaven already whitening to the coming +moon. + +"Do you know that man Wharton is getting an extraordinary hold upon the +London working men?" said Hallin. "I have heard him tell that story of +the game-preserving before. He was speaking for one of the Radical +candidates at Hackney, and I happened to be there. It brought down +the house. The _rôle_ of your Socialist aristocrat, of your +land-nationalising landlord, is a very telling one." + +"And comparatively easy," said Aldous, "when you know that neither +Socialism nor land-nationalisation will come in your time!" + +"Oh! so you think him altogether a windbag?" + +Aldous hesitated and laughed. + +"I have certainly no reason to suspect him of principles. His conscience +as a boy was of pretty elastic stuff." + +"You may be unfair to him," said Hallin, quickly. Then, after a pause: +"How long is he staying at Mellor?" + +"About a week, I believe," said Aldous, shortly. "Mr. Boyce has taken a +fancy to him." + +They walked on in silence, and then Aldous turned to his friend in +distress. + +"You know, Hallin, this wind is much too cold for you. You are the most +wilful of men. Why would you walk?" + +"Hold your tongue, sir, and listen to me. I think your Marcella is +beautiful, and as interesting as she is beautiful. There!" + +Aldous started, then turned a grateful face upon him. + +"You must get to know her well," he said, but with some constraint. + +"Of course. I wonder," said Hallin, musing, "whom she has got hold of +among the Venturists. Shall you persuade her to come out of that, do you +think, Aldous?" + +"No!" said Raeburn, cheerfully. "Her sympathies and convictions go with +them." + +Then, as they passed through the village, he began to talk of quite +other things--college friends, a recent volume of philosophical essays, +and so on. Hallin, accustomed and jealously accustomed as he was to be +the one person in the world with whom Raeburn talked freely, would not +to-night have done or said anything to force a strong man's reserve. But +his own mind was full of anxiety. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"I _love_ this dilapidation!" said Wharton, pausing for a moment with +his back against the door he had just shut. "Only it makes me long to +take off my coat and practise some honest trade or other--plastering, or +carpentering, or painting. What useless drones we upper classes are! +Neither you nor I could mend that ceiling or patch this floor--to save +our lives." + +They were in the disused library. It was now the last room westwards of +the garden front, but in reality it was part of the older house, and had +been only adapted and re-built by that eighteenth-century Marcella whose +money had been so gracefully and vainly lavished on giving dignity to +her English husband's birthplace. The roof had been raised and domed to +match the "Chinese room," at the expense of some small rooms on the +upper floor; and the windows and doors had been suited to +eighteenth-century taste. But the old books in the old latticed shelves +which the Puritan founder of the family had bought in the days of the +Long Parliament were still there; so were the chairs in which that +worthy had sat to read a tract of Milton's or of Baxter's, or the table +at which he had penned his letters to Hampden or Fairfax, or to his old +friend--on the wrong side--Edmund Verney the standard-bearer. Only the +worm-eaten shelves were dropping from their supports, and the books lay +in mouldy confusion; the roofs had great holes and gaps, whence the +laths hung dismally down, and bats came flitting in the dusk; and there +were rotten places in the carpetless floor. + +"I have tried my best," said Marcella, dolefully, stooping to look at a +hole in the floor. "I got a bit of board and some nails, and tried to +mend some of these places myself. But I only broke the rotten wood away; +and papa was angry, and said I did more harm than good. I did get a +carpenter to mend some of the chairs; but one doesn't know where to +begin. I have cleaned and mended some of the books, but--" + +She looked sadly round the musty, forlorn place. + +"But not so well, I am afraid, as any second-hand bookseller's +apprentice could have done it," said Wharton, shaking his head. "It's +maddening to think what duffers we gentlefolks are!" + +"Why do you harp on that?" said Marcella, quickly. She had been taking +him over the house, and was in twenty minds again as to whether and how +much she liked him. + +"Because I have been reading some Board of Trade reports before +breakfast," said Wharton, "on one or two of the Birmingham industries in +particular. Goodness! what an amount of knowledge and skill and resource +these fellows have that I go about calling the 'lower orders.' I wonder +how long they are going to let me rule over them!" + +"I suppose brain-power and education count for something still?" said +Marcella, half scornfully. + +"I am greatly obliged to the world for thinking so," said Wharton with +emphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-power +I happen to possess, which is the point. The processes by which a +Birmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to +'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are, +of course, mere imbecility--compared to my performances in Responsions. +Lucky for _me_, at any rate, that the world has decided it so. I get a +good time of it--and the Birmingham jeweller calls me 'sir.'" + +"Oh! the skilled labour! that can take care of itself, and won't go on +calling you 'sir' much longer. But what about the unskilled--the people +here for instance--the villagers? We talk of their governing themselves; +we wish it, and work for it. But which of us _really_ believes that they +are fit for it, or that they are ever going to get along without _our_ +brain-power?" + +"No--poor souls!" said Wharton, with a peculiar vibrating emphasis. +"'_By their stripes we are healed, by their death we have lived_.' Do +you remember your Carlyle?" + +They had entered one of the bays formed by the bookcases which on either +side of the room projected from the wall at regular intervals, and were +standing by one of the windows which looked out on the great avenue. +Beside the window on either side hung a small portrait--in the one case +of an elderly man in a wig, in the other of a young, dark-haired woman. + +"Plenty in general, but nothing in particular," said Marcella, laughing. +"Quote." + +He was leaning against the angle formed by the wall and the bookcase. +The half-serious, half-provocative intensity of his blue eyes under the +brow which drooped forward contrasted with the careless, well-appointed +ease of his general attitude and dress. + +"'_Two men I honour, and no third_,'" he said, quoting in a slightly +dragging, vibrating voice: "'_First, the toil-worn craftsman that with +earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her +man's.--Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us +were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our +conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so +marred_.' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, you +know, for you and me--Venturists--to be maundering like this. +Charity--benevolence--that is all Carlyle is leading up to. He merely +wants the cash nexus supplemented by a few good offices. But we want +something much more unpleasant! 'Keep your subscriptions--hand over your +dividends--turn out of your land--and go to work!' Nowadays society is +trying to get out of doing what _we_ want, by doing what Carlyle +wanted." + +"_Do_ you want it?" said Marcella. + +"I don't know," he said, laughing. "It won't come in our time." + +Her lip showed her scorn. + +"That's what we all think. Meanwhile you will perhaps admit that a +little charity greases the wheels." + +"_You_ must, because you are a woman; and women are made for +charity--and aristocracy." + +"Do you suppose you know so much about women?" she asked him, rather +hotly. "I notice it is always the assumption of the people who make most +mistakes." + +"Oh! I know enough to steer by!" he said, smiling, with a little +inclination of his curly head, as though to propitiate her. "How like +you are to that portrait!" + +Marcella started, and saw that he was pointing to the woman's portrait +beside the window--looking from it to his hostess with a close +considering eye. + +"That was an ancestress of mine," she said coldly, "an Italian lady. She +was rich and musical. Her money built these rooms along the garden, and +these are her music books." + +She showed him that the shelves against which she was leaning were full +of old music. + +"Italian!" he said, lifting his eyebrows. "Ah, that explains. Do you +know--that you have all the qualities of a leader!"--and he moved away a +yard from her, studying her--"mixed blood--one must always have that to +fire and fuse the English paste--and then--but no! that won't do--I +should offend you." + +Her first instinct was one of annoyance--a wish to send him about his +business, or rather to return him to her mother who would certainly keep +him in order. Instead, however, she found herself saying, as she looked +carelessly out of window-- + +"Oh! go on." + +"Well, then"--he drew himself up suddenly and wheeled round upon +her--"you have the gift of compromise. That is invaluable--that will +take you far." + +"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you! I know what that means--from a +Venturist. You think me a mean insincere person!" + +He started, then recovered himself and came to lean against the +bookshelves beside her. + +"I mean nothing of the sort," he said, in quite a different manner, with +a sort of gentle and personal emphasis. "But--may I explain myself, Miss +Boyce, in a room with a fire? I can see you shivering under your fur." + +For the frost still reigned supreme outside, and the white grass and +trees threw chill reflected lights into the forsaken library. Marcella +controlled a pulse of excitement that had begun to beat in her, admitted +that it was certainly cold, and led the way through a side door to a +little flagged parlour, belonging to the oldest portion of the house, +where, however, a great log-fire was burning, and some chairs drawn up +round it. She took one and let the fur wrap she had thrown about her for +their promenade through the disused rooms drop from her shoulders. It +lay about her in full brown folds, giving special dignity to her slim +height and proud head. Wharton glancing about in his curious inquisitive +way, now at the neglected pictures, now on the walls, now at the old oak +chairs and chests, now at her, said to himself that she was a splendid +and inspiring creature. She seemed to be on the verge of offence with +him too, half the time, which was stimulating. She would have liked, he +thought, to play the great lady with him already, as Aldous Raeburn's +betrothed. But he had so far managed to keep her off that plane--and +intended to go on doing so. + +"Well, I meant this," he said, leaning against the old stone chimney +and looking down upon her; "only _don't_ be offended with me, please. +You are a Socialist, and you are going--some day--to be Lady Maxwell. +Those combinations are only possible to women. They can sustain them, +because they are imaginative--not logical." + +She flushed. + +"And you," she said, breathing quickly, "are a Socialist and a landlord. +What is the difference?" + +He laughed. + +"Ah! but I have no gift--I can't ride the two horses, as you will be +able to--quite honestly. There's the difference. And the consequence is +that with my own class I am an outcast--they all hate me. But you will +have power as Lady Maxwell--and power as a Socialist--because you will +give and take. Half your time you will act as Lady Maxwell should, the +other half like a Venturist. And, as I said, it will give you power--a +modified power. But men are less clever at that kind of thing." + +"Do you mean to say," she asked him abruptly, "that you have given up +the luxuries and opportunities of your class?" + +He shifted his position a little. + +"That is a different matter," he said after a moment. "We Socialists are +all agreed, I think, that no man can be a Socialist by himself. +Luxuries, for the present, are something personal, individual. It is +only a man's 'public form' that matters. And there, as I said before, I +have no gift!--I have not a relation or an old friend in the world that +has not turned his back upon me--as you might see for yourself +yesterday! My class has renounced me already--which, after all, is a +weakness." + +"So you pity yourself?" she said. + +"By no means! We all choose the part in life that amuses us--that brings +us most _thrill_. I get most thrill out of throwing myself into the +workmen's war--much more than I could ever get, you will admit, out of +dancing attendance on my very respectable cousins. My mother taught me +to see everything dramatically. We have no drama in England at the +present moment worth a cent; so I amuse myself with this great +tragi-comedy of the working-class movement. It stirs, pricks, interests +me, from morning till night. I feel the great rough elemental passions +in it, and it delights me to know that every day brings us nearer to +some great outburst, to scenes and struggles at any rate that will make +us all look alive. I am like a child with the best of its cake to come, +but with plenty in hand already. Ah!--stay still a moment, Miss Boyce!" + +To her amazement he stooped suddenly towards her; and she, looking down, +saw that a corner of her light, black dress, which had been overhanging +the low stone fender, was in flames, and that he was putting it out with +his hands. She made a movement to rise, alarmed lest the flames should +leap to her face--her hair. But he, releasing one hand for an instant +from its task of twisting and rolling the skirt upon itself, held her +heavily down. + +"Don't move; I will have it out in a moment. You won't be burnt." + +And in a second more she was looking at a ragged brown hole in her +dress; and at him, standing, smiling, before the fire, and wrapping a +handkerchief round some of the fingers of his left hand. + +"You have burnt yourself, Mr. Wharton?" + +"A little." + +"I will go and get something--what would you like?" + +"A little olive oil if you have some, and a bit of lint--but don't +trouble yourself." + +She flew to find her mother's maid, calling and searching on her way for +Mrs. Boyce herself, but in vain. Mrs. Boyce had disappeared after +breakfast, and was probably helping her husband to dress. + +In a minute or so Marcella ran downstairs again, bearing various +medicaments. She sped to the Stone Parlour, her cheek and eye glowing. + +"Let me do it for you." + +"If you please," said Wharton, meekly. + +She did her best, but she was not skilful with her fingers, and this +close contact with him somehow excited her. + +"There," she said, laughing and releasing him. "Of course, if I were a +work-girl I should have done it better. They are not going to be very +bad, I think." + +"What, the burns? Oh, no! They will have recovered, I am afraid, long +before your dress." + +"Oh, my dress! yes, it is deplorable. I will go and change it." + +She turned to go, but she lingered instead, and said with an odd, +introductory laugh: + +"I believe you saved my life!" + +"Well, I am glad I was here. You might have lost self-possession--even +_you_ might, you know!--and then it would have been serious." + +"Anyway"--her voice was still uncertain--"I might have been +disfigured--disfigured for life!" + +"I don't know why you should dwell upon it now it's done with," he +declared, smiling. + +"It would be strange, wouldn't it, if I took it quite for granted--all +in the day's work?" She held out her hand: "I am grateful--please." + +He bowed over it, laughing, again with that eighteenth-century air which +might have become a Chevalier des Grieux. + +"May I exact a reward?" + +"Ask it." + +"Will you take me down with you to your village? I know you are going. I +must walk on afterwards and catch a midday train to Widrington. I have +an appointment there at two o'clock. But perhaps you will introduce me +to one or two of your poor people first?" + +Marcella assented, went upstairs, changed her dress, and put on her +walking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her mother +to go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by a +feeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally and +indecorously towards whom?--towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did not +know. But there was a curious sense of lost bloom, lost dignity, +combined with an odd wish that Mr. Wharton were not going away for the +day. In the end, however, she left her mother undisturbed. + +By the time they were half way to the village, Marcella's uncomfortable +feelings had all passed away. Without knowing it, she was becoming too +much absorbed in her companion to be self-critical, so long as they were +together. It seemed to her, however, before they had gone more than a +few hundred yards that he was taking advantage--presuming on what had +happened. He offended her taste, her pride, her dignity, in a hundred +ways, she discovered. At the same time it was _she_ who was always on +the defensive--protecting her dreams, her acts, her opinions, against +the constant fire of his half-ironical questions, which seemed to leave +her no time at all to carry the war into the enemy's country. He put her +through a quick cross-examination about the village, its occupations, +the incomes of the people, its local charities and institutions, what +she hoped to do for it, what she would do if she could, what she thought +it _possible_ to do. She answered first reluctantly, then eagerly, her +pride all alive to show that she was not merely ignorant and amateurish. +But it was no good. In the end he made her feel as Antony Craven had +constantly done--that she knew nothing exactly, that she had not +mastered the conditions of any one of the social problems she was +talking about; that not only was her reading of no account, but that she +had not even managed to _see_ these people, to interpret their lives +under her very eyes, with any large degree of insight. + +Especially was he merciless to all the Lady Bountiful pose, which meant +so much to her imagination--not in words so much as in manner. He let +her see that all the doling and shepherding and advising that still +pleased her fancy looked to him the merest temporary palliative, and +irretrievably tainted, even at that, with some vulgar feeling or other. +All that the well-to-do could do for the poor under the present state of +society was but a niggardly quit-rent; as for any relation of "superior" +and "inferior" in the business, or of any social desert attaching to +these precious efforts of the upper class to daub the gaps in the +ruinous social edifice for which they were themselves responsible, he +did not attempt to conceal his scorn. If you did not do these things, so +much the worse for you when the working class came to its own; if you +did do them, the burden of debt was hardly diminished, and the rope was +still left on your neck. + +Now Marcella herself had on one or two occasions taken a malicious +pleasure in flaunting these doctrines, or some of them, under Miss +Raeburn's eyes. But somehow, as applied to herself, they were +disagreeable. Each of us is to himself a "special case"; and she saw the +other side. Hence a constant soreness of feeling; a constant recalling +of the argument to the personal point of view; and through it all a +curious growth of intimacy, a rubbing away of barriers. She had felt +herself of no account before, intellectually, in Aldous's company, as we +know. But then how involuntary on his part, and how counter-balanced by +that passionate idealism of his love, which glorified every pretty +impulse in her to the noblest proportions! Under Wharton's Socratic +method, she was conscious at times of the most wild and womanish +desires, worthy of her childhood--to cry, to go into a passion!--and +when they came to the village, and every human creature, old and young, +dropped its obsequious curtsey as they passed, she could first have +beaten them for so degrading her, and the next moment felt a feverish +pleasure in thus parading her petty power before a man who in his +doctrinaire pedantry had no sense of poetry, or of the dear old natural +relations of country life. + +They went first to Mrs. Jellison's, to whom Marcella wished to unfold +her workshop scheme. + +"Don't let me keep you," she said to Wharton coldly, as they neared the +cottage; "I know you have to catch your train." + +Wharton consulted his watch. He had to be at a local station some two +miles off within an hour. + +"Oh! I have time," he said. "Do take me in, Miss Boyce. I have made +acquaintance with these people so far, as my constituents--now show them +to me as your subjects. Besides, I am an observer. I 'collect' peasants. +They are my study." + +"They are not my subjects, but my friends," she said with the same +stiffness. + +They found Mrs. Jellison having her dinner. The lively old woman was +sitting close against her bit of fire, on her left a small deal table +which held her cold potatoes and cold bacon; on her right a tiny window +and window-sill whereon lay her coil of "plait" and the simple +straw-splitting machine she had just been working. When Marcella had +taken the only other chair the hovel contained, nothing else remained +for Wharton but to flatten himself as closely against the door as he +might. + +"I'm sorry I can't bid yer take a cheer," said Mrs. Jellison to him, +"but what yer han't got yer can't give, so I don't trouble my head about +nothink." + +Wharton applauded her with easy politeness, and then gave himself, with +folded arms, to examining the cottage while Marcella talked. It might be +ten feet broad, he thought, by six feet in one part and eight feet in +another. The roof was within little more than an inch of his head. The +stairway in the corner was falling to pieces; he wondered how the woman +got up safely to her bed at night; custom, he supposed, can make even +old bones agile. + +Meanwhile Marcella was unfolding the project of the straw-plaiting +workshop that she and Lady Winterbourne were about to start. Mrs. +Jellison put on her spectacles apparently that she might hear the +better, pushed away her dinner in spite of her visitors' civilities, and +listened with a bright and beady eye. + +"An' yer agoin' to pay me one a sixpence a score, where I now gets +ninepence. And I'll not have to tramp it into town no more--you'll send +a man round. And who is agoin' to pay me, miss, if you'll excuse me +asking?" + +"Lady Winterbourne and I," said Marcella, smiling. "We're going to +employ this village and two others, and make as good business of it as +we can. But we're going to begin by giving the workers better wages, and +in time we hope to teach them the higher kinds of work." + +"Lor'!" said Mrs. Jellison. "But I'm not one o' them as kin do with +changes." She took up her plait and looked at it thoughtfully. +"Eighteen-pence a score. It wor that rate when I wor a girl. An' it ha' +been dibble--dibble--iver sense; a penny off here, an' a penny off +there, an' a hard job to keep a bite ov anythink in your mouth." + +"Then I may put down your name among our workers, Mrs. Jellison?" said +Marcella, rising and smiling down upon her. + +"Oh, lor', no; I niver said that," said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "I don't +hold wi' shilly-shallyin' wi' yer means o' livin'. I've took my plait to +Jimmy Gedge--'im an' 'is son, fust shop on yer right hand when yer git +into town--twenty-five year, summer and winter--me an' three other +women, as give me a penny a journey for takin' theirs. If I wor to go +messin' about wi' Jimmy Gedge, Lor' bless yer, I should 'ear ov it--oh! +I shoulden sleep o' nights for thinkin' o' how Jimmy ud serve me out +when I wor least egspectin' ov it. He's a queer un. No, miss, thank yer +kindly; but I think I'll bide." + +Marcella, amazed, began to argue a little, to expound the many +attractions of the new scheme. Greatly to her annoyance, Wharton came +forward to her help, guaranteeing the solvency and permanence of her new +partnership in glib and pleasant phrase, wherein her angry fancy +suspected at once the note of irony. But Mrs. Jellison held firm, +embroidering her negative, indeed, with her usual cheerful chatter, but +sticking to it all the same. At last there was no way of saving dignity +but to talk of something else and go--above all, to talk of something +else before going, lest the would-be benefactor should be thought a +petty tyrant. + +"Oh, Johnnie?--thank yer, miss--'e's an owdacious young villain as iver +I seed--but _clever_--lor', you'd need 'ave eyes in yer back to look +after _'im_. An' _coaxin'_! ''Aven't yer brought me no sweeties, +Gran'ma?' 'No, my dear,' says I. 'But if you was to _look_, Gran'ma--in +both your pockets, Gran'ma--iv you was to let _me_ look?' It's a sharp +un Isabella, she don't 'old wi' sweet-stuff, she says, sich a pack o' +nonsense. She'd stuff herself sick when she wor 'is age. Why shouldn't +_ee_ be happy, same as her? There ain't much to make a child 'appy in +_that_ 'ouse. Westall, ee's that mad about them poachers over Tudley +End; ee's like a wild bull at 'ome. I told Isabella ee'd come to +knockin' ov her about _some_ day, though ee did speak so oily when ee +wor a courtin'. Now she knows as I kin see a thing or two," said Mrs. +Jellison, significantly. Her manner, Wharton noticed, kept always the +same gay philosophy, whatever subject turned up. + +"Why, that's an old story--that Tudley End business--" said Marcella, +rising. "I should have thought Westall might have got over it by now." + +"But bless yer, ee says it's goin' on as lively as iver. Ee says ee +knows they're set on grabbin' the birds t'other side the estate, over +beyond Mellor way--ee's got wind of it--an' ee's watchin' night an' day +to see they don't do him no bad turn _this_ month, bekase o' the big +shoot they allus has in January. An' lor', ee do speak drefful bad o' +_soom_ folks," said Mrs. Jellison, with an amused expression. "You know +some on 'em, miss, don't yer?" And the old woman, who had begun toying +with her potatoes, slanted her fork over her shoulder so as to point +towards the Hurds' cottage, whereof the snow-laden roof could be seen +conspicuously through the little lattice beside her, making sly eyes the +while at her visitor. + +"I don't believe a word of it," said Marcella, impatiently. "Hurd has +been in good work since October, and has no need to poach. Westall has a +down on him. You may tell him I think so, if you like." + +"That I will," said Mrs. Jellison, cheerfully, opening the door for +them. "There's nobody makes 'im 'ear the trëuth, nobbut me. I _loves_ +naggin' ov 'im, ee's that masterful. But ee don't master _me_!" + +"A gay old thing," said Wharton as they shut the gate behind them. "How +she does enjoy the human spectacle. And obstinate too. But you will find +the younger ones more amenable." + +"Of course," said Marcella, with dignity. "I have a great many names +already. The old people are always difficult. But Mrs. Jellison will +come round." + +"Are you going in here?" + +"Please." + +Wharton knocked at the Hurds' door, and Mrs. Hurd opened. + +The cottage was thick with smoke. The chimney only drew when the door +was left open. But the wind to-day was so bitter that mother and +children preferred the smoke to the draught. Marcella soon made out the +poor little bronchitic boy, sitting coughing by the fire, and Mrs. Hurd +busied with some washing. She introduced Wharton, who, as before, stood +for some time, hat in hand, studying the cottage. Marcella was perfectly +conscious of it, and a blush rose to her cheek while she talked to Mrs. +Hurd. For both this and Mrs. Jellison's hovel were her father's property +and somewhat highly rented. + +Minta Hurd said eagerly that she would join the new straw-plaiting, and +went on to throw out a number of hurried, half-coherent remarks about +the state of the trade past and present, leaning meanwhile against the +table and endlessly drying her hands on the towel she had taken up when +her visitors came in. + +Her manner was often nervous and flighty in these days. She never looked +happy; but Marcella put it down to health or natural querulousness of +character. Yet both she and the children were clearly better nourished, +except Willie, in whom the tubercular tendency was fast gaining on the +child's strength. + +Altogether Marcella was proud of her work, and her eager interest in +this little knot of people whose lives she had shaped was more +possessive than ever. Hurd, indeed, was often silent and secretive; but +she put down her difficulties with him to our odious system of class +differences, against which in her own way she was struggling. One thing +delighted her--that he seemed to take more and more interest in the +labour questions she discussed with him, and in that fervid, exuberant +literature she provided him with. Moreover, he now went to all Mr. +Wharton's meetings that were held within reasonable distance of Mellor; +and, as she said to Aldous with a little laugh, which, however, was not +unsweet, _he_ had found her man work--_she_ had robbed his candidate of +a vote. + +Wharton listened a while to her talk with Minta, smiled a little, +unperceived of Marcella, at the young mother's docilities of manner and +phrase; then turned his attention to the little hunched and coughing +object by the fire. + +"Are you very bad, little man?" + +The white-faced child looked up, a dreary look, revealing a patient, +melancholy soul. He tried to answer, but coughed instead. + +Wharton, moving towards him, saw a bit of ragged white paper lying on +the ground, which had been torn from a grocery parcel. + +"Would you like something to amuse you a bit--Ugh! this smoke! Come +round here, it won't catch us so much. _Now_, then, what do you say to a +doggie,--two doggies?" + +The child stared, let himself be lifted on the stranger's knee, and did +his very utmost to stop coughing. But when he had succeeded his quick +panting breaths still shook his tiny frame and Wharton's knee. + +"Hm--Give him two months or thereabouts!" thought Wharton. "What a +beastly hole!--one room up, and one down, like the other, only a shade +larger. Damp, insanitary, cold--bad water, bad drainage, I'll be +bound--bad everything. That girl may well try her little best. And I go +making up to that man Boyce! What for? Old spites?--new +spites?--which?--or both!" + +Meanwhile his rapid skilful fingers were tearing, pinching, and shaping; +and in a very few minutes there, upon his free knee, stood the most +enticing doggie of pinched paper, a hound in full course, with long ears +and stretching legs. + +The child gazed at it with ravishment, put out a weird hand, touched +it, stroked it, and then, as he looked back at Wharton, the most +exquisite smile dawned in his saucer-blue eyes. + +"What? did you like it, grasshopper?" cried Wharton, enchanted by the +beauty of the look, his own colour mounting. "Then you shall have +another." + +And he twisted and turned his piece of fresh paper, till there, beside +the first, stood a second fairy animal--a greyhound this time, with +arching neck and sharp long nose. + +"There's two on 'em at Westall's!" cried the child, hoarsely, clutching +at his treasures in an ecstasy. + +Mrs. Hurd, at the other end of the cottage, started as she heard the +name. Marcella noticed it; and with her eager sympathetic look began at +once to talk of Hurd and the works at the Court. She understood they +were doing grand things, and that the work would last all the winter. +Minta answered hurriedly and with a curious choice of phrases. "Oh! he +didn't have nothing to say against it." Mr. Brown, the steward, seemed +satisfied. All that she said was somehow irrelevant; and, to Marcella's +annoyance, plaintive as usual. Wharton, with the boy inside his arm, +turned his head an instant to listen. + +Marcella, having thought of repeating, without names, some of Mrs. +Jellison's gossip, then shrank from it. He had promised her, she thought +to herself with a proud delicacy; and she was not going to treat the +word of a working man as different from anybody else's. + +So she fastened her cloak again, which she had thrown open in the +stifling air of the cottage, and turned both to call her companion and +give a smile or two to the sick boy. + +But, as she did so, she stood amazed at the spectacle of Wharton and the +child. Then, moving up to them, she perceived the menagerie--for it had +grown to one--on Wharton's knee. + +"You didn't guess I had such tricks," he said, smiling. + +"But they are so good--so artistic!" She took up a little galloping +horse he had just fashioned and wondered at it. + +"A great-aunt taught me--she was a genius--I follow her at a long +distance. Will you let me go, young man? You may keep all of them." + +But the child, with a sudden contraction of the brow, flung a tiny +stick-like arm round his neck, pressing hard, and looking at him. There +was a red spot in each wasted cheek, and his eyes were wide and happy. +Wharton returned the look with one of quiet scrutiny--the scrutiny of +the doctor or the philosopher. On Marcella's quick sense the contrast of +the two heads impressed itself--the delicate youth of Wharton's with its +clustering curls--the sunken contours and the helpless suffering of the +other. Then Wharton kissed the little fellow, put his animals carefully +on to a chair beside him, and set him down. + +They walked along the snowy street again, in a different relation to +each other. Marcella had been touched and charmed, and Wharton teased +her no more. As they reached the door of the almshouse where the old +Pattons lived, she said to him: "I think I had rather go in here by +myself, please. I have some things to give them--old Patton has been +very ill this last week--but I know what you think of doles--and I know +too what you think, what you must think, of my father's cottages. It +makes me feel a hypocrite; yet I must do these things; we are different, +you and I--I am sure you will miss your train!" + +But there was no antagonism, only painful feeling in her softened look. + +Wharton put out his hand. + +"Yes, it is time for me to go. You say I make you feel a hypocrite! I +wonder whether you have any idea what you make me feel? Do you imagine I +should dare to say the things I have said except to one of the _élite_? +Would it be worth my while, as a social reformer? Are you not vowed to +great destinies? When one comes across one of the tools of the future, +must one not try to sharpen it, out of one's poor resources, in spite of +manners?" + +Marcella, stirred--abashed--fascinated--let him press her hand. Then he +walked rapidly away towards the station, a faint smile twitching at his +lip. + +"An inexperienced girl," he said to himself, composedly. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Before she went home, Marcella turned into the little rectory garden to +see if she could find Mary Harden for a minute or two. The intimacy +between them was such that she generally found entrance to the house by +going round to a garden door and knocking or calling. The house was very +small, and Mary's little sitting-room was close to this door. + +Her knock brought Mary instantly. + +"Oh! come in. You won't mind. We were just at dinner. Charles is going +away directly. Do stay and talk to me a bit." + +Marcella hesitated, but at last went in. The meals at the rectory +distressed her--the brother and sister showed the marks of them. To-day +she found their usual fare carefully and prettily arranged on a spotless +table; some bread, cheese, and boiled rice--nothing else. Nor did they +allow themselves any fire for meals. Marcella, sitting beside them in +her fur, did not feel the cold, but Mary was clearly shivering under her +shawl. They eat meat twice a week, and in the afternoon Mary lit the +sitting-room fire. In the morning she contented herself with the +kitchen, where, as she cooked for many sick folk, and had only a girl of +fourteen whom she was training to help her with the housework, she had +generally much to do. + +The Rector did not stay long after her arrival. He had a distant visit +to pay to a dying child, and hurried off so as to be home, if possible, +before dark. Marcella admired him, but did not feel that she understood +him more as they were better acquainted. He was slight and young, and +not very clever; but a certain inexpugnable dignity surrounded him, +which, real as it was, sometimes irritated Marcella. It sat oddly on his +round face--boyish still, in spite of its pinched and anxious look--but +there it was, not to be ignored. Marcella thought him a Conservative, +and very backward and ignorant in his political and social opinions. But +she was perfectly conscious that she must also think him a saint; and +that the deepest things in him were probably not for her. + +Mr. Harden said a few words to her now as to her straw-plaiting scheme, +which had his warmest sympathy--Marcella contrasted his tone gratefully +with that of Wharton, and once more fell happily in love with her own +ideas--then he went off, leaving the two girls together. + +"Have you seen Mrs. Hurd this morning?" said Mary. + +"Yes, Willie seems very bad." + +Mary assented. + +"The doctor says he will hardly get through the winter, especially if +this weather goes on. But the greatest excitement of the village just +now--do you know?--is the quarrel between Hurd and Westall. Somebody +told Charles yesterday that they never meet without threatening each +other. Since the covers at Tudley End were raided, Westall seems to have +quite lost his head. He declares Hurd knew all about that, and that he +is hand and glove with the same gang still. He vows he will catch him +out, and Hurd told the man who told Charles that if Westall bullies him +any more he will put a knife into him. And Charles says that Hurd is not +a bit like he was. He used to be such a patient, silent creature. Now--" + +"He has woke up to a few more ideas and a little more life than he had, +that's all," said Marcella, impatiently. "He poached last winter, and +small blame to him. But since he got work at the Court in November--is +it likely? He knows that he was suspected; and what could be his +interest now, after a hard day's work, to go out again at night, and run +the risk of falling into Westall's clutches, when he doesn't want either +the food or the money?" + +"I don't know," said Mary, shaking her head. "Charles says, if they once +do it, they hardly ever leave it off altogether. It's the excitement and +amusement of it." + +"He promised me," said Marcella, proudly. + +"They promise Charles all sorts of things," said Mary, slyly; "but they +don't keep to them." + +Warmly grateful as both she and the Rector had been from the beginning +to Marcella for the passionate interest she took in the place and the +people, the sister was sometimes now a trifle jealous--divinely +jealous--for her brother. Marcella's unbounded confidence in her own +power and right over Mellor, her growing tendency to ignore anybody +else's right or power, sometimes set Mary aflame, for Charles's sake, +heartily and humbly as she admired her beautiful friend. + +"I shall speak to Mr. Raeburn about it," said Marcella. + +She never called him "Aldous" to anybody--a stiffness which jarred a +little upon the gentle, sentimental Mary. + +"I saw you pass," she said, "from one of the top windows. He was with +you, wasn't he?" + +A slight colour sprang to her sallow cheek, a light to her eyes. Most +wonderful, most interesting was this engagement to Mary, who--strange to +think!--had almost brought it about. Mr. Raeburn was to her one of the +best and noblest of men, and she felt quite simply, and with a sort of +Christian trembling for him, the romance of his great position. Was +Marcella happy, was she proud of him, as she ought to be? Mary was often +puzzled by her. + +"Oh no!" said Marcella, with a little laugh. "That wasn't Mr. Raeburn. I +don't know where your eyes were, Mary. That was Mr. Wharton, who is +staying with us. He has gone on to a meeting at Widrington." + +Mary's face fell. + +"Charles says Mr. Wharton's influence in the village is very bad," she +said quickly. "He makes everybody discontented; sets everybody by the +ears; and, after all, what can he do for anybody?" + +"But that's just what he wants to do--to make them discontented," cried +Marcella. "Then, if they vote for him, that's the first practical step +towards improving their life." + +"But it won't give them more wages or keep them out of the public +house," said Mary, bewildered. She came of a homely middle-class stock, +accustomed to a small range of thinking, and a high standard of doing. +Marcella's political opinions were an amazement, and on the whole a +scandal to her. She preferred generally to give them a wide berth. + +Marcella did not reply. It was not worth while to talk to Mary on these +topics. But Mary stuck to the subject a moment longer. + +"You can't want him to get in, though?" she said in a puzzled voice, as +she led the way to the little sitting-room across the passage, and took +her workbasket out of the cupboard. "It was only the week before last +Mr. Raeburn was speaking at the schoolroom for Mr. Dodgson. You weren't +there, Marcella?" + +"No," said Marcella, shortly. "I thought you knew perfectly well, Mary, +that Mr. Raeburn and I don't agree politically. Certainly, I hope Mr. +Wharton will get in!" + +Mary opened her eyes in wonderment. She stared at Marcella, forgetting +the sock she had just slipped over her left hand, and the darning needle +in her right. + +Marcella laughed. + +"I know you think that two people who are going to be married ought to +say ditto to each other in everything. Don't you--you dear old goose?" + +She came and stood beside Mary, a stately and beautiful creature in her +loosened furs. She stroked Mary's straight sandy hair back from her +forehead. Mary looked up at her with a thrill, nay, a passionate throb +of envy--soon suppressed. + +"I think," she said steadily, "it is very strange--that love should +oppose and disagree with what it loves." + +Marcella went restlessly towards the fire and began to examine the +things on the mantelpiece. + +"Can't people agree to differ, you sentimentalist? Can't they respect +each other, without echoing each other on every subject?" + +"Respect!" cried Mary, with a sudden scorn, which was startling from a +creature so soft. + +"There, she could tear me in pieces!" said Marcella, laughing, though +her lip was not steady. "I wonder what you would be like, Mary, if you +were engaged." + +Mary ran her needle in and out with lightning speed for a second or two, +then she said almost under her breath-- + +"I shouldn't be engaged unless I were in love. And if I were in love, +why, I would go anywhere--do anything--believe anything--if _he_ told +me!" + +"Believe anything?--Mary--you wouldn't!" + +"I don't mean as to religion," said Mary, hastily. "But everything +else--I would give it all up!--governing one's self, thinking for one's +self. He should do it, and I would _bless_ him!" + +She looked up crimson, drawing a very long breath, as though from some +deep centre of painful, passionate feeling. It was Marcella's turn to +stare. Never had Mary so revealed herself before. + +"Did you ever love any one like that, Mary?" she asked quickly. + +Mary dropped her head again over her work and did not answer +immediately. + +"Do you see--" she said at last, with a change of tone, "do you see +that we have got our invitation?" + +Marcella, about to give the rein to an eager curiosity Mary's manner had +excited in her, felt herself pulled up sharply. When she chose, this +little meek creature could put on the same unapproachableness as her +brother. Marcella submitted. + +"Yes, I see," she said, taking up a card on the mantelpiece. "It will be +a great crush. I suppose you know. They have asked the whole county, it +seems to me." + +The card bore an invitation in Miss Raeburn's name for the Rector and +his sister to a dance at Maxwell Court--the date given was the +twenty-fifth of January. + +"What fun!" said Mary, her eye sparkling. "You needn't suppose that I +know enough of balls to be particular. I have only been to one before in +my life--ever. That was at Cheltenham. An aunt took me--I didn't dance. +There were hardly any men, but I enjoyed it." + +"Well, you shall dance this time," said Marcella, "for I will make Mr. +Raeburn introduce you." + +"Nonsense, you won't have any time to think about me. You will be the +queen--everybody will want to speak to you. I shall sit in a corner and +look at you--that will be enough for me." + +Marcella went up to her quickly and kissed her, then she said, still +holding her-- + +"I know you think I ought to be very happy, Mary!" + +"I should think I do!" said Mary, with astonished emphasis, when the +voice paused--"I should think I do!" + +"I _am_ happy--and I want to make him happy. But there are so many +things, so many different aims and motives, that complicate life, that +puzzle one. One doesn't know how much to give of one's self, to each--" + +She stood with her hand on Mary's shoulder, looking away towards the +window and the snowy garden, her brow frowning and distressed. + +"Well, I don't understand," said Mary, after a pause. "As I said before, +it seems to me so plain and easy--to be in love, and give one's self +_all_--to that. But you are so much cleverer than I, Marcella, you know +so much more. That makes the difference. I can't be like you. Perhaps I +don't want to be!"--and she laughed. "But I can admire you and love you, +and think about you. There, now, tell me what you are going to wear?" + +"White satin, and Mr. Raeburn wants me to wear some pearls he is going +to give me, some old pearls of his mother's. I believe I shall find them +at Mellor when I get back." + +There was little girlish pleasure in the tone. It was as though Marcella +thought her friend would be more interested in her bit of news than she +was herself, and was handing it on to her to please her. + +"Isn't there a superstition against doing that--before you're married?" +said Mary, doubtfully. + +"As if I should mind if there was! But I don't believe there is, or Miss +Raeburn would have heard of it. She's a mass of such things. Well! I +hope I shall behave myself to please her at this function. There are +not many things I do to her satisfaction; it's a mercy we're not going +to live with her. Lord Maxwell is a dear; but she and I would never get +on. Every way of thinking she has, rubs me up the wrong way; and as for +her view of me, I am just a tare sown among her wheat. Perhaps she is +right enough!" + +Marcella leant her cheek pensively on one hand, and with the other +played with the things on the mantelpiece. + +Mary looked at her, and then half smiled, half sighed. + +"I think it is a very good thing you are to be married soon," she said, +with her little air of wisdom, which offended nobody. "Then you'll know +your own mind. When is it to be?" + +"The end of February--after the election." + +"Two months," mused Mary. + +"Time enough to throw it all up in, you think?" said Marcella, +recklessly, putting on her gloves for departure. "Perhaps you'll be +pleased to hear that I _am_ going to a meeting of Mr. Raeburn's next +week?" + +"I _am_ glad. You ought to go to them all." + +"Really, Mary! How am I to lift you out of this squaw theory of +matrimony? Allow me to inform you that the following evening I am going +to one of Mr. Wharton's--here in the schoolroom!" + +She enjoyed her friend's disapproval. + +"By yourself, Marcella? It isn't seemly!" + +"I shall take a maid. Mr. Wharton is going to tell us how the people +can--get the land, and how, when they have got it, all the money that +used to go in rent will go in taking off taxes and making life +comfortable for the poor." She looked at Mary with a teasing smile. + +"Oh! I dare say he will make his stealing sound very pretty," said Mary, +with unwonted scorn, as she opened the front door for her friend. + +Marcella flashed out. + +"I know you are a saint, Mary," she said, turning back on the path +outside to deliver her last shaft. "I am often not so sure whether you +are a Christian!" + +Then she hurried off without another word, leaving the flushed and +shaken Mary to ponder this strange dictum. + + * * * * * + +Marcella was just turning into the straight drive which led past the +church on the left to Mellor House, when she heard footsteps behind her, +and, looking round, she saw Edward Hallin. + +"Will you give me some lunch, Miss Boyce, in return for a message? I am +here instead of Aldous, who is very sorry for himself, and will be over +later. I am to tell you that he went down to the station to meet a +certain box. The box did not come, but will come this afternoon; so he +waits for it, and will bring it over." + +Marcella flushed, smiled, and said she understood. Hallin moved on +beside her, evidently glad of the opportunity of a talk with her. + +"We are all going together to the Gairsley meeting next week, aren't we? +I am so glad you are coming. Aldous will do his best." + +There was something very winning in his tone to her. It implied both +his old and peculiar friendship for Aldous, and his eager wish to find a +new friend in her--to adopt her into their comradeship. Something very +winning, too, in his whole personality--in the loosely knit, nervous +figure, the irregular charm of feature, the benignant eyes and +brow--even in the suggestions of physical delicacy, cheerfully +concealed, yet none the less evident. The whole balance of Marcella's +temper changed in some sort as she talked to him. She found herself +wanting to please, instead of wanting to conquer, to make an effect. + +"You have just come from the village, I think?" said Hallin. "Aldous +tells me you take a great interest in the people?" + +He looked at her kindly, the look of one who saw all his +fellow-creatures nobly, as it were, and to their best advantage. + +"One may take an interest," she said, in a dissatisfied voice, poking at +the snow crystals on the road before her with the thorn-stick she +carried, "but one can do so little. And I don't know anything; not even +what I want myself." + +"No; one can do next to nothing. And systems and theories don't matter, +or, at least, very little. Yet, when you and Aldous are together, there +will be more chance of _doing_, for you than for most. You will be two +happy and powerful people! His power will be doubled by happiness; I +have always known that." + +Marcella was seized with shyness, looked away, and did not know what to +answer. At last she said abruptly--her head still turned to the woods +on her left-- + +"Are you sure he is going to be happy?" + +"Shall I produce his letter to me?" he said, bantering--"or letters? For +I knew a great deal about you before October 5" (their engagement-day), +"and suspected what was going to happen long before Aldous did. No; +after all, no! Those letters are my last bit of the old friendship. But +the new began that same day," he hastened to add, smiling: "It may be +richer than the old; I don't know. It depends on you." + +"I don't think--I am a very satisfactory friend," said Marcella, still +awkward, and speaking with difficulty. + +"Well, let me find out, won't you? I don't think Aldous would call me +exacting. I believe he would give me a decent character, though I tease +him a good deal. You must let me tell you sometime what he did for +me--what he was to me--at Cambridge? I shall always feel sorry for +Aldous's wife that she did not know him at college." + +A shock went through Marcella at the word--that tremendous word--wife. +As Hallin said it, there was something intolerable in the claim it made! + +"I should like you to tell me," she said faintly. Then she added, with +more energy and a sudden advance of friendliness, "But you really must +come in and rest. Aldous told me he thought the walk from the Court was +too much for you. Shall we take this short way?" + +And she opened a little gate leading to a door at the side of the house +through the Cedar Garden. The narrow path only admitted of single file, +and Hallin followed her, admiring her tall youth and the fine black and +white of her head and cheek as she turned every now and then to speak to +him. He realised more vividly than before the rare, exciting elements of +her beauty, and the truth in Aldous's comparison of her to one of the +tall women in a Florentine fresco. But he felt himself a good deal +baffled by her, all the same. In some ways, so far as any man who is not +the lover can understand such things, he understood why Aldous had +fallen in love with her; in others, she bore no relation whatever to the +woman his thoughts had been shaping all these years as his friend's fit +and natural wife. + +Luncheon passed as easily as any meal could be expected to do, of which +Mr. Boyce was partial president. During the preceding month or two he +had definitely assumed the character of an invalid, although to +inexperienced eyes like Marcella's there did not seem to be very much +the matter. But, whatever the facts might be, Mr. Boyce's adroit use of +them had made a great difference to his position in his own household. +His wife's sarcastic freedom of manner was less apparent; and he was +obviously less in awe of her. Meanwhile he was as sore as ever towards +the Raeburns, and no more inclined to take any particular pleasure in +Marcella's prospects, or to make himself agreeable towards his future +son-in-law. He and Mrs. Boyce had been formally asked in Miss Raeburn's +best hand to the Court ball, but he had at once snappishly announced his +intention of staying at home. Marcella sometimes looked back with +astonishment to his eagerness for social notice when they first came to +Mellor. Clearly the rising irritability of illness had made it doubly +unpleasant to him to owe all that he was likely to get on that score to +his own daughter; and, moreover, he had learnt to occupy himself more +continuously on his own land and with his own affairs. + +As to the state of the village, neither Marcella's entreaties nor +reproaches had any effect upon him. When it appeared certain that he +would be summoned for some specially flagrant piece of neglect he would +spend a few shillings on repairs; otherwise not a farthing. All that +filial softening towards him of which Marcella had been conscious in the +early autumn had died away in her. She said to herself now plainly and +bitterly that it was a misfortune to belong to him; and she would have +pitied her mother most heartily if her mother had ever allowed her the +smallest expression of such a feeling. As it was, she was left to wonder +and chafe at her mother's new-born mildness. + +In the drawing-room, after luncheon, Hallin came up to Marcella in a +corner, and, smiling, drew from his pocket a folded sheet of foolscap. + +"I made Aldous give me his speech to show you, before to-morrow night," +he said. "He would hardly let me take it, said it was stupid, and that +you would not agree with it. But I wanted you to see how he does these +things. He speaks now, on an average, two or three times a week. Each +time, even for an audience of a score or two of village folk, he writes +out what he has to say. Then he speaks it entirely without notes. In +this way, though he has not much natural gift, he is making himself +gradually an effective and practical speaker. The danger with him, of +course, is lest he should be over-subtle and over-critical--not simple +and popular enough." + +Marcella took the paper half unwillingly and glanced over it in silence. + +"You are sorry he is a Tory, is that it?" he said to her, but in a lower +voice, and sitting down beside her. + +Mrs. Boyce, just catching the words from where she sat with her work, at +the further side of the room, looked up with a double wonder--wonder at +Marcella's folly, wonder still more at the deference with which men like +Aldous Raeburn and Hallin treated her. It was inevitable, of +course--youth and beauty rule the world. But the mother, under no spell +herself, and of keen, cool wit, resented the intellectual confusion, the +lowering of standards involved. + +"I suppose so," said Marcella, stupidly, in answer to Hallin's question, +fidgeting the papers under her hand. Then his curious confessor's gift, +his quiet questioning look with its sensitive human interest to all +before him, told upon her. + +"I am sorry he does not look further ahead, to the great changes that +must come," she added hurriedly. "This is all about details, +palliatives. I want him to be more impatient." + +"Great political changes you mean?" + +She nodded; then added-- + +"But only for the sake, of course, of great social changes to come +after." + +He pondered a moment. + +"Aldous has never believed in _great_ changes coming suddenly. He +constantly looks upon me as rash in the things _I_ adopt and believe in. +But for the contriving, unceasing effort of every day to make that part +of the social machine in which a man finds himself work better and more +equitably, I have never seen Aldous's equal--for the steady passion, the +persistence, of it." + +She looked up. His pale face had taken to itself glow and fire; his eyes +were full of strenuous, nay, severe expression. Her foolish pride +rebelled a little. + +"Of course, I haven't seen much of that yet," she said slowly. + +His look for a moment was indignant, incredulous, then melted into a +charming eagerness. + +"But you will! naturally you will!--see everything. I hug myself +sometimes now for pure pleasure that some one besides his grandfather +and I will know what Aldous is and does. Oh! the people on the estate +know; his neighbours are beginning to know; and now that he is going +into Parliament, the country will know some day, if work and high +intelligence have the power I believe. But I am impatient! In the first +place--I may say it to you, Miss Boyce!--I want Aldous to come out of +that _manner_ of his to strangers, which is the only bit of the true +Tory in him; _you_ can get rid of it, no one else can--How long shall I +give you?--And in the next, I want the world not to be wasting itself on +baser stuff when it might be praising Aldous!" + +"Does he mean Mr. Wharton?" thought Marcella, quickly. "But this +world--our world--hates him and runs him down." + +But she had no time to answer, for the door opened to admit Aldous, +flushed and bright-eyed, looking round the room immediately for her, and +bearing a parcel in his left hand. + +"Does she love him at all?" thought Hallin, with a nervous stiffening of +all his lithe frame, as he walked away to talk to Mrs. Boyce, "or, in +spite of all her fine talk, is she just marrying him for his money and +position!" + +Meanwhile, Aldous had drawn Marcella into the Stone Parlour and was +standing by the fire with his arm covetously round her. + +"I have lost two hours with you I might have had, just because a +tiresome man missed his train. Make up for it by liking these pretty +things a little, for my sake and my mother's." + +He opened the jeweller's case, took out the fine old pearls--necklace +and bracelets--it contained, and put them into her hand. They were his +first considerable gift to her, and had been chosen for association's +sake, seeing that his mother had also worn them before her marriage. + +She flushed first of all with a natural pleasure, the girl delighting in +her gaud. Then she allowed herself to be kissed, which was, indeed, +inevitable. Finally she turned them over and over in her hands; and he +began to be puzzled by her. + +"They are much too good for me. I don't know whether you ought to give +me such precious things. I am dreadfully careless and forgetful. Mamma +always says so." + +"I shall want you to wear them so often that you won't have a chance of +forgetting them," he said gaily. + +"Will you? Will you want me to wear them so often?" she asked, in an odd +voice. "Anyway, I should like to have just these, and nothing else. I am +glad that we know nobody, and have no friends, and that I shall have so +few presents. You won't give me many jewels, will you?" she said +suddenly, insistently, turning to him. "I shouldn't know what to do with +them. I used to have a magpie's wish for them; and now--I don't know, +but they don't give me pleasure. Not these, of course--not these!" she +added hurriedly, taking them up and beginning to fasten the bracelets on +her wrists. + +Aldous looked perplexed. + +"My darling!" he said, half laughing, and in the tone of the apologist, +"You know we _have_ such a lot of things. And I am afraid my grandfather +will want to give them all to you. Need one think so much about it? It +isn't as though they had to be bought fresh. They go with pretty gowns, +don't they, and other people like to see them?" + +"No, but it's what they imply--the wealth--the _having_ so much while +other people want so much. Things begin to oppress me so!" she broke +out, instinctively moving away from him that she might express herself +with more energy. "I like luxuries so desperately, and when I get them I +seem to myself now the vulgarest creature alive, who has no right to an +opinion or an enthusiasm, or anything else worth having. You must not +let me like them--you must help me not to care about them!" + +Raeburn's eye as he looked at her was tenderness itself. He could of +course neither mock her, nor put what she said aside. This question she +had raised, this most thorny of all the personal questions of the +present--the ethical relation of the individual to the World's Fair and +its vanities--was, as it happened, a question far more sternly and +robustly real to him than it was to her. Every word in his few +sentences, as they stood talking by the fire, bore on it for a practised +ear the signs of a long wrestle of the heart. + +But to Marcella it sounded tame; her ear was haunted by the fragments of +another tune which she seemed to be perpetually trying to recall and +piece together. Aldous's slow minor made her impatient. + +He turned presently to ask her what she had been doing with her +morning--asking her with a certain precision, and observing her +attentively. She replied that she had been showing Mr. Wharton the +house, that he had walked down with her to the village, and was gone to +a meeting at Widrington. Then she remarked that he was very good +company, and very clever, but dreadfully sure of his own opinion. +Finally she laughed, and said drily: + +"There will be no putting him down all the same. I haven't told anybody +yet, but he saved my life this morning." + +Aldous caught her wrists. + +"Saved your life! Dear--What do you mean?" + +She explained, giving the little incident all--perhaps more than--its +dramatic due. He listened with evident annoyance, and stood pondering +when she came to an end. + +"So I shall be expected to take quite a different view of him +henceforward?" he inquired at last, looking round at her, with a very +forced smile. + +"I am sure I don't know that it matters to him what view anybody takes +of him," she cried, flushing. "He certainly takes the frankest views of +other people, and expresses them." + +And while she played with the pearls in their box she gave a vivid +account of her morning's talk with the Radical candidate for West +Brookshire, and of their village expedition. + +There was a certain relief in describing the scorn with which her acts +and ideals had been treated; and, underneath, a woman's curiosity as to +how Aldous would take it. + +"I don't know what business he had to express himself so frankly," said +Aldous, turning to the fire and carefully putting it together. "He +hardly knows you--it was, I think, an impertinence." + +He stood upright, with his back to the hearth, a strong, capable, +frowning Englishman, very much on his dignity. Such a moment must surely +have become him in the eyes of a girl that loved him. Marcella proved +restive under it. + +"No; it's very natural," she protested quickly. "When people are so much +in earnest they don't stop to think about impertinence! I never met any +one who dug up one's thoughts by the roots as he does." + +Aldous was startled by her flush, her sudden attitude of opposition. His +intermittent lack of readiness overtook him, and there was an awkward +silence. Then, pulling himself together with a strong hand, he left the +subject and began to talk of her straw-plaiting scheme, of the Gairsley +meeting, and of Hallin. But in the middle Marcella unexpectedly said: + +"I wish you would tell me, seriously, what reasons you have for not +liking Mr. Wharton?--other than politics, I mean?" + +Her black eyes fixed him with a keen insistence. + +He was silent a moment with surprise; then he said: + +"I had rather not rake up old scores." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and he was roused to come and put his arm +round her again, she shrinking and turning her reddened face away. + +"Dearest," he said, "you shall put me in charity with all the world. But +the worst of it is," he added, half laughing, "that I don't see how I am +to help disliking him doubly henceforward for having had the luck to put +that fire out instead of me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A few busy and eventful weeks, days never forgotten by Marcella in after +years, passed quickly by. Parliament met in the third week of January. +Ministers, according to universal expectation, found themselves +confronted by a damaging amendment on the Address, and were defeated by +a small majority. A dissolution and appeal to the country followed +immediately, and the meetings and speech-makings, already active +throughout the constituencies, were carried forward with redoubled +energy. In the Tudley End division, Aldous Raeburn was fighting a +somewhat younger opponent of the same country-gentleman stock--a former +fag indeed of his at Eton--whose zeal and fluency gave him plenty to do. +Under ordinary circumstances Aldous would have thrown himself with all +his heart and mind into a contest which involved for him the most +stimulating of possibilities, personal and public. But, as these days +went over, he found his appetite for the struggle flagging, and was +harassed rather than spurred by his adversary's activity. The real truth +was that he could not see enough of Marcella! A curious uncertainty and +unreality, moreover, seemed to have crept into some of their relations; +and it had begun to gall and fever him that Wharton should be staying +there, week after week, beside her, in her father's house, able to +spend all the free intervals of the fight in her society, strengthening +an influence which Raeburn's pride and delicacy had hardly allowed him +as yet, in spite of his instinctive jealousy from the beginning, to take +into his thoughts at all, but which was now apparent, not only to +himself but to others. + +In vain did he spend every possible hour at Mellor he could snatch from +a conflict in which his party, his grandfather, and his own personal +fortunes were all deeply interested. In vain--with a tardy instinct that +it was to Mr. Boyce's dislike of himself, and to the wilful fancy for +Wharton's society which this dislike had promoted, that Wharton's long +stay at Mellor was largely owing--did Aldous subdue himself to +propitiations and amenities wholly foreign to a strong character long +accustomed to rule without thinking about it. Mr. Boyce showed himself +not a whit less partial to Wharton than before; pressed him at least +twice in Raeburn's hearing to make Mellor his head-quarters so long as +it suited him, and behaved with an irritable malice with regard to some +of the details of the wedding arrangements, which neither Mrs. Boyce's +indignation nor Marcella's discomfort and annoyance could restrain. +Clearly there was in him a strong consciousness that by his attentions +to the Radical candidate he was asserting his independence of the +Raeburns, and nothing for the moment seemed to be more of an object with +him, even though his daughter was going to marry the Raeburns' heir. +Meanwhile, Wharton was always ready to walk or chat or play billiards +with his host in the intervals of his own campaign; and his society had +thus come to count considerably among the scanty daily pleasures of a +sickly and disappointed man. Mrs. Boyce did not like her guest, and took +no pains to disguise it, least of all from Wharton. But it seemed to be +no longer possible for her to take the vigorous measures she would once +have taken to get rid of him. + +In vain, too, did Miss Raeburn do her best for the nephew to whom she +was still devoted, in spite of his deplorable choice of a wife. She took +in the situation as a whole probably sooner than anybody else, and she +instantly made heroic efforts to see more of Marcella, to get her to +come oftener to the Court, and in many various ways to procure the poor +deluded Aldous more of his betrothed's society. She paid many chattering +and fussy visits to Mellor--visits which chafed Marcella--and before +long, indeed, roused a certain suspicion in the girl's wilful mind. +Between Miss Raeburn and Mrs. Boyce there was a curious understanding. +It was always tacit, and never amounted to friendship, still less to +intimacy. But it often yielded a certain melancholy consolation to +Aldous Raeburn's great-aunt. It was clear to her that this strange +mother was just as much convinced as she was that Aldous was making a +great mistake, and that Marcella was not worthy of him. But the +engagement being there--a fact not apparently to be undone--both ladies +showed themselves disposed to take pains with it, to protect it against +aggression. Mrs. Boyce found herself becoming more of a _chaperon_ than +she had ever yet professed to be; and Miss Raeburn, as we have said, +made repeated efforts to capture Marcella and hold her for Aldous, her +lawful master. + +But Marcella proved extremely difficult to manage. In the first place +she was a young person of many engagements. Her village scheme absorbed +a great deal of time. She was deep in a varied correspondence, in the +engagement of teachers, the provision of work-rooms, the collecting and +registering of workers, the organisation of local committees and so +forth. New sides of the girl's character, new capacities and +capabilities were coming out; new forms of her natural power over her +fellows were developing every day; she was beginning, under the +incessant stimulus of Wharton's talk, to read and think on social and +economic subjects, with some system and coherence, and it was evident +that she took a passionate mental pleasure in it all. And the more +pleasure these activities gave her, the less she had to spare for those +accompaniments of her engagement and her position that was to be, which +once, as Mrs. Boyce's sharp eyes perceived, had been quite normally +attractive to her. + +"Why do you take up her time so, with all these things?" said Miss +Raeburn impatiently to Lady Winterbourne, who was now Marcella's +obedient helper in everything she chose to initiate. "She doesn't care +for anything she _ought_ to care about at this time, and Aldous sees +nothing of her. As for her trousseau, Mrs. Boyce declares she has had to +do it all. Marcella won't even go up to London to have her wedding-dress +fitted!" + +Lady Winterbourne looked up bewildered. + +"But I can't make her go and have her wedding-dress fitted, Agneta! And +I always feel you don't know what a fine creature she is. You don't +really appreciate her. It's splendid the ideas she has about this work, +and the way she throws herself into it." + +"I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, indignantly. "That's just what I object +to. Why can't she throw herself into being in love with Aldous! That's +her business, I imagine, just now--if she were a young woman like +anybody else one had ever seen--instead of holding aloof from everything +he does, and never being there when he wants her. Oh! I have no patience +with her. But, of course, I must--" said Miss Raeburn, hastily +correcting herself--"of course, I must have patience." + +"It will all come right, I am sure, when they are married," said Lady +Winterbourne, rather helplessly. + +"That's just what my brother says," cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "He +won't hear a word--declares she is odd and original, and that Aldous +will soon know how to manage her. It's all very well; nowadays men +_don't_ manage their wives; that's all gone with the rest. And I am +sure, my dear, if she behaves after she is married as she is doing now, +with that most objectionable person Mr. Wharton--walking, and talking, +and taking up his ideas, and going to his meetings--she'll be a handful +for any husband." + +"Mr. Wharton!" said Lady Winterbourne, astonished. Her absent black +eyes, the eyes of the dreamer, of the person who lives by a few intense +affections, saw little or nothing of what was going on immediately under +them. "Oh! but that is because he is staying in the house, and he is a +Socialist; she calls herself one--" + +"My _dear_," said Miss Raeburn, interrupting emphatically; +"if--you--had--now--an unmarried daughter at home--engaged or not--would +you care to have Harry Wharton hanging about after her?" + +"Harry Wharton?" said the other, pondering; "he is the Levens' cousin, +isn't he? he used to stay with them. I don't think I have seen him since +then. But yes, I do remember; there was something--something +disagreeable?" + +She stopped with a hesitating, interrogative air. No one talked less +scandal, no one put the uglinesses of life away from her with a hastier +hand than Lady Winterbourne. She was one of the most consistent of moral +epicures. + +"Yes, _extremely_ disagreeable," said Miss Raeburn, sitting bolt +upright. "The man has no principles--never had any, since he was a child +in petticoats. I know Aldous thinks him unscrupulous in politics and +everything else. And then, just when you are worked to death, and have +hardly a moment for your own affairs, to have a man of that type always +at hand to spend odd times with your lady love--flattering her, engaging +her in his ridiculous schemes, encouraging her in all the extravagances +she has got her head twice too full of already, setting her against your +own ideas and the life she will have to live--you will admit that it is +not exactly soothing!" + +"Poor Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, thoughtfully, looking far ahead +with her odd look of absent rigidity, which had in reality so little to +do with a character essentially soft; "but you see he _did_ know all +about her opinions. And I don't think--no, I really don't think--I could +speak to her." + +In truth, this woman of nearly seventy--old in years, but wholly young +in temperament--was altogether under Marcella's spell--more at ease with +her already than with most of her own children, finding in her +satisfaction for a hundred instincts, suppressed or starved by her own +environment, fascinated by the girl's friendship, and eagerly grateful +for her visits. Miss Raeburn thought it all both incomprehensible and +silly. + +"Apparently no one can!" cried that lady in answer to her friend's +demurrer; "is all the world afraid of her?" + +And she departed in wrath. But she knew, nevertheless, that she was just +as much afraid of Marcella as anybody else. In her own sphere at the +Court, or in points connected with what was due to the family, or to +Lord Maxwell especially, as the head of it, this short, capable old lady +could hold her own amply with Aldous's betrothed, could maintain, +indeed, a sharp and caustic dignity, which kept Marcella very much in +order. Miss Raeburn, on the defensive, was strong; but when it came to +attacking Marcella's own ideas and proceedings, Lord Maxwell's sister +became shrewdly conscious of her own weaknesses. She had no wish to +measure her wits on any general field with Marcella's. She said to +herself that the girl was too clever and would talk you down. + +Meanwhile, things went untowardly in various ways. Marcella disciplined +herself before the Gairsley meeting, and went thither resolved to give +Aldous as much sympathy as she could. But the performance only repelled +a mind over which Wharton was every day gaining more influence. There +was a portly baronet in the chair; there were various Primrose Dames on +the platform and among the audience; there was a considerable +representation of clergy; and the labourers present seemed to Marcella +the most obsequious of their kind. Aldous spoke well--or so the audience +seemed to think; but she could feel no enthusiasm for anything that he +said. She gathered that he advocated a Government inspection of +cottages, more stringent precautions against cattle disease, better +technical instruction, a more abundant provision of allotments and small +freeholds, &c.; and he said many cordial and wise-sounding things in +praise of a progress which should go safely and wisely from step to +step, and run no risks of dangerous reaction. But the assumptions on +which, as she told herself rebelliously, it all went--that the rich and +the educated must rule, and the poor obey; that existing classes and +rights, the forces of individualism and competition, must and would go +on pretty much as they were; that great houses and great people, the +English land and game system, and all the rest of our odious class +paraphernalia were in the order of the universe; these ideas, conceived +as the furniture of Aldous's mind, threw her again into a ferment of +passionate opposition. And when the noble baronet in the chair--to her +eye, a pompous, frock-coated stick, sacrificing his after-dinner sleep +for once, that he might the more effectually secure it in the +future--proposed a vote of confidence in the Conservative candidate; +when the vote was carried with much cheering and rattling of feet; when +the Primrose Dames on the platform smiled graciously down upon the +meeting as one smiles at good children in their moments of pretty +behaviour; and when, finally, scores of toil-stained labourers, young +and old, went up to have a word and a hand-shake with "Muster Raeburn," +Marcella held herself aloof and cold, with a look that threatened +sarcasm should she be spoken to. Miss Raeburn, glancing furtively round +at her, was outraged anew by her expression. + +"She will be a thorn in all our sides," thought that lady. "Aldous is a +fool!--a poor dear noble misguided fool!" + +Then on the way home, she and Aldous drove together. Marcella tried to +argue, grew vehement, and said bitter things for the sake of victory, +till at last Aldous, tired, worried, and deeply wounded, could bear it +no longer. + +"Let it be, dear, let it be!" he entreated, snatching at her hand as +they rolled along through a stormy night. "We grope in a dark world--you +see some points of light in it, I see others--won't you give me credit +for doing what I can--seeing what I can? I am sure--_sure_--you will +find it easier to bear with differences when we are quite together--when +there are no longer all these hateful duties and engagements--and +persons--between us." + +"Persons! I don't know what you mean!" said Marcella. + +Aldous only just restrained himself in time. Out of sheer fatigue and +slackness of nerve he had been all but betrayed into some angry speech +on the subject of Wharton, the echoes of whose fantastic talk, as it +seemed to him, were always hanging about Mellor when he went there. But +he did refrain, and was thankful. That he was indeed jealous and +disturbed, that he had been jealous and disturbed from the moment Harry +Wharton had set foot in Mellor, he himself knew quite well. But to play +the jealous part in public was more than the Raeburn pride could bear. +There was the dread, too, of defining the situation--of striking some +vulgar irrevocable note. + +So he parried Marcella's exclamation by asking her whether she had any +idea how many human hands a parliamentary candidate had to shake between +breakfast and bed; and then, having so slipped into another tone, he +tried to amuse himself and her by some of the daily humours of the +contest. She lent herself to it and laughed, her look mostly turned away +from him, as though she were following the light of the carriage lamps +as it slipped along the snow-laden hedges, her hand lying limply in his. +But neither were really gay. His soreness of mind grew as in the pauses +of talk he came to realise more exactly the failure of the evening--of +his very successful and encouraging meeting--from his own private point +of view. + +"Didn't you like that last speech?" he broke out suddenly--"that +labourer's speech? I thought you would. It was entirely his own +idea--nobody asked him to do it." + +In reality Gairsley represented a corner of the estate which Aldous had +specially made his own. He had spent much labour and thought on the +improvement of what had been a backward district, and in particular he +had tried a small profit-sharing experiment upon a farm there which he +had taken into his own hands for the purpose. The experiment had met +with fair success, and the labourer in question, who was one of the +workers in it, had volunteered some approving remarks upon it at the +meeting. + +"Oh! it was very proper and respectful!" said Marcella, hastily. + +The carriage rolled on some yards before Aldous replied. Then he spoke +in a drier tone than he had ever yet used to her. + +"You do it injustice, I think. The man is perfectly independent, and an +honest fellow. I was grateful to him for what he said." + +"Of course, I am no judge!" cried Marcella, quickly--repentantly. "Why +did you ask me? I saw everything crooked, I suppose--it was your +Primrose Dames--they got upon my nerves. Why did you have them? I didn't +mean to vex and hurt you--I didn't indeed--it was all the other way--and +now I have." + +She turned upon him laughing, but also half crying, as he could tell by +the flutter of her breath. + +He vowed he was not hurt, and once more changed both talk and tone. They +reached the drive's end without a word of Wharton. But Marcella went to +bed hating herself, and Aldous, after his solitary drive home, sat up +long and late, feverishly pacing and thinking. + + * * * * * + +Then next evening how differently things fell! + +Marcella, having spent the afternoon at the Court, hearing all the +final arrangements for the ball, and bearing with Miss Raeburn in a way +which astonished herself, came home full of a sense of duty done, and +announced to her mother that she was going to Mr. Wharton's meeting in +the Baptist chapel that evening. + +"Unnecessary, don't you think?" said Mrs. Boyce, lifting her eyebrows. +"However, if you go, I shall go with you." + +Most mothers, dealing with a girl of twenty-one, under the +circumstances, would have said, "I had rather you stayed at home." Mrs. +Boyce never employed locutions of this kind. She recognised with perfect +calmness that Marcella's bringing up, and especially her independent +years in London, had made it impossible. + +Marcella fidgeted. + +"I don't know why you should, mamma. Papa will be sure to want you. Of +course, I shall take Deacon." + +"Please order dinner a quarter of an hour earlier, and tell Deacon to +bring down my walking things to the hall," was all Mrs. Boyce said in +answer. + +Marcella walked upstairs with her head very stiff. So her mother, and +Miss Raeburn too, thought it necessary to keep watch on her. How +preposterous! She thought of her free and easy relations with her +Kensington student-friends, and wondered when a more reasonable idea of +the relations between men and women would begin to penetrate English +country society. + +Mr. Boyce talked recklessly of going too. + +"Of course, I know he will spout seditious nonsense," he said irritably +to his wife, "but it's the fellow's power of talk that is so +astonishing. _He_ isn't troubled with your Raeburn heaviness." + +Marcella came into the room as the discussion was going on. + +"If papa goes," she said in an undertone to her mother as she passed +her, "it will spoil the meeting. The labourers will turn sulky. I +shouldn't wonder if they did or said something unpleasant. As it is, +_you_ had much better not come, mamma. They are sure to attack the +cottages--and other things." + +Mrs. Boyce took no notice as far as she herself was concerned, but her +quiet decision at last succeeded in leaving Mr. Boyce safely settled by +the fire, provided as usual with a cigarette and a French novel. + +The meeting was held in a little iron Baptist chapel, erected some few +years before on the outskirts of the village, to the grief and scandal +of Mr. Harden. There were about a hundred and twenty labourers present, +and at the back some boys and girls, come to giggle and make a +noise--nobody else. The Baptist minister, a smooth-faced young man, +possessed, as it turned out, of opinions little short of Wharton's own +in point of vigour and rigour, was already in command. A few late +comers, as they slouched in, stole side looks at Marcella and the veiled +lady in black beside her, sitting in the corner of the last bench; and +Marcella nodded to one or two of the audience, Jim Hurd amongst them. +Otherwise no one took any notice of them. It was the first time that +Mrs. Boyce had been inside any building belonging to the village. + +Wharton arrived late. He had been canvassing at a distance, and neither +of the Mellor ladies had seen him all day. He slipped up the bench with +a bow and a smile to greet them. "I am done!" he said to Marcella, as he +took off his hat. "My voice is gone, my mind ditto. I shall drivel for +half an hour and let them go. Did you ever see such a stolid set?" + +"You will rouse them," said Marcella. + +Her eyes were animated, her colour high, and she took no account at all +of his plea of weariness. + +"You challenge me? I must rouse them--that was what you came to see? Is +that it?" + +She laughed and made no answer. He left her and went up to the +minister's desk, the men shuffling their feet a little, and rattling a +stick here and there as he did so. + +The young minister took the chair and introduced the speaker. He had a +strong Yorkshire accent, and his speech was divided between the most +vehement attacks, couched in the most Scriptural language, upon capital +and privilege--that is to say, on landlords and the land system, on +State churches and the "idle rich," interspersed with quavering returns +upon himself, as though he were scared by his own invective. "My +brothers, let us be _calm_!" he would say after every burst of passion, +with a long deep-voiced emphasis on the last word; "let us, above all +things, be _calm_!"--and then bit by bit voice and denunciation would +begin to mount again towards a fresh climax of loud-voiced attack, only +to sink again to the same lamb-like refrain. Mrs. Boyce's thin lip +twitched, and Marcella bore the good gentleman a grudge for providing +her mother with so much unnecessary amusement. + +As for Wharton, at the opening of his speech he spoke both awkwardly and +flatly; and Marcella had a momentary shock. He was, as he said, tired, +and his wits were not at command. He began with the general political +programme of the party to which--on its extreme left wing--he proclaimed +himself to belong. This programme was, of course, by now a newspaper +commonplace of the stalest sort. He himself recited it without +enthusiasm, and it was received without a spark, so far as appeared, of +interest or agreement. The minister gave an "hear, hear," of a loud +official sort; the men made no sign. + +"They might be a set of Dutch cheeses!" thought Marcella, indignantly, +after a while. "But, after all, why should they care for all this? I +shall have to get up in a minute and stop those children romping." + +But through all this, as it were, Wharton was only waiting for his +second wind. There came a moment when, dropping his quasi-official and +high political tone, he said suddenly with another voice and emphasis: + +"Well now, my men, I'll be bound you're thinking, 'That's all pretty +enough!--we haven't got anything against it--we dare say it's all right; +but we don't care a brass ha'porth about any of it! If that's all you'd +got to say to us, you might have let us bide at home. We don't have none +too much time to rest our bones a bit by the fire, and talk to the +missus and the kids. Why didn't you let us alone, instead of bringing us +out in the cold?' + +"Well, but it _isn't_ all I've got to say--and you know it--because +I've spoken to you before. What I've been talking about is all true, and +all important, and you'll see it some day when you're fit. But what can +men in your position know about it, or care about it? What do any of you +want, but _bread_--" + +--He thundered on the desk-- + +"--a bit of decent _comfort_--a bit of _freedom_--freedom from tyrants +who call themselves your betters!--a bit of rest in your old age, a home +that's something better than a dog-hole, a wage that's something better +than starvation, an honest share in the wealth you are making every day +and every hour for other people to gorge and plunder!" + +He stopped a moment to see how _that_ took. A knot of young men in a +corner rattled their sticks vigorously. The older men had begun at any +rate to look at the speaker. The boys on the back benches instinctively +stopped scuffling. + +Then he threw himself into a sort of rapid question-and-answer. What +were their wages?--eleven shillings a week? + +"Not they!" cried a man from the middle of the chapel. "Yer mus' reckon +it wet an' dry. I wor turned back two days las' week, an' two days this, +_fower_ shillin' lost each week--that's what I call skinnin' ov yer." + +Wharton nodded at him approvingly. By now he knew the majority of the +men in each village by name, and never forgot a face or a biography. +"You're right there, Watkins. Eleven shillings, then, when it isn't +less, never more, and precious often less; and harvest money--the +people that are kind enough to come round and ask you to vote Tory for +them make a deal of that, don't they?--and a few odds and ends here and +there--precious few of them! There! that's about it for wages, isn't it? +Thirty pounds a year, somewhere about, to keep a wife and children +on--and for ten hours a day work, not counting meal times--that's it, I +think. Oh, you _are_ well off!--aren't you?" + +He dropped his arms, folded, on the desk in front of him, and paused to +look at them, his bright kindling eye running over rank after rank. A +chuckle of rough laughter, bitter and jeering, ran through the benches. +Then they broke out and applauded him. + +Well, and about their cottages? + +His glance caught Marcella, passed to her mother sitting stiffly +motionless under her veil. He drew himself up, thought a moment, then +threw himself far forward again over the desk as though the better to +launch what he had to say, his voice taking a grinding determined note. + +He had been in all parts of the division, he said; seen everything, +inquired into everything. No doubt, on the great properties there had +been a good deal done of late years--public opinion had effected +something, the landlords had been forced to disgorge some of the gains +wrested from labour, to pay for the decent housing of the labourer. But +did anybody suppose that _enough_ had been done? Why, he had seen +_dens_--aye, on the best properties--not fit for the pigs that the +farmers wouldn't let the labourers keep, lest they should steal their +straw for the littering of them!--where a man was bound to live the +life of a beast, and his children after him-- + +A tall thin man of about sixty rose in his place, and pointed a long +quavering finger at the speaker. + +"What is it, Darwin? speak up!" said Wharton, dropping at once into the +colloquial tone, and stooping forward to listen. + +"My sleepin' room's six foot nine by seven foot six. We have to shift +our bed for the rain's comin' in, an' yer may see for yoursels ther +ain't much room to shift it in. An' beyont us ther's a room for the +chillen, same size as ourn, an' no window, nothin' but the door into us. +Ov a summer night the chillen, three on 'em, is all of a sweat afore +they're asleep. An' no garden, an' no chance o' decent ways nohow. An' +if yer ask for a bit o' repairs yer get sworn at. An' that's all that +most on us can get out of Squire Boyce!" + +There was a hasty whisper among some of the men round him, as they +glanced over their shoulders at the two ladies on the back bench. One or +two of them half rose, and tried to pull him down. Wharton looked at +Marcella; it seemed to him he saw a sort of passionate satisfaction on +her pale face, and in the erect carriage of her head. Then she stooped +to the side and whispered to her mother. Mrs. Boyce shook her head and +sat on, immovable. All this took but a second or two. + +"Ah, well," said Wharton, "we won't have names; that'll do us no good. +It's not the _men_ you've got to go for so much--though we shall go for +them too before long when we've got the law more on our side. It's the +system. It's the whole way of dividing the wealth that _you_ made, you +and your children--by your work, your hard, slavish, incessant +work--between you and those who _don't_ work, who live on your labour +and grow fat on your poverty! What we want is _a fair division_. There +_ought_ to be wealth enough--there _is_ wealth enough for all in this +blessed country. The earth gives it; the sun gives it: labour extracts +and piles it up. Why should one class take three-fourths of it and leave +you and your fellow-workers in the cities the miserable pittance which +is all you have to starve and breed on? Why?--_why_? I say. +Why!--because you are a set of dull, jealous, poor-spirited _cowards_, +unable to pull together, to trust each other, to give up so much as a +pot of beer a week for the sake of your children and your liberties and +your class--there, _that's_ why it is, and I tell it you straight out!" + +He drew himself up, folded his arms across his chest, and looked at +them--scorn and denunciation in every line of his young frame, and the +blaze of his blue eye. A murmur ran through the room. Some of the men +laughed excitedly. Darwin sprang up again. + +"You keep the perlice off us, an' gie us the cuttin' up o' their +bloomin' parks an' we'll do it fast enough," he cried. + +"Much good that'll do you, just at present," said Wharton, +contemptuously. "Now, you just listen to me." + +And, leaning forward over the desk again, his finger pointed at the +room, he went through the regular Socialist programme as it affects the +country districts--the transference of authority within the villages +from the few to the many, the landlords taxed more and more heavily +during the transition time for the provision of house room, water, +light, education and amusement for the labourer; and ultimately land and +capital at the free disposal of the State, to be supplied to the worker +on demand at the most moderate terms, while the annexed rent and +interest of the capitalist class relieves him of taxes, and the +disappearance of squire, State parson, and plutocrat leaves him master +in his own house, the slave of no man, the equal of all. And, as a first +step to this new Jerusalem--_organisation_!--self-sacrifice enough to +form and maintain a union, to vote for Radical and Socialist candidates +in the teeth of the people who have coals and blankets to give away. + +"Then I suppose you think you'd be turned out of your cottages, +dismissed your work, made to smart for it somehow. Just you try! There +are people all over the country ready to back you, if you'd only back +yourselves. But you _won't_. You won't fight--that's the worst of you; +that's what makes all of us _sick_ when we come down to talk to you. You +won't spare twopence halfpenny a week from boozing--not you!--to +subscribe to a union, and take the first little step towards filling +your stomachs and holding your heads up as free men. What's the good of +your grumbling? I suppose you'll go on like that--grumbling and starving +and cringing--and talking big of the things you could do if you +would:--and all the time not one honest effort--not one!--to better +yourselves, to pull the yoke off your necks! By the Lord! I tell you +it's a _damned_ sort of business talking to fellows like you!" + +Marcella started as he flung the words out with a bitter, nay, a brutal, +emphasis. The smooth-faced minister coughed loudly with a sudden +movement, half got up to remonstrate, and then thought better of it. +Mrs. Boyce for the first time showed some animation under her veil. Her +eyes followed the speaker with a quick attention. + +As for the men, as they turned clumsily to stare at, to laugh, or talk +to each other, Marcella could hardly make out whether they were angered +or fascinated. Whichever it was, Wharton cared for none of them. His +blood was up; his fatigue thrown off. Standing there in front of them, +his hands in his pockets, pale with the excitement of speaking, his +curly head thrown out against the whitened wall of the chapel, he lashed +into the men before him, talking their language, their dialect even; +laying bare their weaknesses, sensualities, indecisions; painting in the +sombrest colours the grim truths of their melancholy lives. + +Marcella could hardly breathe. It seemed to her that, among these +cottagers, she had never lived till now--under the blaze of these +eyes--within the vibration of this voice. Never had she so realised the +power of this singular being. He was scourging, dissecting, the +weather-beaten men before him, as, with a difference, he had scourged, +dissected her. She found herself exulting in his powers of tyranny, in +the naked thrust of his words, so nervous, so pitiless. And then by a +sudden flash she thought of him by Mrs. Hurd's fire, the dying child on +his knee, against his breast. "Here," she thought, while her pulses +leapt, "is the leader for me--for these. Let him call, I will follow." + +It was as though he followed the ranging of her thought, for suddenly, +when she and his hearers least expected it, his tone changed, his storm +of speech sank. He fell into a strain of quiet sympathy, encouragement, +hope; dwelt with a good deal of homely iteration on the immediate +practical steps which each man before him could, if he would, take +towards the common end; spoke of the help and support lying ready for +the country labourers throughout democratic England if they would but +put forward their own energies and quit themselves like men; pointed +forward to a time of plenty, education, social peace; and so--with some +good-tempered banter of his opponent, old Dodgson, and some precise +instructions as to how and where they were to record their votes on the +day of election--came to an end. Two or three other speeches followed, +and among them a few stumbling words from Hurd. Marcella approved +herself and applauded him, as she recognised a sentence or two taken +bodily from the _Labour Clarion_ of the preceding week. Then a +resolution pledging the meeting to support the Liberal candidate was +passed unanimously amid evident excitement. It was the first time that +such a thing had ever happened in Mellor. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Boyce treated her visitor on their way home with a new respect, +mixed, however, as usual, with her prevailing irony. For one who knew +her, her manner implied, not that she liked him any more, but that a +man so well trained to his own profession must always hold his own. + +As for Marcella, she said little or nothing. But Wharton, in the dark of +the carriage, had a strange sense that her eye was often on him, that +her mood marched with his, and that if he could have spoken her response +would have been electric. + +When he had helped her out of the carriage, and they stood in the +vestibule--Mrs. Boyce having walked on into the hall--he said to her, +his voice hoarse with fatigue: + +"Did I do your bidding, did I rouse them?" + +Marcella was seized with sudden shyness. + +"You rated them enough." + +"Well, did you disapprove?" + +"Oh, no! it seems to be your way." + +"My proof of friendship? Well, can there be a greater? Will you show me +some to-morrow?" + +"How can I?" + +"Will you criticise?--tell me where you thought I was a fool to-night, +or a hypocrite? Your mother would." + +"I dare say!" said Marcella, her breath quickening; "but don't expect it +from me." + +"Why?" + +"Because--because I don't pretend. I don't know whether you roused them, +but you roused _me_." + +She swept on before him into the dark hall, without giving him a moment +for reply, took her candle, and disappeared. + +Wharton found his own staircase, and went up to bed. The light he +carried showed his smiling eyes bent on the ground, his mouth still +moving as though with some pleasant desire of speech. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Wharton was sitting alone in the big Mellor drawing-room, after dinner. +He had drawn one of the few easy chairs the room possessed to the fire, +and with his feet on the fender, and one of Mr. Boyce's French novels on +his knee, he was intensely enjoying a moment of physical ease. The work +of these weeks of canvassing and speaking had been arduous, and he was +naturally indolent. Now, beside this fire and at a distance, it amazed +him that any motive whatever, public or private, should ever have been +strong enough to take him out through the mire on these winter nights to +spout himself hoarse to a parcel of rustics. "What did I do it for?" he +asked himself; "what am I going to do it for again to-morrow?" + +Ten o'clock. Mr. Boyce was gone to bed. No more entertaining of _him_ to +be done; one might be thankful for that mercy. Miss Boyce and her mother +would, he supposed, be down directly. They had gone up to dress at nine. +It was the night of the Maxwell Court ball, and the carriage had been +ordered for half-past ten. In a few minutes he would see Miss Boyce in +her new dress, wearing Raeburn's pearls. He was extraordinarily +observant, and a number of little incidents and domestic arrangements +bearing on the feminine side of Marcella's life had been apparent to +him from the beginning. He knew, for instance, that the trousseau was +being made at home, and that during the last few weeks the lady for whom +it was destined had shown an indifference to the progress of it which +seemed to excite a dumb annoyance in her mother. Curious woman, Mrs. +Boyce! + +He found himself listening to every opening door, and already, as it +were, gazing at Marcella in her white array. He was not asked to this +ball. As he had early explained to Miss Boyce, he and Miss Raeburn had +been "cuts" for years, for what reason he had of course left Marcella to +guess. As if Marcella found any difficulty in guessing--as if the +preposterous bigotries and intolerances of the Ladies' League were not +enough to account for any similar behaviour on the part of any similar +high-bred spinster! As for this occasion, she was far too proud both on +her own behalf and Wharton's to say anything either to Lord Maxwell or +his sister on the subject of an invitation for her father's guest. + +It so happened, however, that Wharton was aware of certain other reasons +for his social exclusion from Maxwell Court. There was no necessity, of +course, for enlightening Miss Boyce on the point. But as he sat waiting +for her, Wharton's mind went back to the past connected with those +reasons. In that past Raeburn had had the whip-hand of him; Raeburn had +been the moral superior dictating indignant terms to a young fellow +detected in flagrant misconduct. Wharton did not know that he bore him +any particular grudge. But he had never liked Aldous, as a boy, that he +could remember; naturally he had liked him less since that old affair. +The remembrance of it had made his position at Mellor particularly sweet +to him from the beginning; he was not sure that it had not determined +his original acceptance of the offer made to him by the Liberal +Committee to contest old Dodgson's seat. And during the past few weeks +the exhilaration and interest of the general position--considering all +things--had been very great. Not only was he on the point of ousting the +Maxwell candidate from a seat which he had held securely for +years--Wharton was perfectly well aware by now that he was trespassing +on Aldous Raeburn's preserves in ways far more important, and infinitely +more irritating! He and Raeburn had not met often at Mellor during these +weeks of fight. Each had been too busy. But whenever they had come +across each other Wharton had clearly perceived that his presence in the +house, his growing intimacy with Marcella Boyce, the free-masonry of +opinion between them, the interest she took in his contest, the village +friendships they had in common, were all intensely galling to Aldous +Raeburn. + +The course of events, indeed, had lately produced in Wharton a certain +excitement--recklessness even. He had come down into these parts to +court "the joy of eventful living"--politically and personally. But the +situation had proved to be actually far more poignant and personal than +he had expected. This proud, crude, handsome girl--to her certainly it +was largely due that the days had flown as they had. He was perfectly, +one might almost say gleefully, aware that at the present moment it was +he and not Aldous Raeburn who was intellectually her master. His mind +flew back at first with amusement, then with a thrill of something else, +over their talks and quarrels. He smiled gaily as he recalled her fits +of anger with him, her remonstrances, appeals--and then her awkward +inevitable submissions when he had crushed her with sarcasm or with +facts. Ah! she would go to this ball to-night; Aldous Raeburn would +parade her as his possession; but she would go with thoughts, ambitions, +ideals, which, as they developed, would make her more and more difficult +for a Raeburn to deal with. And in those thoughts and ambitions the man +who had been her tormentor, teacher, and companion during six rushing +weeks knew well that he already counted for much. He had cherished in +her all those "divine discontents" which were already there when he +first knew her; taught her to formulate them, given her better reasons +for them; so that by now she was a person with a far more defined and +stormy will than she had been to begin with. Wharton did not +particularly know why he should exult; but he did exult. At any rate, he +was prodigiously tickled--by the whole position. + +A step, a rustle outside--he hastily shut his book and listened. + +The door opened, and Marcella came in--a white vision against the heavy +blue of the walls. With her came, too, a sudden strong scent of flowers, +for she carried a marvellous bunch of hot-house roses, Aldous's gift, +which had just arrived by special messenger. + +Wharton sprang up and placed a chair for her. + +"I had begun to believe the ball only existed in my own imagination!" +he said gaily. "Surely you are very late." + +Then he saw that she looked disturbed. + +"It was papa," she said, coming to the fire, and looking down into it. +"It has been another attack of pain--not serious, mamma says; she is +coming down directly. But I wonder why they come, and why he thinks +himself so ill--do you know?" she added abruptly, turning to her +companion. + +Wharton hesitated, taken by surprise. During the past weeks, what with +Mr. Boyce's confidence and his own acuteness, he had arrived at a very +shrewd notion of what was wrong with his host. But he was not going to +enlighten the daughter. + +"I should say your father wants a great deal of care--and is nervous +about himself," he said quietly. "But he will get the care--and your +mother knows the whole state of the case." + +"Yes, she knows," said Marcella. "I wish I did." + +And a sudden painful expression--of moral worry, remorse--passed across +the girl's face. Wharton knew that she had often been impatient of late +with her father, and incredulous of his complaints. He thought he +understood. + +"One can often be of more use to a sick person if one is not too well +acquainted with what ails them," he said. "Hope and cheerfulness are +everything in a case like your father's. He will do well." + +"If he does he won't owe any of it--" + +She stopped as impulsively as she had begun. "To me," she meant to have +said; then had retreated hastily, before her own sense of something +unduly intimate and personal. Wharton stood quietly beside her, saying +nothing, but receiving and soothing her self-reproach just as surely as +though she had put it into words. + +"You are crushing your flowers, I think," he said suddenly. + +And indeed her roses were dangling against her dress, as if she had +forgotten all about them. + +She raised them carelessly, but he bent to smell them, and she held them +out. + +"Summer!" he said, plunging his face into them with a long breath of +sensuous enjoyment. "How the year sweeps round in an instant! And all +the effect of a little heat and a little money. Will you allow me a +philosopher's remark?" + +He drew back from her. His quick inquisitive but still respectful eye +took in every delightful detail. + +"If I don't give you leave, my experience is that you will take it!" she +said, half laughing, half resentful, as though she had old aggressions +in mind. + +"You admit the strength of the temptation? It is very simple, no one +could help making it. To be spectator of the _height_ of anything--the +best, the climax--makes any mortal's pulses run. Beauty, success, +happiness, for instance?" + +He paused smiling. She leant a thin hand on the mantelpiece and looked +away; Aldous's pearls slipped backwards along her white arm. + +"Do you suppose to-night will be the height of happiness?" she said at +last with a little scorn. "These functions don't present themselves to +_me_ in such a light." + +Wharton could have laughed out--her pedantry was so young and +unconscious. But he restrained himself. + +"I shall be with the majority to-night," he said demurely. "I may as +well warn you." + +Her colour rose. No other man had ever dared to speak to her with this +assurance, this cool scrutinising air. She told herself to be indignant; +the next moment she _was_ indignant, but with herself for remembering +conventionalities. + +"Tell me one thing," said Wharton, changing his tone wholly. "I know you +went down hurriedly to the village before dinner. Was anything wrong?" + +"Old Patton is very ill," she said, sighing. "I went to ask after him; +he may die any moment. And the Hurds' boy too." + +He leant against the mantelpiece, talking to her about both cases with a +quick incisive common-sense--not unkind, but without a touch of +unnecessary sentiment, still less of the superior person--which +represented one of the moods she liked best in him. In speaking of the +poor he always took the tone of comradeship, of a plain equality, and +the tone was, in fact, genuine. + +"Do you know," he said presently, "I did not tell you before, but I am +certain that Hurd's wife is afraid of you, that she has a secret from +you?" + +"From me! how could she? I know every detail of their affairs." + +"No matter. I listened to what she said that day in the cottage when I +had the boy on my knee. I noticed her face, and I am quite certain. She +has a secret, and above all a secret from you." + +Marcella looked disturbed for a moment, then she laughed. + +"Oh, no!" she said, with a little superior air. "I assure you I know her +better than you." + +Wharton said no more. + +"Marcella!" called a distant voice from the hall. + +The girl gathered up her white skirts and her flowers in haste. + +"Good-night!" + +"Good-night! I shall hear you come home and wonder how you have sped. +One word, if I may! Take your _rôle_ and play it. There is nothing +subjects dislike so much as to see royalty decline its part." + +She laughed, blushed, a little proudly and uncertainly, and went without +reply. As she shut the door behind her, a sudden flatness fell upon her. +She walked through the dark Stone Parlour outside, seeing still the +firmly-knit lightly-made figure--boyish, middle-sized, yet never +insignificant--the tumbled waves of fair hair, the eyes so keenly blue, +the face with its sharp mocking lines, its powers of sudden charm. Then +self-reproach leapt, and possessed her. She quickened her pace, hurrying +into the hall, as though from something she was ashamed or afraid of. + +In the hall a new sensation awaited her. Her mother, fully dressed, +stood waiting by the old billiard-table for her maid, who had gone to +fetch her a cloak. + +Marcella stopped an instant in surprise and delight, then ran up to her. +"Mamma, how _lovely_ you look! I haven't seen you like that, not since I +was a child. I remember you then once, in a low dress, a white dress, +with flowers, coming into the nursery. But that black becomes you so +well, and Deacon has done your hair beautifully!" + +She took her mother's hand and kissed her cheek, touched by an emotion +which had many roots. There was infinite relief in this tender natural +outlet; she seemed to recover possession of herself. + +Mrs. Boyce bore the kiss quietly. Her face was a little pinched and +white. But the unusual display Deacon had been allowed to make of her +pale golden hair, still long and abundant; the unveiling of the shapely +shoulders and neck, little less beautiful than her daughter's; the +elegant lines of the velvet dress, all these things, had very nobly +transformed her. Marcella could not restrain her admiration and delight. +Mrs. Boyce winced, and, looking upward to the gallery, which ran round +the hall, called Deacon impatiently. + +"Only, mamma," said Marcella, discontentedly, "I don't like that little +chain round your neck. It is not equal to the rest, not worthy of it." + +"I have nothing else, my dear," said Mrs. Boyce, drily. "Now, Deacon, +don't be all night!" + +Nothing else? Yet, if she shut her eyes, Marcella could perfectly recall +the diamonds on the neck and arms of that white figure of her +childhood--could see herself as a baby playing with the treasures of her +mother's jewel-box. + +Nowadays, Mrs. Boyce was very secretive and reserved about her personal +possessions. Marcella never went into her room unless she was asked, and +would never have thought of treating it or its contents with any +freedom. + +The mean chain which went so ill with the costly hoarded dress--it +recalled to Marcella all the inexorable silent miseries of her mother's +past life, and all the sordid disadvantages and troubles of her own +youth. She followed Mrs. Boyce out to the carriage in silence--once more +in a tumult of sore pride and doubtful feeling. + + * * * * * + +Four weeks to her wedding-day! The words dinned in her ears as they +drove along. Yet they sounded strange to her, incredible almost. How +much did she know of Aldous, of her life that was to be--above all, how +much of herself? She was not happy--had not been happy or at ease for +many days. Yet in her restlessness she could think nothing out. +Moreover, the chain that galled and curbed her was a chain of character. +In spite of her modernness, and the complexity of many of her motives, +there was certain inherited simplicities of nature at the bottom of her. +In her wild demonic childhood you could always trust Marcie Boyce, if +she had given you her word--her schoolfellows knew that. If her passions +were half-civilised and southern, her way of understanding the point of +honour was curiously English, sober, tenacious. So now. Her sense of +bond to Aldous had never been in the least touched by any of her +dissatisfactions and revolts. Yet it rushed upon her to-night with +amazement, and that in four weeks she was going to marry him! Why? +how?--what would it really _mean_ for him and for her? It was as though +in mid-stream, she were trying to pit herself for an instant against the +current which had so far carried them all on, to see what it might be +like to retrace a step, and could only realise with dismay the force +and rapidity of the water. + +Yet all the time another side of her was well aware that she was at that +moment the envy of half a county, that in another ten minutes hundreds +of eager and critical eyes would be upon her; and her pride was rising +to her part. The little incident of the chain had somehow for the moment +made the ball and her place in it more attractive to her. + + * * * * * + +They had no sooner stepped from their carriage than Aldous, who was +waiting in the outer hall, joyously discovered them. Till then he had +been walking aimlessly amid the crowd of his own guests, wondering when +she would come, how she would like it. This splendid function had been +his grandfather's idea; it would never have entered his own head for a +moment. Yet he understood his grandfather's wish to present his heir's +promised bride in this public ceremonious way to the society of which +she would some day be the natural leader. He understood, too, that there +was more in the wish than met the ear; that the occasion meant to Lord +Maxwell, whether Dick Boyce were there or no, the final condoning of +things past and done with, a final throwing of the Maxwell shield over +the Boyce weakness, and full adoption of Marcella into her new family. + +All this he understood and was grateful for. But how would _she_ +respond? How would she like it--this parade that was to be made of +her--these people that must be introduced to her? He was full of +anxieties. + +Yet in many ways his mind had been easier of late. During the last week +she had been very gentle and good to him--even Miss Raeburn had been +pleased with her. There had been no quoting of Wharton when they met; +and he had done his philosopher's best to forget him. He trusted her +proudly, intensely; and in four weeks she would be his wife. + +"Can you bear it?" he said to her in a laughing whisper as she and her +mother emerged from the cloak-room. + +"Tell me what to do," she said, flushing. "I will do my best. What a +crowd! Must we stay very long?" + +"Ah, my dear Mrs. Boyce," cried Lord Maxwell, meeting them on the steps +of the inner quadrangular corridor--"Welcome indeed! Let me take you in. +Marcella! with Aldous's permission!" he stooped his white head gallantly +and kissed her on the cheek--"Remember I am an old man; if I choose to +pay you compliments, you will have to put up with them!" + +Then he offered Mrs. Boyce his arm, a stately figure in his ribbon and +cross of the Bath. A delicate red had risen to that lady's thin cheek in +spite of her self-possession. "Poor thing," said Lord Maxwell to himself +as he led her along--"poor thing!--how distinguished and charming still! +One sees to-night what she was like as a girl." + +Aldous and Marcella followed. They had to pass along the great corridor +which ran round the quadrangle of the house. The antique marbles which +lined it were to-night masked in flowers, and seats covered in red had +been fitted in wherever it was possible, and were now crowded with +dancers "sitting out." From the ball-room ahead came waves of +waltz-music; the ancient house was alive with colour and perfume, with +the sounds of laughter and talk, lightly fretting, and breaking the +swaying rhythms of the band. Beyond the windows of the corridor, which +had been left uncurtained because of the beauty of the night, the stiff +Tudor garden with its fountains, which filled up the quadrangle, was +gaily illuminated under a bright moon; and amid all the varied colour of +lamps, drapery, dresses, faces, the antique heads ranged along the walls +of the corridor--here Marcus Aurelius, there Trajan, there Seneca--and +the marble sarcophagi which broke the line at intervals, stood in cold, +whitish relief. + +Marcella passed along on Aldous's arm, conscious that people were +streaming into the corridor from all the rooms opening upon it, and that +every eye was fixed upon her and her mother. "Look, there she is," she +heard in an excited girl's voice as they passed Lord Maxwell's library, +now abandoned to the crowd like all the rest. "Come, quick! There--I +told you she was lovely!" + +Every now and then some old friend, man or woman, rose smiling from the +seats along the side, and Aldous introduced his bride. + +"On her dignity!" said an old hunting squire to his daughter when they +had passed. "Shy, no doubt--very natural! But nowadays girls, when +they're shy, don't giggle and blush as they used to in _my_ young days; +they look as if you meant to insult them, and they weren't going to +allow it! Oh, very handsome--very handsome--of course. But you can see +she's advanced--peculiar--or what d'ye call it?--woman's rights, I +suppose, and all that kind of thing? Like to see you go in for it, +Nettie, eh!" + +"She's _awfully_ handsome," sighed his pink-cheeked, insignificant +little daughter, still craning her neck to look--"very simply dressed +too, except for those lovely pearls. She does her hair very oddly, so +low down--in those plaits. Nobody does it like that nowadays." + +"That's because nobody has such a head," said her brother, a young +Hussar lieutenant, beside her, in the tone of connoisseurship. "By +George, she's ripping--she's the best-looking girl I've seen for a good +long time. But she's a Tartar, I'll swear--looks it, anyway." + +"Every one says she has the most extraordinary opinions," said the girl, +eagerly. "She'll manage him, don't you think? I'm sure he's very meek +and mild." + +"Don't know that," said the young man, twisting his moustache with the +air of exhaustive information. "Raeburn's a very good fellow--excellent +fellow--see him shooting, you know--that kind of thing. I expect he's +got a will when he wants it. The mother's handsome, too, and looks a +lady. The father's kept out of the way, I see. Rather a blessing for the +Raeburns. Can't be pleasant, you know, to get a man like that in the +family. Look after your spoons--that kind of thing." + +Meanwhile Marcella was standing beside Miss Raeburn, at the head of the +long ball-room, and doing her best to behave prettily. One after +another she bowed to, or shook hands with, half the magnates of the +county--the men in pink, the women in the new London dresses, for which +this brilliant and long-expected ball had given so welcome an excuse. +They knew little or nothing of her, except that she was clearly +good-looking, that she was that fellow Dick Boyce's daughter and was +reported to be "odd." Some, mostly men, who said their conventional few +words to her, felt an amused admiration for the skill and rapidity with +which she had captured the _parti_ of the county; some, mostly women, +were already jealous of her. A few of the older people here and there, +both men and women--but after all they shook hands like the rest!--knew +perfectly well that the girl must be going through an ordeal, were +touched by the signs of thought and storm in the face, and looked back +at her with kind eyes. + +But of these last Marcella realised nothing. What she was saying to +herself was that, if they knew little of her, she knew a great deal of +many of them. In their talks over the Stone Parlour fire she and Wharton +had gone through most of the properties, large and small, of his +division, and indeed of the divisions round, by the help of the +knowledge he had gained in his canvass, together with a blue-book--one +of the numberless!--recently issued, on the state of the midland +labourer. He had abounded in anecdote, sarcasm, reflection, based partly +on his own experiences, partly on his endless talks with the +working-folk, now in the public-house, now at their own chimney-corner. +Marcella, indeed, had a large unsuspected acquaintance with the county +before she met it in the flesh. She knew that a great many of these men +who came and spoke to her were doing their best according to their +lights, that improvements were going on, that times were mending. But +there were abuses enough still, and the abuses were far more vividly +present to her than the improvements. In general, the people who +thronged these splendid rooms were to her merely the incompetent members +of a useless class. The nation would do away with them in time! +Meanwhile it might at least be asked of them that they should practise +their profession of landowning, such as it was, with greater conscience +and intelligence--that they should not shirk its opportunities or idle +them away. And she could point out those who did both--scandalously, +intolerably. Once or twice she thought passionately of Minta Hurd, +washing and mending all day, in her damp cottage; or of the Pattons in +"the parish house," thankful after sixty years of toil for a hovel where +the rain came through the thatch, and where the smoke choked you, +unless, with the thermometer below freezing-point, you opened the door +to the blast. Why should _these_ people have all the gay clothes, the +flowers, the jewels, the delicate food--all the delight and all the +leisure? And those, nothing! Her soul rose against what she saw as she +stood there, going through her part. Wharton's very words, every +inflection of his voice was in her ears, playing chorus to the scene. + +But when these first introductions, these little empty talks of three or +four phrases apiece, and all of them alike, were nearly done with, +Marcella looked eagerly round for Mary Harden. There she was, sitting +quietly against the wall in a remote corner, her plain face all smiles, +her little feet dancing under the white muslin frock which she had +fashioned for herself with so much pain under Marcella's directions. +Miss Raeburn was called away to find an arm-chair for some dowager of +importance; Marcella took advantage of the break and of the end of a +dance to hurry down the room to Mary. Aldous, who was talking to old Sir +Charles Leven, Frank's father, a few steps off, nodded and smiled to her +as he saw her move. + +"Have you been dancing, Mary?" she said severely. + +"I wouldn't for worlds! I never was so much amused in my life. Look at +those girls--those sisters--in the huge velvet sleeves, like coloured +balloons!--and that old lady in the pink tulle and diamonds.--I do so +want to get her her cloak! _And_ those Lancers!--I never could have +imagined people danced like that. They didn't dance them--they romped +them! It wasn't beautiful--was it?" + +"Why do you expect an English crowd to do anything beautiful? If we +could do it, we should be too ashamed." + +"But it _is_ beautiful, all the same, you scornful person!" cried Mary, +dragging her friend down beside her. "How pretty the girls are! And as +for the diamonds, I never saw anything so wonderful. I wish I could have +made Charles come!" + +"Wouldn't he?" + +"No"--she looked a little troubled--"he couldn't think it would be +quite right. But I don't know--a sight like this takes me off my feet, +shakes me up, and does _me_ a world of good!" + +"You dear, simple thing!" said Marcella, slipping her hand into Mary's +as it lay on the bench. + +"Oh, you needn't be so superior!" cried Mary,--"not for another year at +least. I don't believe you are much more used to it than I am!" + +"If you mean," said Marcella, "that I was never at anything so big and +splendid as this before, you are quite right." + +And she looked round the room with that curious, cold air of personal +detachment from all she saw, which had often struck Mary, and to-night +made her indignant. + +"Then enjoy it!" she said, laughing and frowning at the same time. +"That's a much more plain duty for _you_ than it was for Charles to stay +at home--there! Haven't you been dancing?" + +"No, Mr. Raeburn doesn't dance. But he thinks he can get through the +next Lancers if I will steer him." + +"Then I shall find a seat where I can look at you," said Mary, +decidedly. "Ah, there is Mr. Raeburn coming to introduce somebody to +you. I knew they wouldn't let you sit here long." + +Aldous brought up a young Guardsman, who boldly asked Miss Boyce for the +pleasure of a dance. Marcella consented; and off they swept into a room +which was only just beginning to fill for the new dance, and where, +therefore, for the moment the young grace of both had free play. +Marcella had been an indefatigable dancer in the old London days at +those students' parties, with their dyed gloves and lemonade suppers, +which were running in her head now, as she swayed to the rhythm of this +perfect band. The mere delight in movement came back to her; and while +they danced, she danced with all her heart. Then in the pauses she would +lean against the wall beside her partner, and rack her brain to find a +word to say to him. As for anything that _he_ said, every word--whether +of Ascot, or the last Academy, or the new plays, or the hunting and the +elections--sounded to her more vapid than the last. + +Meanwhile Aldous stood near Mary Harden and watched the dancing figure. +He had never seen her dance before. Mary shyly stole a look at him from +time to time. + +"Well," he said at last, stooping to his neighbour, "what are you +thinking of?" + +"I think she is a dream!" said Mary, flushing with the pleasure of being +able to say it. They were great friends, he and she, and to-night +somehow she was not a bit afraid of him. + +Aldous's eye sparkled a moment; then he looked down at her with a kind +smile. + +"If you suppose I am going to let you sit here all night, you are very +much mistaken. Marcella gave me precise instructions. I am going off +this moment to find somebody." + +"Mr. Raeburn--don't!" cried Mary, catching at him. But he was gone, and +she was left in trepidation, imagining the sort of formidable young man +who was soon to be presented to her, and shaking at the thought of him. + +When the dance was over Marcella returned to Miss Raeburn, who was +standing at the door into the corridor and had beckoned to her. She went +through a number of new introductions, and declared to herself that she +was doing all she could. Miss Raeburn was not so well satisfied. + +"Why can't she smile and chatter like other girls?" thought Aunt Neta, +impatiently. "It's her 'ideas,' I suppose. What rubbish! There, +now--just see the difference!" + +For at the moment Lady Winterbourne came up, and instantly Marcella was +all smiles and talk, holding her friend by both hands, clinging to her +almost. + +"Oh, do come here!" she said, leading her into a corner. "There's such a +crowd, and I say all the wrong things. There!" with a sigh of relief. +"Now I feel myself protected." + +"I mustn't keep you," said Lady Winterbourne, a little taken aback by +her effusion. "Everybody is wanting to talk to you." + +"Oh, I know! There is Miss Raeburn looking at me severely already. But I +must do as I like a little." + +"You ought to do as Aldous likes," said Lady Winterbourne, suddenly, in +her deepest and most tragic voice. It seemed to her a moment had come +for admonition, and she seized it hastily. + +Marcella stared at her in surprise. She knew by now that when Lady +Winterbourne looked most forbidding she was in reality most shy. But +still she was taken aback. + +"Why do you say that, I wonder?" she asked, half reproachfully. "I have +been behaving myself quite nicely--I have indeed; at least, as nicely as +I knew how." + +Lady Winterbourne's tragic air yielded to a slow smile. + +"You look very well, my dear. That white becomes you charmingly; so do +the pearls. I don't wonder that Aldous always knows where you are." + +Marcella raised her eyes and caught those of Aldous fixed upon her from +the other side of the room. She blushed, smiled slightly, and looked +away. + +"Who is that tall man just gone up to speak to him?" she asked of her +companion. + +"That is Lord Wandle," said Lady Winterbourne, "and his plain second +wife behind him. Edward always scolds me for not admiring him. He says +women know nothing at all about men's looks, and that Lard Wandle was +the most splendid man of his time. But I always think it an unpleasant +face." + +"Lord Wandle!" exclaimed Marcella, frowning. "Oh, _please_ come with me, +dear Lady Winterbourne! I know he is asking Aldous to introduce him, and +I won't--no I will _not_--be introduced to him." + +And laying hold of her astonished companion, she drew her hastily +through a doorway near, walked quickly, still gripping her, through two +connected rooms beyond, and finally landed her and herself on a sofa in +Lord Maxwell's library, pursued meanwhile through all her hurried course +by the curious looks of an observant throng. + +"That man!--no, that would really have been _too_ much!" said Marcella, +using her large feather fan with stormy energy. + +"What _is_ the matter with you, my dear?" said Lady Winterbourne in her +amazement; "and what is the matter with Lord Wandle?" + +"You must know!" said Marcella, indignantly. "Oh, you _must_ have seen +that case in the paper last week--that _shocking_ case! A woman and two +children died in one of his cottages of blood-poisoning--nothing in the +world but his neglect--his _brutal_ neglect!" Her breast heaved; she +seemed almost on the point of weeping. "The agent was appealed to--did +nothing. Then the clergyman wrote to him direct, and got an answer. The +answer was published. For cruel insolence I never saw anything like it! +He ought to be in prison for manslaughter--and he comes _here_! And +people laugh and talk with him!" + +She stopped, almost choked by her own passion. But the incident, after +all, was only the spark to the mine. + +Lady Winterbourne stared at her helplessly. + +"Perhaps it isn't true," she suggested. "The newspapers put in so many +lies, especially about _us_--the landlords. Edward says one ought never +to believe them. Ah, here comes Aldous." + +Aldous, indeed, with some perplexity on his brow, was to be seen +approaching, looking for his betrothed. Marcella dropped her fan and sat +erect, her angry colour fading into whiteness. + +"My darling! I couldn't think what had become of you. May I bring Lord +Wandle and introduce him to you? He is an old friend here, and my +godfather. Not that I am particularly proud of the relationship," he +said, dropping his voice as he stooped over her. "He is a soured, +disagreeable fellow, and I hate many of the things he does. But it is an +old tie, and my grandfather is tender of such things. Only a word or +two; then I will get rid of him." + +"Aldous, I _can't_," said Marcella, looking up at him. "How could I? I +saw that case. I must be rude to him." + +Aldous looked considerably disturbed. + +"It was very bad," he said slowly. "I didn't know you had seen it. What +shall I do? I promised to go back for him." + +"Lord Wandle--Miss Boyce!" said Miss Raeburn's sharp little voice behind +Aldous. Aldous, moving aside in hasty dismay, saw his aunt, looking very +determined, presenting her tall neighbour, who bowed with old-fashioned +deference to the girl on the sofa. + +Lady Winterbourne looked with trepidation at Marcella. But the social +instinct held, to some extent. Ninety-nine women can threaten a scene of +the kind Lady Winterbourne dreaded, for one that can carry it through. +Marcella wavered; then, with her most forbidding air, she made a +scarcely perceptible return of Lord Wandle's bow. + +"Did you escape in here out of the heat?" he asked her. "But I am afraid +no one lets you escape to-night. The occasion is too interesting." + +Marcella made no reply. Lady Winterbourne threw in a nervous remark on +the crowd. + +"Oh, yes, a great crush," said Lord Wandle. "Of course, we all come to +see Aldous happy. How long is it, Miss Boyce, since you settled at +Mellor?" + +"Six months." + +She looked straight before her and not at him as she answered, and her +tone made Miss Raeburn's blood boil. + +Lord Wandle--a battered, coarsened, but still magnificent-looking man of +sixty--examined the speaker an instant from half-shut eyes, then put up +his hand to his moustache with a half-smile. + +"You like the country?" + +"Yes." + +As she spoke her reluctant monosyllable, the girl had really no +conception of the degree of hostility expressed in her manner. Instead +she was hating herself for her own pusillanimity. + +"And the people?" + +"Some of them." + +And straightway she raised her fierce black eyes to his, and the man +before her understood, as plainly as any one need understand, that, +whoever else Miss Boyce might like, she did not like Lord Wandle, and +wished for no more conversation with him. + +Her interrogator turned to Aldous with smiling _aplomb_. + +"Thank you, my dear Aldous. Now let me retire. No one must _monopolise_ +your charming lady." + +And again he bowed low to her, this time with an ironical emphasis not +to be mistaken, and walked away. + +Lady Winterbourne saw him go up to his wife, who had followed him at a +distance, and speak to her roughly with a frown. They left the room, and +presently, through the other door of the library which opened on the +corridor, she saw them pass, as though they were going to their +carriage. + +Marcella rose. She looked first at Miss Raeburn--then at Aldous. + +"Will you take me away?" she said, going up to him; "I am tired--take me +to your room." + +He put her hand inside his arm, and they pushed their way through the +crowd. Outside in the passage they met Hallin. He had not seen her +before, and he put out his hand. But there was something distant in his +gentle greeting which struck at this moment like a bruise on Marcella's +quivering nerves. It came across her that for some time past he had made +no further advances to her; that his first eager talk of friendship +between himself and her had dropped; that his _acceptance_ of her into +his world and Aldous's was somehow suspended--in abeyance. She bit her +lip tightly and hurried Aldous along. Again the same lines of gay, +chatting people along the corridor, and on either side of the wide +staircase--greetings, introduction--a nightmare of publicity. + +"Rather pronounced--to carry him off like that," said a clergyman to his +wife with a kindly smile, as the two tall figures disappeared along the +upper gallery. "She will have him all to herself before long." + + * * * * * + +Aldous shut the door of his sitting-room behind them. Marcella quickly +drew her hand out of his arm, and going forward to the mantelpiece +rested both elbows upon it and hid her face. + +He looked at her a moment in distress and astonishment, standing a +little apart. Then he saw that she was crying. The colour flooded into +his face, and going up to her he took her hand, which was all she would +yield him, and, holding it to his lips, said in her ear every soothing +tender word that love's tutoring could bring to mind. In his emotion he +told himself and her that he admired and loved her the more for the +incident downstairs, for the temper she had shown! She alone among them +all had had the courage to strike the true stern Christian note. As to +the annoyance such courage might bring upon him and her in the +future--even as to the trouble it might cause his own dear folk--what +real matter? In these things she should lead. + +What could love have asked better than such a moment? Yet Marcella's +weeping was in truth the weeping of despair. This man's very sweetness +to her, his very assumption of the right to comfort and approve her, +roused in her a desperate stifled sense of bonds that should never have +been made, and that now could not be broken. It was all plain to her at +last. His touch had no thrill for her; his frown no terror. She had +accepted him without loving him, coveting what he could give her. And +now it seemed to her that she cared nothing for anything he could +give!--that the life before her was to be one series of petty conflicts +between her and a surrounding circumstance which must inevitably in the +end be too strong for her, conflicts from which neither heart nor +ambition could gain anything. She had desired a great position for what +she might do with it. But could she do with it! She would be +subdued--oh! very quickly!--to great houses and great people, and all +the vapid pomp and idle toil of wealth. All that picture of herself, +stooping from place and power, to bind up the wounds of the people, in +which she had once delighted, was to her now a mere flimsy vulgarity. +She had been shown other ideals--other ways--and her pulses were still +swaying under the audacity--the virile inventive force of the showman. +Everything she had once desired looked flat to her; everything she was +not to have, glowed and shone. Poverty, adventure, passion, the joys of +self-realisation--these she gave up. She would become Lady Maxwell, make +friends with Miss Raeburn, and wear the family diamonds! + +Then, in the midst of her rage with herself and fate, she drew herself +away, looked up, and caught full the eyes of Aldous Raeburn. Conscience +stung and burned. What was this life she had dared to trifle with--this +man she had dared to treat as a mere pawn in her own game? She gave way +utterly, appalled at her own misdoing, and behaved like a penitent +child. Aldous, astonished and alarmed by her emotions and by the wild +incoherent things she said, won his way at last to some moments of +divine happiness, when, leaving her trembling hand in his, she sat +submissively beside him, gradually quieting down, summoning back her +smiles and her beauty, and letting him call her all the fond names he +would. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Scarcely a word was exchanged between Marcella and her mother on the +drive home. Yet under ordinary circumstances Marcella's imagination +would have found some painful exercise in the effort to find out in what +spirit her mother had taken the evening--the first social festivity in +which Richard Boyce's wife had taken part for sixteen years. In fact, +Mrs. Boyce had gone through it very quietly. After her first public +entry on Lord Maxwell's arm she had sat in her corner, taking keen note +of everything, enjoying probably the humours of her kind. Several old +acquaintances who had seen her at Mellor as a young wife in her first +married years had come up with some trepidation to speak to her. She had +received them with her usual well-bred indifference, and they had gone +away under the impression that she regarded herself as restored to +society by this great match that her daughter was making. Lady +Winterbourne had been shyly and therefore formidably kind to her; and +both Lord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn had been genuinely interested in +smoothing the effort to her as much as they could. She meanwhile watched +Marcella--except through the encounter with Lord Wandle, which she did +not see--and found some real pleasure in talking both to Aldous and to +Hallin. + +Yet all through she was preoccupied, and towards the end very anxious +to get home, a state of mind which prevented her from noticing +Marcella's changed looks after her reappearance with Aldous in the +ball-room, as closely as she otherwise might have done. Yet the mother +_had_ observed that the end of Marcella's progress had been somewhat +different from the beginning; that the girl's greetings had been +gentler, her smiles softer; and that in particular she had taken some +pains, some wistful pains, to make Hallin talk to her. Lord +Maxwell--ignorant of the Wandle incident--was charmed with her, and +openly said so, both to the mother and Lady Winterbourne, in his hearty +old man's way. Only Miss Raeburn held indignantly aloof, and would not +pretend, even to Mrs. Boyce. + +And now Marcella was tired--dead tired, she said to herself, both in +mind and body. She lay back in the carriage, trying to sink herself in +her own fatigue, to forget everything, to think of nothing. Outside the +night was mild, and the moon clear. For some days past, after the break +up of the long frost, there had been heavy rain. Now the rain had +cleared away, and in the air there was already an early promise of +spring. As she walked home from the village that afternoon she had felt +the buds and the fields stirring. + +When they got home, Mrs. Boyce turned to her daughter at the head of the +stairs, "Shall I unlace your dress, Marcella?" + +"Oh no, thank you. Can I help you?" + +"No. Good-night." + +"Mamma!" Marcella turned and ran after her. "I should like to know how +papa is. I will wait here if you will tell me." + +Mrs. Boyce looked surprised. Then she went into her room and shut the +door. Marcella waited outside, leaning against the old oak gallery which +ran round the hall, her candle the one spot of light and life in the +great dark house. + +"He seems to have slept well," said Mrs. Boyce, reappearing, and +speaking under her breath. "He has not taken the opiate I left for him, +so he cannot have been in pain. Good-night." + +Marcella kissed her and went. Somehow, in her depression of nerve and +will, she was loth to go away by herself. The loneliness of the night, +and of her wing of the house, weighed upon her; the noises made by the +old boards under her steps, the rustling draughts from the dark passages +to right and left startled and troubled her; she found herself +childishly fearing lest her candle should go out. + +Yet, as she descended the two steps to the passage outside her door, she +could have felt little practical need of it, for the moonlight was +streaming in through its uncovered windows, not directly, but reflected +from the Tudor front of the house which ran at right angles to this +passage, and was to-night a shining silver palace, every battlement, +window, and moulding in sharpest light and shade under the radiance of +the night. Beneath her feet, as she looked out into the Cedar Garden, +was a deep triangle of shadow, thrown by that part of the building in +which she stood; and beyond the garden the barred black masses of the +cedars closing up the view lent additional magic to the glittering +unsubstantial fabric of the moonlit house, which was, as it were, +embosomed and framed among them. She paused a moment, struck by the +strangeness and beauty of the spectacle. The Tudor front had the air of +some fairy banqueting-hall lit by unearthly hands for some weird +gathering of ghostly knights. Then she turned to her room, impatiently +longing in her sick fatigue to be quit of her dress and ornaments and +tumble into sleep. + +Yet she made no hurry. She fell on the first chair that offered. Her +candle behind her had little power over the glooms of the dark +tapestried room, but it did serve to illuminate the lines of her own +form, as she saw it reflected in the big glass of her wardrobe, straight +in front of her. She sat with her hands round her knees, absently +looking at herself, a white long-limbed apparition struck out of the +darkness. But she was conscious of nothing save one mounting +overwhelming passionate desire, almost a cry. + +Mr. Wharton must go away--he _must_--or she could not bear it. + +Quick alternations of insight, memory, self-recognition, self-surrender, +rose and broke upon her. At last, physical weariness recalled her. She +put up her hands to take off her pearls. + +As she did so, she started, hearing a noise that made her turn her head. +Just outside her door a little spiral staircase led down from her +corridor to the one below, which ran at the back of the old library, and +opened into the Cedar Garden at its further end. + +Steps surely--light steps--along the corridor outside, and on the +staircase. Nor did they die away. She could still hear them,--as she +sat, arrested, straining her ears,--pacing slowly along the lower +passage. + +Her heart, after its pause, leapt into fluttering life. This room of +hers, the two passages, the library, and the staircase, represented that +part of the house to which the ghost stories of Mellor clung most +persistently. Substantially the block of building was of early Tudor +date, but the passages and the staircase had been alterations made with +some clumsiness at the time of the erection of the eighteenth-century +front, with a view to bringing these older rooms into the general plan. +Marcella, however, might demonstrate as she pleased that the Boyce who +was supposed to have stabbed himself on the staircase died at least +forty years before the staircase was made. None the less, no servant +would go alone, if she could help it, into either passage after dark; +and there was much excited marvelling how Miss Boyce could sleep where +she did. Deacon abounded in stories of things spiritual and peripatetic, +of steps, groans, lights in the library, and the rest. Marcella had +consistently laughed at her. + +Yet all the same she had made in secret a very diligent pursuit of this +ghost, settling in the end to a certain pique with him that he would not +show himself to so ardent a daughter of the house. She had sat up +waiting for him; she had lingered in the corridor outside, and on the +stairs, expecting him. By the help of a favourite carpenter she had made +researches into roofs, water-pipes, panelling, and old cupboards, in the +hope of finding a practical clue to him. In vain. + +Yet here were the steps--regular, soft, unmistakable. The colour rushed +back into her cheeks! Her eager healthy youth forgot its woes, flung off +its weariness, and panted for an adventure, a discovery. Springing up, +she threw her fur wrap round her again, and gently opened the door, +listening. + +For a minute, nothing--then a few vague sounds as of something living +and moving down below--surely in the library? Then the steps again. +Impossible that it should be any one breaking in. No burglar would walk +so leisurely. She closed her door behind her, and, gathering her white +satin skirts about her, she descended the staircase. + +The corridor below was in radiant moonlight, chequered by the few pieces +of old furniture it contained, and the black and white of the old +portrait prints hanging on the walls. At first her seeking, excited eyes +could make out nothing. Then in a flash they perceived the figure of +Wharton at the further end near the garden door, leaning against one of +the windows. He was apparently looking out at the moonlit house, and she +caught the faint odour of a cigarette. + +Her first instinct was to turn and fly. But Wharton had seen her. As he +looked about him at the sound of her approach, the moon, which was just +rounding the corner of the house, struck on her full, amid the shadows +of the staircase, and she heard his exclamation. + +Dignity--a natural pride--made her pause. She came forward slowly--he +eagerly. + +"I heard footsteps," she said, with a coldness under which he plainly +saw her embarrassment. "I could not suppose that anybody was still up, +so I came down to see." + +He was silent a moment, scanning her with laughing eyes. Then he shook +his head. "Confess you took me for the ghost?" he said. + +She hesitated; then must laugh too. She herself had told him the +stories, so that his guess was natural. + +"Perhaps I did," she said. "One more disappointment! Good-night." + +He looked after her a quick undecided moment as she made a step in front +of him, then at the half-burnt cigarette he held in his hand, threw the +end away with a hasty gesture, overtook her and walked beside her along +the corridor. + +"I heard you and your mother come in," he said, as though explaining +himself. "Then I waited till I thought you must both be asleep, and came +down here to look at that wonderful effect on the old house." He pointed +to the silver palace outside. "I have a trick of being sleepless--a +trick, too, of wandering at night. My own people know it, and bear with +me, but I am abashed that you should have found me out. Just tell me--in +one word--how the ball went?" + +He paused at the foot of the stairs, his hands on his sides, as keenly +wide-awake as though it were three o'clock in the afternoon instead of +three in the morning. + +Womanlike, her mood instantly shaped itself to his. + +"It went very well," she said perversely, putting her satin-slippered +foot on the first step. "There were six hundred people upstairs, and +four hundred coachmen and footmen downstairs, according to our man. +Everybody said it was splendid." + +His piercing enigmatic gaze could not leave her. As he had often frankly +warned her, he was a man in quest of sensations. Certainly, in this +strange meeting with Aldous Raeburn's betrothed, in the midst of the +sleep-bound house, he had found one. Her eyes were heavy, her cheek +pale. But in this soft vague light--white arms and neck now hidden, now +revealed by the cloak she had thrown about her glistening satin--she was +more enchanting than he had ever seen her. His breath quickened. + +He said to himself that he would make Miss Boyce stay and talk to him. +What harm--to her or to Raeburn? Raeburn would have chances enough +before long. Why admit his monopoly before the time? She was not in love +with him! As to Mrs. Grundy--absurd! What in the true reasonableness of +things was to prevent human beings from conversing by night as well as +by day? + +"One moment"--he said, delaying her. "You must be dead tired--too tired +for romance. Else I should say to you, turn aside an instant and look at +the library. It is a sight to remember." + +Inevitably she glanced behind her, and saw that the library door was +ajar. He flung it open, and the great room showed wide, its high domed +roof lost in shadow, while along the bare floor and up the latticed +books crept, here streaks and fingers, and there wide breadths of light +from the unshuttered and curtainless windows. + +"Isn't it the very poetry of night and solitude?" he said, looking in +with her. "You love the place; but did you ever see it so lovable? The +dead are here; you did right to come and seek them! Look at your +namesake, in that ray. To-night she lives! She knows that is her husband +opposite--those are her books beside her. And the rebel!"--he pointed +smiling to the portrait of John Boyce. "When you are gone I shall shut +myself up here--sit in his chair, invoke him--and put my speech +together. I am nervous about to-morrow" (he was bound, as she knew, to a +large Labour Congress in the Midlands, where he was to preside), "and +sleep will make no terms with me. Ah!--how strange! Who can that be +passing the avenue?" + +He made a step or two into the room, and put up his hand to his brow, +looking intently. Involuntarily, yet with a thrill, Marcella followed. +They walked to the window. + +"It is _Hurd_!" she cried in a tone of distress, pressing her face +against the glass. "Out at this time, and with a gun! Oh, dear, dear!" + +There could be no question that it was Hurd. Wharton had seen him linger +in the shadowy edge of the avenue, as though reconnoitring, and now, as +he stealthily crossed the moonlit grass, his slouching dwarf's figure, +his large head, and the short gun under his arm, were all plainly +visible. + +"What do you suppose he is after?" said Wharton, still gazing, his hands +in his pockets. + +"I don't know; he wouldn't poach on _our_ land; I'm sure he wouldn't! +Besides, there is nothing to poach."--Wharton smiled.--"He must be +going, after all, to Lord Maxwell's coverts! They are just beyond the +avenue, on the side of the hill. Oh! it is too disappointing! Can we do +anything?" + +She looked at her companion with troubled eyes. This incursion of +something sadly and humanly real seemed suddenly to have made it natural +to be standing beside him there at that strange hour. Her conscience was +soothed. + +Wharton shook his head. + +"I don't see what we could do. How strong the instinct is! I told you +that woman had a secret. Well, it is only one form--the squalid +peasant's form--of the same instinct which sends the young fellows of +our class ruffling it and chancing it all over the world. It is the +instinct to take one's fling, to get out of the rut, to claim one's +innings against the powers that be--Nature, or the law, or convention." + +"I know all that--I never blame them!"--cried Marcella--"but just now it +is so monstrous--so dangerous! Westall specially alert--and this gang +about! Besides, I got him work from Lord Maxwell, and made him promise +me--for the wife and children's sake." + +Wharton shrugged his shoulders. + +"I should think Westall is right, and that the gang have got hold of +him. It is what always happens. The local man is the catspaw.--So you +are sorry for him--this man?" he said in another tone, facing round upon +her. + +She looked astonished, and drew herself up nervously, turning at the +same time to leave the room. But before she could reply he hurried on: + +"He--may escape his risk. Give your pity, Miss Boyce, rather to +one--who has not escaped!" + +"I don't know what you mean," she said, unconsciously laying a hand on +one of the old chairs beside her to steady herself. "But it is too late +to talk. Good-night, Mr. Wharton." + +"Good-bye," he said quietly, yet with a low emphasis, at the same time +moving out of her path. She stopped, hesitating. Beneath the lace and +faded flowers on her breast he could see how her heart beat. + +"Not good-bye? You are coming back after the meeting?" + +"I think not. I must not inflict myself--on Mrs. Boyce--any more. You +will all be very busy during the next three weeks. It would be an +intrusion if I were to come back at such a time--especially--considering +the fact"--he spoke slowly--"that I am as distasteful as I now know +myself to be, to your future husband. Since you all left to-night the +house has been very quiet. I sat over the fire thinking. It grew clear +to me. I must go, and go at once. Besides--a lonely man as I am must not +risk his nerve. His task is set him, and there are none to stand by him +if he fails." + +She trembled all over. Weariness and excitement made normal self-control +almost impossible. + +"Well, then, I must say thank you," she said indistinctly, "for you have +taught me a great deal." + +"You will unlearn it!" he said gaily, recovering his self-possession, so +it seemed, as she lost hers. "Besides, before many weeks are over you +will have heard hard things of me. I know that very well. I can say +nothing to meet them. Nor should I attempt anything. It may sound +brazen, but that past of mine, which I can see perpetually present in +Aldous Raeburn's mind, for instance, and which means so much to his good +aunt, means to me just nothing at all! The doctrine of identity must be +true--I must be the same person I was then. But, all the same, what I +did then does not matter a straw to me now. To all practical purposes I +am another man. I was then a youth, idle, _désoeuvré_, playing with all +the keys of life in turn. I have now unlocked the path that suits me. +Its quest has transformed me--as I believe, ennobled me. I do not ask +Raeburn or any one else to believe it. It is my own affair. Only, if we +ever meet again in life, you and I, and you think you have reason to ask +humiliation of me, do not ask it, do not expect it. The man you will +have in your mind has nothing to do with me. I will not be answerable +for his sins." + +As he said these things he was leaning lightly forward, looking up at +her, his arms resting on the back of one of the old chairs, one foot +crossed over the other. The attitude was easy calm itself. The +tone--indomitable, analytic, reflective--matched it. Yet, all the same, +her woman's instinct divined a hidden agitation, and, woman-like, +responded to that and that only. + +"Mr. Raeburn will never tell me old stories about anybody," she said +proudly. "I asked him once, out--out of curiosity--about you, and he +would tell me nothing." + +"Generous!" said Wharton, drily. "I am grateful." + +"No!" cried Marcella, indignantly, rushing blindly at the outlet for +emotion. "No!--you are not grateful; you are always judging him +harshly--criticising, despising what he does." + +Wharton was silent a moment. Even in the moonlight she could see the +reddening of his cheek. + +"So be it," he said at last. "I submit. You must know best. But you? are +you always content? Does this _milieu_ into which you are passing always +satisfy you? To-night, did your royalty please you? will it soon be +enough for you?" + +"You know it is not enough," she broke out, hotly; "it is insulting that +you should ask in that tone. It means that you think me a +hypocrite!--and I have given you no cause--" + +"Good heavens, no!" he exclaimed, interrupting her, and speaking in a +low, hurried voice. "I had no motive, no reason for what I +said--none--but this, that you are going--that we are parting. I spoke +in gibes to make you speak--somehow to strike--to reach you. To-morrow +it will be too late!" + +And before, almost, she knew that he had moved, he had stooped forward, +caught a fold of her dress, pressed it to his lips, and dropped it. + +"Don't speak," he said brokenly, springing up, and standing before her +in her path. "You shall forgive me--I will compel it! See! here we are +on this moonlit space of floor, alone, in the night. Very probably we +shall never meet again, except as strangers. Put off convention, and +speak to me, soul to soul! You are not happy altogether in this +marriage. I know it. You have as good as confessed it. Yet you will go +through with it. You have given your word--your honour holds you. I +recognise that it holds you. I say nothing, not a syllable, against your +bond! But here, to-night, tell me, promise me that you will make this +marriage of yours serve _our_ hopes and ends, the ends that you and I +have foreseen together--that it shall be your instrument, not your +chain. We have been six weeks together. You say you have learnt from me; +you have! you have given me your mind, your heart to write on, and I +have written. Henceforward you will never look at life as you might have +done if I had not been here. Do you think I triumph, that I boast? Ah!" +he drew in his breath--"What if in helping you, and teaching you--for I +have helped and taught you!--I have undone myself? What if I came here +the slave of impersonal causes, of ends not my own? What if I +leave--maimed--in face of the battle? Not your fault? No, perhaps not! +but, at least, you owe me some gentleness now, in these last words--some +kindness in farewell." + +He came closer, held out his hands. With one of her own she put his +back, and lifted the other dizzily to her forehead. + +"Don't come near me!" she said, tottering. "What is it? I cannot see. +Go!" + +And guiding herself, as though blindfold, to a chair, she sank upon it, +and her head dropped. It was the natural result of a moment of intense +excitement coming upon nerves already strained and tried to their +utmost. She fought desperately against her weakness; but there was a +moment when all around her swam, and she knew nothing. + +Then came a strange awakening. What was this room, this weird light, +these unfamiliar forms of things, this warm support against which her +cheek lay? She opened her eyes languidly. They met Wharton's half in +wonder. He was kneeling beside her, holding her. But for an instant she +realised nothing except his look, to which her own helplessly replied. + +"Once!" she heard him whisper. "Once! Then nothing more--for ever." + +And stooping, slowly, deliberately, he kissed her. + +In a stinging flow, life, shame, returned upon her. She struggled to her +feet, pushing him from her. + +"You dared," she said, "_dared_ such a thing!" + +She could say no more; but her attitude, fiercely instinct, through all +her physical weakness, with her roused best self, was speech enough. He +did not venture to approach her. She walked away. He heard the door +close, hurrying steps on the little stairs, then silence. + +He remained where she had left him, leaning against the latticed wall +for some time. When he moved it was to pick up a piece of maidenhair +which had dropped from her dress. + +"That was a scene!" he said, looking at it, and at the trembling of his +own hand. "It carries one back to the days of the Romantics. Was I +Alfred de Musset?--and she George Sand? Did any of them ever taste a +more poignant moment than I--when she--lay upon my breast? To be +helpless--yet yield nothing--it challenged me! Yet I took no +advantage--none. When she _looked_--when her eye, her _soul_, was, for +that instant, mine, then!--Well!--the world has rushed with me since I +saw her on the stairs; life can bring me nothing of such a quality +again. What did I say?--how much did I mean? My God! how can I tell? I +began as an actor, did I finish as a man?" + +He paced up and down, thinking; gradually, by the help of an iron will +quieting down each rebellious pulse. + +"That poacher fellow did me a good turn. _Dare_! the word galled. But, +after all, what woman could say less? And what matter? I have held her +in my arms, in a setting--under a moon--worthy of her. Is not life +enriched thereby beyond robbery? And what harm? Raeburn is not injured. +_She_ will never tell--and neither of us will ever forget. Ah!--what was +that?" + +He walked quickly to the window. What he had heard had been a dull +report coming apparently from the woods beyond the eastern side of the +avenue. As he reached the window it was followed by a second. + +"That poacher's gun?--no doubt!"--he strained his eyes in +vain--"Collision perhaps--and mischief? No matter! I have nothing to do +with it. The world is all lyric for me to-night. I can hear in it no +other rhythm." + + * * * * * + +The night passed away. When the winter morning broke, Marcella was lying +with wide sleepless eyes, waiting and pining for it. Her candle still +burnt beside her; she had had no courage for darkness, nor the smallest +desire for sleep. She had gone through shame and anguish. But she would +have scorned to pity herself. Was it not her natural, inevitable +portion? + +"I will tell Aldous everything--_everything_," she said to herself for +the hundredth time, as the light penetrated. "Was _that_ only seven +striking--_seven_--impossible!" + +She sat up haggard and restless, hardly able to bear the thought of the +hours that must pass before she could see Aldous--put all to the touch. + +Suddenly she remembered Hurd--then old Patton. + +"He was dying last night," she thought, in her moral torment--her +passion to get away from herself. "Is he gone? This is the hour when old +people die--the dawn. I will go and see--go at once." + +She sprang up. To baffle this ache within her by some act of repentance, +of social amends, however small, however futile--to propitiate herself, +if but by a hairbreadth--this, no doubt, was the instinct at work. She +dressed hastily, glad of the cold, glad of the effort she had to make +against the stiffness of her own young bones--glad of her hunger and +faintness, of everything physically hard that had to be fought and +conquered. + +In a very short time she had passed quietly downstairs and through the +hall, greatly to the amazement of William, who opened the front door for +her. Once in the village road the damp raw air revived her greatly. She +lifted her hot temples to it, welcoming the waves of wet mist that swept +along the road, feeling her youth come back to her. + +Suddenly as she was nearing the end of a narrow bit of lane between +high hedges, and the first houses of the village were in sight, she was +stopped by a noise behind her--a strange unaccountable noise as of +women's voices, calling and wailing. It startled and frightened her, and +she stood in the middle of the road waiting. + +Then she saw coming towards her two women running at full speed, crying +and shouting, their aprons up to their faces. + +"What is it? What is the matter?" she asked, going to meet them, and +recognising two labourers' wives she knew. + +"Oh! miss--oh! miss!" said the foremost, too wrapt up in her news to be +surprised at the sight of her. "They've just found him--they're bringin' +ov 'im home; they've got a shutter from Muster Wellin! 'im at Disley +Farm. It wor close by Disley wood they found 'em. And there's one ov 'is +men they've sent off ridin' for the inspector--here he come, miss! Come +out o' th' way!" + +They dragged her back, and a young labourer galloped past them on a farm +colt, urging it on to its full pace, his face red and set. + +"Who is found?" cried Marcella--"What is it?" + +"Westall, miss--Lor' bless you--Shot him in the head they did--blowed +his brains right out--and Charlie Dynes--oh! he's knocked about +shamful--the doctor don't give no hopes of him. Oh deary--deary me! And +we're goin' for Muster Harden--ee must tell the widder--or Miss +Mary--none on us can!" + +"And who did it?" said Marcella, pale with horror, holding her. + +"Why the poachers, miss. Them as they've bin waitin' for all along--and +they do say as Jim Hurd's in it. Oh Lord, oh Lord!" + +Marcella stood petrified, and let them hurry on. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The lane was still again, save for the unwonted sounds coming from the +groups which had gathered round the two women, and were now moving +beside them along the village street a hundred yards ahead. + +Marcella stood in a horror of memory--seeing Hurd's figure cross the +moonlit avenue from dark to dark. Where was he? Had he escaped? Suddenly +she set off running, stung by the thought of what might have already +happened under the eyes of that unhappy wife, those wretched children. + +As she entered the village, a young fellow ran up to her in breathless +excitement. "They've got 'im, miss. He'd come straight home--'adn't made +no attempt to run. As soon as Jenkins" (Jenkins was the policeman) +"heared of it, ee went straight across to 'is house, an' caught 'im. Ee +wor goin' to make off--'is wife 'ad been persuadin' ov 'im all night. +But they've got him, miss, sure enough!" + +The lad's exultation was horrible. Marcella waved him aside and ran on. +A man on horseback appeared on the road in front of her leading from +Widrington to the village. She recognised Aldous Raeburn, who had +checked his horse in sudden amazement as he saw her talking to the boy. + +"My darling! what are you here for? Oh! go home--go _home_!--out of +this horrible business. They have sent for me as a magistrate. Dynes is +alive--I _beg_ you!--go home!" + +She shook her head, out of breath and speechless with running. At the +same moment she and he, looking to the right, caught sight of the crowd +standing in front of Hurd's cottage. + +A man ran out from it, seeing the horse and its rider. + +"Muster Raeburn! Muster Raeburn! They've cotched 'im; Jenkins has got +'im." + +"Ah!" said Aldous, drawing a long, stern breath; "he didn't try to get +off then? Marcella!--you are not going there--to that house!" + +He spoke in a tone of the strongest remonstrance. Her soul rose in anger +against it. + +"I am going to _her_" she said panting;--"don't wait." + +And she left him and hurried on. + +As soon as the crowd round the cottage saw her coming, they divided to +let her pass. + +"She's quiet now, miss," said a woman to her significantly, nodding +towards the hovel. "Just after Jenkins got in you could hear her crying +out pitiful." + +"That was when they wor a-handcuffin' him," said a man beside her. + +Marcella shuddered. + +"Will they let me in?" she asked. + +"They won't let none ov _us_ in," said the man. "There's Hurd's sister," +and he pointed to a weeping woman supported by two others. "They've kep' +her out. But here's the inspector, miss; you ask him." + +The inspector, a shrewd officer of long experience, fetched in haste +from a mile's distance, galloped up, and gave his horse to a boy. + +Marcella went up to him. + +He looked at her with sharp interrogation. "You are Miss Boyce? Miss +Boyce of Mellor?" + +"Yes, I want to go to the wife; I will promise not to get in your way." + +He nodded. The crowd let them pass. The inspector knocked at the door, +which was cautiously unlocked by Jenkins, and the two went in together. + +"She's a queer one," said a thin, weasel-eyed man in the crowd to his +neighbour. "To think o' her bein' in it--at this time o' day. You could +see Muster Raeburn was a tellin' of her to go 'ome. But she's allus +pampered them Hurds." + +The speaker was Ned Patton, old Patton's son, and Hurd's companion on +many a profitable night-walk. It was barely a week since he had been out +with Hurd on another ferreting expedition, some of the proceeds of which +were still hidden in Patton's outhouse. But at the present moment he was +one of the keenest of the crowd, watching eagerly for the moment when he +should see his old comrade come out, trapped and checkmated, bound +safely and surely to the gallows. The natural love of incident and +change which keeps life healthy had been starved in him by his +labourer's condition. This sudden excitement had made a brute of him. + +The man next him grimaced, and took his pipe out of his mouth a moment. + +"_She_ won't be able to do nothin' for 'im! There isn't a man nor boy +in this 'ere place as didn't know as ee hated Westall like pison, and +would be as like as not to do for 'im some day. That'll count agen 'im +now terrible strong! Ee wor allus one to blab, ee wor." + +"Well, an' Westall said jus' as much!" struck in another voice; "theer +wor sure to be a fight iv ever Westall got at 'im--on the job. You +see--they may bring it in manslarter after all." + +"'Ow does any one know ee wor there at all? who seed him?" inquired a +white-haired elderly man, raising a loud quavering voice from the middle +of the crowd. + +"Charlie Dynes seed 'im," cried several together. + +"How do yer know ee seed 'im?" + +From the babel of voices which followed the white-haired man slowly +gathered the beginnings of the matter. Charlie Dynes, Westall's +assistant, had been first discovered by a horsekeeper in Farmer Wellin's +employment as he was going to his work. The lad had been found under a +hedge, bleeding and frightfully injured, but still alive. Close beside +him was the dead body of Westall with shot-wounds in the head. On being +taken to the farm and given brandy, Dynes was asked if he had recognised +anybody. He had said there were five of them, "town chaps"; and then he +had named Hurd quite plainly--whether anybody else, nobody knew. It was +said he would die, and that Mr. Raeburn had gone to take his deposition. + +"An' them town chaps got off, eh?" said the elderly man. + +"Clean!" said Patton, refilling his pipe. "Trust them!" + +Meanwhile, inside this poor cottage Marcella was putting out all the +powers of the soul. As the door closed behind her and the inspector, she +saw Hurd sitting handcuffed in the middle of the kitchen, watched by a +man whom Jenkins, the local policeman, had got in to help him, till some +more police should arrive. Jenkins was now upstairs searching the +bedroom. The little bronchitic boy sat on the fender, in front of the +untidy fireless grate, shivering, his emaciated face like a yellowish +white mask, his eyes fixed immovably on his father. Every now and then +he was shaken with coughing, but still he looked--with the dumb devoted +attention of some watching animal. + +Hurd, too, was sitting silent. His eyes, which seemed wider open and +more brilliant than usual, wandered restlessly from thing to thing about +the room; his great earth-stained hands in their fetters twitched every +now and then on his knee. Haggard and dirty as he was, there was a +certain aloofness, a dignity even, about the misshapen figure which +struck Marcella strangely. Both criminal and victim may have it--this +dignity. It means that a man feels himself set apart from his kind. + +Hurd started at sight of Marcella. "I want to speak to her," he said +hoarsely, as the inspector approached him--"to that lady"--nodding +towards her. + +"Very well," said the inspector; "only it is my duty to warn you that +anything you say now will be taken down and used as evidence at the +inquest." + +Marcella came near. As she stood in front of him, one trembling ungloved +hand crossed over the other, the diamond in her engagement ring +catching the light from the window sparkled brightly, diverting even for +the moment the eyes of the little fellow against whom her skirts were +brushing. + +"Ee might ha' killed me just as well as I killed 'im," said Hurd, +bending over to her and speaking with difficulty from the dryness of his +mouth. "I didn't mean nothink o' what happened. He and Charlie came on +us round Disley Wood. He didn't take no notice o' them. It was they as +beat Charlie. But he came straight on at me--all in a fury--a +blackguardin' ov me, with his stick up. I thought he was for beatin' my +brains out, an' I up with my gun and fired. He was so close--that was +how he got it all in the head. But ee might 'a' killed me just as well." + +He paused, staring at her with a certain anguished intensity, as though +he were watching to see how she took it--nay, trying its effect both on +her and himself. He did not look afraid or cast down--nay, there was a +curious buoyancy and steadiness about his manner for the moment which +astonished her. She could almost have fancied that he was more alive, +more of a _man_ than she had ever seen him--mind and body better fused, +more at command. + +"Is there anything more you wish to say to me?" she asked him, after +waiting. + +Then suddenly his manner changed. Their eyes met. Hers, with all their +subtle inheritance of various expression, their realised character, as +it were, searched his, tried to understand them--those peasant eyes, so +piercing to her strained sense in their animal urgency and shame. _Why_ +had he done this awful thing?--deceived her--wrecked his wife?--that was +what her look asked. It seemed to her too _childish_--too _stupid_ to be +believed. + +"I haven't made nobbut a poor return to _you_, miss," he said in a +shambling way, as though the words were dragged out of him. Then he +threw up his head again. "But I didn't mean nothink o' what happened," +he repeated, doggedly going off again into a rapid yet, on the whole, +vivid and consecutive account of Westall's attack, to which Marcella +listened, trying to remember every word. + +"Keep that for your solicitor," the inspector said at last, interrupting +him; "you are only giving pain to Miss Boyce. You had better let her go +to your wife." + +Hurd looked steadily once more at Marcella. "It be a bad end I'm come +to," he said, after a moment. "But I thank you kindly all the same. +_They'll_ want seein' after." He jerked his head towards the boy, then +towards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was. "She takes it +terr'ble hard. She wanted me to run. But I said, 'No, I'll stan' it +out.' Mr. Brown at the Court'll give you the bit wages he owes me. But +they'll have to go on the Union. Everybody'll turn their backs on them +now." + +"I will look after them," said Marcella, "and I will do the best I can +for you. Now I will go to Mrs. Hurd." + +Minta Hurd was sitting in a corner of the outhouse on the clay floor, +her head leaning against the wall. The face was turned upward, the eyes +shut, the mouth helplessly open. When Marcella saw her, she knew that +the unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since her +husband came back to her that she could weep no more. The two little +girls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floor +beside her, shivering and begrimed--watching her. They had been crying +at the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, and +trying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts of +their frocks. The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother's +knee, asleep and unheeded. The little lean-to place, full of odds and +ends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes--was +intolerably cold in the damp February dawn. The children were blue; the +mother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her. Outcast misery +could go no further. + +The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildly +forward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might see +through the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse. + +"They're not taking him away?" she said fiercely. "Jenkins swore to me +they'd give me notice." + +"No, he's still there," said Marcella, her voice shaking. "The +inspector's come. You shall have notice." + +Mrs. Hurd recognised her voice, and looked up at her in amazement. + +"You must put this on," said Marcella, taking off the short fur cape she +wore. "You are perished. Give me the baby, and wrap yourself in it." + +But Mrs. Hurd put it away from her with a vehement hand. + +"I'm not cold, miss--I'm burning hot. He made me come in here. He said +he'd do better if the children and I ud go away a bit. An' I couldn't go +upstairs, because--because--" she hid her face on her knees. + +Marcella had a sudden sick vision of the horrors this poor creature must +have gone through since her husband had appeared to her, splashed with +the blood of his enemy, under that same marvellous moon which-- + +Her mind repelled its own memories with haste. Moreover, she was aware +of the inspector standing at the kitchen door and beckoning to her. She +stole across to him so softly that Mrs. Hurd did not hear her. + +"We have found all we want," he said in his official tone, but under his +breath--"the clothes anyway. We must now look for the gun. Jenkins is +first going to take him off to Widrington. The inquest will be held +to-morrow here, at 'The Green Man.' We shall bring him over." Then he +added in another voice, touching his hat, "I don't like leaving you, +miss, in this place. Shall Jenkins go and fetch somebody to look after +that poor thing? They'll be all swarming in here as soon as we've gone." + +"No, I'll stay for a while. I'll look after her. They won't come in if +I'm here. Except his sister--Mrs. Mullins--she may come in, of course, +if she wants." + +The inspector hesitated. + +"I'm going now to meet Mr. Raeburn, miss. I'll tell him that you're +here." + +"He knows," said Marcella, briefly. "Now are you ready?" + +He signed assent, and Marcella went back to the wife. + +"Mrs. Hurd," she said, kneeling on the ground beside her, "they're +going." + +The wife sprang up with a cry and ran into the kitchen, where Hurd was +already on his feet between Jenkins and another policeman, who were to +convey him to the gaol at Widrington. But when she came face to face +with her husband something--perhaps the nervous appeal in his strained +eyes--checked her, and she controlled herself piteously. She did not +even attempt to kiss him. With her eyes on the ground, she put her hand +on his arm. "They'll let me come and see you, Jim?" she said, trembling. + +"Yes; you can find out the rules," he said shortly. "Don't let them +children cry. They want their breakfast to warm them. There's plenty of +coal. I brought a sack home from Jellaby's last night myself. Good-bye." + +"Now, march," said the inspector, sternly, pushing the wife back. + +Marcella put her arm round the shaking woman. The door opened; and +beyond the three figures as they passed out, her eye passed to the +waiting crowd, then to the misty expanse of common and the dark woods +behind, still wrapped in fog. + +When Mrs. Hurd saw the rows of people waiting within a stone's throw of +the door she shrank back. Perhaps it struck her, as it struck Marcella, +that every face was the face of a foe. Marcella ran to the door as the +inspector stepped out, and locked it after him. Mrs. Hurd, hiding +herself behind a bit of baize curtain, watched the two policemen mount +with Hurd into the fly that was waiting, and then followed it with her +eyes along the bit of straight road, uttering sounds the while of low +anguish, which wrung the heart in Marcella's breast. Looking back in +after days it always seemed to her that for this poor soul the true +parting, the true wrench between life and life, came at this moment. + +She went up to her, her own tears running over. + +"You must come and lie down," she said, recovering herself as quickly as +possible. "You and the children are both starved, and you will want your +strength if you are to help him. I will see to things." + +She put the helpless woman on the wooden settle by the fireplace, +rolling up her cloak to make a pillow. + +"Now, Willie, you sit by your mother. Daisy, where's the cradle? Put the +baby down and come and help me make the fire." + +The dazed children did exactly as they were told, and the mother lay +like a log on the settle. Marcella found coal and wood under Daisy's +guidance, and soon lit the fire, piling on the fuel with a lavish hand. +Daisy brought her water, and she filled the kettle and set it on to +boil, while the little girl, still sobbing at intervals like some little +weeping automaton, laid the breakfast. Then the children all crouched +round the warmth, while Marcella rubbed their cold hands and feet, and +"mothered" them. Shaken as she was with emotion and horror, she was yet +full of a passionate joy that this pity, this tendance was allowed to +her. The crushing weight of self-contempt had lifted. She felt morally +free and at ease. + +Already she was revolving what she could do for Hurd. It was as clear +as daylight to her that there had been no murder but a free fight--an +even chance between him and Westall. The violence of a hard and +tyrannous man had provoked his own destruction--so it stood, for her +passionate protesting sense. That at any rate must be the defence, and +some able man must be found to press it. She thought she would write to +the Cravens and consult them. Her thoughts carefully avoided the names +both of Aldous Raeburn and of Wharton. + +She was about to make the tea when some one knocked at the door. It +proved to be Hurd's sister, a helpless woman, with a face swollen by +crying, who seemed to be afraid to come into the cottage, and afraid to +go near her sister-in-law. Marcella gave her money, and sent her for +some eggs to the neighbouring shop, then told her to come back in half +an hour and take charge. She was an incapable, but there was nothing +better to be done. "Where is Miss Harden?" she asked the woman. The +answer was that ever since the news came to the village the rector and +his sister had been with Mrs. Westall and Charlie Dyne's mother. Mrs. +Westall had gone into fit after fit; it had taken two to hold her, and +Charlie's mother, who was in bed recovering from pneumonia, had also +been very bad. + +Again Marcella's heart contracted with rage rather than pity. Such wrack +and waste of human life, moral and physical! for what? For the +protection of a hateful sport which demoralised the rich and their +agents, no less than it tempted and provoked the poor! + +When she had fed and physically comforted the children, she went and +knelt down beside Mrs. Hurd, who still lay with closed eyes in +heavy-breathing stupor. + +"Dear Mrs. Hurd," she said, "I want you to drink this tea and eat +something." + +The half-stupefied woman signed refusal. But Marcella insisted. + +"You have got to fight for your husband's life," she said firmly, "and +to look after your children. I must go in a very short time, and before +I go you must tell me all that you can of this business. Hurd would tell +you to do it. He knows and you know that I am to be trusted. I want to +save him. I shall get a good lawyer to help him. But first you must take +this--and then you must talk to me." + +The habit of obedience to a "lady," established long ago in years of +domestic service, held. The miserable wife submitted to be fed, looked +with forlorn wonder at the children round the fire, and then sank back +with a groan. In her tension of feeling Marcella for an impatient moment +thought her a poor creature. Then with quick remorse she put her arms +tenderly round her, raised the dishevelled grey-streaked head on her +shoulder, and stooping, kissed the marred face, her own lips quivering. + +"You are not alone," said the girl with her whole soul. "You shall never +be alone while I live. Now tell me." + +She made the white and gasping woman sit up in a corner of the settle, +and she herself got a stool and established herself a little way off, +frowning, self-contained, and determined to make out the truth. + +"Shall I send the children upstairs?" she asked. + +"No!" said the boy, suddenly, in his husky voice, shaking his head with +energy, "I'm not a-going." + +"Oh! he's safe--is Willie," said Mrs. Hurd, looking at him, but +strangely, and as it were from a long distance, "and the others is too +little." + +Then gradually Marcella got the story out of her--first, the misery of +alarm and anxiety in which she had lived ever since the Tudley End raid, +owing first to her knowledge of Hurd's connection with it, and with the +gang that had carried it out; then to her appreciation of the quick and +ghastly growth of the hatred between him and Westall; lastly, to her +sense of ingratitude towards those who had been kind to them. + +"I knew we was acting bad towards you. I told Jim so. I couldn't hardly +bear to see you come in. But there, miss,--I couldn't do anything. I +tried, oh! the Lord knows I tried! There was never no happiness between +us at last, I talked so. But I don't believe he could help himself--he's +not made like other folks, isn't Jim--" + +Her features became convulsed again with the struggle for speech. +Marcella reached out for the toil-disfigured hand that was fingering and +clutching at the edge of the settle, and held it close. Gradually she +made out that although Hurd had not been able of course to conceal his +night absences from his wife, he had kept his connection with the Oxford +gang absolutely dark from her, till, in his wild exultation over +Westall's discomfiture in the Tudley End raid, he had said things in his +restless snatches of sleep which had enabled her to get the whole truth +out of him by degrees. Her reproaches, her fears, had merely angered and +estranged him; her nature had had somehow to accommodate itself to his, +lest affection should lose its miserable all. + +As to this last fatal attack on the Maxwell coverts, it was clear to +Marcella, as she questioned and listened, that the wife had +long foreseen it, and that she now knew much more about it +than--suddenly--she would allow herself to say. For in the midst of her +out-pourings she drew herself together, tried to collect and calm +herself, looked at Marcella with an agonised, suspicious eye, and fell +silent. + +"I don't know nothing about it, miss," she stubbornly declared at last, +with an inconsequent absurdity which smote Marcella's pity afresh. "How +am I to know? There was seven o' them Oxford fellows at Tudley End--that +I know. Who's to say as Jim was with 'em at all last night? Who's to say +as it wasn't them as--" + +She stopped, shivering. Marcella held her reluctant hand. + +"You don't know," she said quietly, "that I saw your husband in here for +a minute before I came in to you, and that he told me, as he had already +told Jenkins, that it was in a struggle with him that Westall was shot, +but that he had fired in self-defence because Westall was attacking him. +You don't know, too, that Charlie Dynes is alive, and says he saw +Hurd--" + +"Charlie Dynes!" Mrs. Hurd gave a shriek, and then fell to weeping and +trembling again, so that Marcella had need of patience. + +"If you can't help me more," she said at last in despair, "I don't know +what we shall do. Listen to me. Your husband will be charged with +Westall's murder. That I am sure of. He says it was not murder--that it +happened in a fight. I believe it. I want to get a lawyer to prove it. I +am your friend--you know I am. But if you are not going to help me by +telling me what you know of last night I may as well go home--and get +your sister-in-law to look after you and the children." + +She rose as she spoke. Mrs. Hurd clutched at her. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, looking straight before her vacantly at the +children, who at once began to cry again. "_Oh, my God_! Look here, +miss"--her voice dropped, her swollen eyes fixed themselves on +Marcella--the words came out in a low, hurried stream--"It was just +after four o'clock I heard that door turn; I got up in my nightgown and +ran down, and there was Jim. 'Put that light out,' he says to me, sharp +like. 'Oh, Jim,' says I, 'wherever have you been? You'll be the death o' +me and them poor children!' 'You go to bed,' says he to me, 'and I'll +come presently.' But I could see him, 'cos of the moon, almost as plain +as day, an' I couldn't take my eyes off him. And he went about the +kitchen so strange like, puttin' down his hat and takin' it up again, +an' I saw he hadn't got his gun. So I went up and caught holt on him. +An' he gave me a push back. 'Can't you let me alone?' he says; 'you'll +know soon enough.' An' then I looked at my sleeve where I'd touched +him--oh, my God! my God!" + +Marcella, white to the lips and shuddering too, held her tight. She had +the _seeing_ faculty which goes with such quick, nervous natures, and +she saw the scene as though she had been there--the moonlit cottage, the +miserable husband and wife, the life-blood on the woman's sleeve. + +Mrs. Hurd went on in a torrent of half-finished sentences and fragments +of remembered talk. She told her husband's story of the encounter with +the keepers as he had told it to her, of course with additions and +modifications already struck out by the agony of inventive pain; she +described how she had made him take his blood-stained clothes and hide +them in a hole in the roof; then how she had urged him to strike across +country at once and get a few hours start before the ghastly business +was known. But the more he talked to her the more confident he became of +his own story, and the more determined to stay and brave it out. +Besides, he was shrewd enough to see that escape for a man of his +deformity was impossible, and he tried to make her understand it so. But +she was mad and blind with fear, and at last, just as the light was +coming in, he told her roughly, to end their long wrestle, that he +should go to bed and get some sleep. She would make a fool of him, and +he should want all his wits. She followed him up the steep ladder to +their room, weeping. And there was little Willie sitting up in bed, +choking with the phlegm in his throat, and half dead of fright because +of the voices below. + +"And when Hurd see him, he went and cuddled him up, and rubbed his legs +and feet to warm them, an' I could hear him groanin'. And I says to him, +'Jim, if you won't go for my sake, will you go for the boy's?' For you +see, miss, there was a bit of money in the house, an' I thought he'd +hide himself by day and walk by night, and so get to Liverpool perhaps, +and off to the States. An' it seemed as though my head would burst with +listening for people comin', and him taken up there like a rat in a +trap, an' no way of provin' the truth, and everybody agen him, because +of the things he'd said. And he burst out a-cryin', an' Willie cried. +An' I came an' entreated of him. An' he kissed me; an' at last he said +he'd go. An' I made haste, the light was getting so terrible strong; an' +just as he'd got to the foot of the stairs, an' I was holding little +Willie in my arms an' saying good-bye to him--" + +She let her head sink against the settle. There was no more to say, and +Marcella asked no more questions--she sat thinking. Willie stood, a +wasted, worn figure, by his mother, stroking her face; his hoarse +breathing was for the time the only sound in the cottage. + +Then Marcella heard a loud knock at the door. She got up and looked +through the casement window. The crowd had mostly dispersed, but a few +people stood about on the green, and a policeman was stationed outside +the cottage. On the steps stood Aldous Raeburn, his horse held behind +him by a boy. + +She went and opened the door. + +"I will come," she said at once. "There--I see Mrs. Mullins crossing the +common. Now I can leave her." + +Aldous, taking off his hat, closed the door behind him and stood with +his hand on Marcella's arm, looking at the huddled woman on the settle, +at the pale children. There was a solemnity in his expression, a mixture +of judgment and pity which showed that the emotion of other scenes +also--scenes through which he had just passed--was entering into it. + +"Poor unhappy souls," he said slowly, under his breath. "You say that +you have got some one to see after her. She looks as though it might +kill her, too." + +Marcella nodded. Now that her task, for the moment, was nearly over, she +could hardly restrain herself nervously or keep herself from crying. +Aldous observed her with disquiet as she put on her hat. His heart was +deeply stirred. She had chosen more nobly for herself than he would have +chosen for her, in thus daring an awful experience for the sake of +mercy. His moral sense, exalted and awed by the sight of death, +approved, worshipped her. His man's impatience pined to get her away, to +cherish and comfort hen Why, she could hardly have slept three hours +since they parted on the steps of the Court, amidst the crowd of +carriages! + +Mrs. Mullins came in still scared and weeping, and dropping frightened +curtseys to "Muster Raeburn." Marcella spoke to her a little in a +whisper, gave some counsels which filled Aldous with admiration for the +girl's practical sense and thoughtfulness, and promised to come again +later. Mrs. Hurd neither moved nor opened her eyes. + +"Can you walk?" said Aldous, bending over her, as they stood outside the +cottage. "I can see that you are worn out. Could you sit my horse if I +led him?" + +"No, let us walk." + +They went on together, followed by the eyes of the village, the boy +leading the horse some distance behind. + +"Where have you been?" said Marcella, when they had passed the village. +"Oh, _please_ don't think of my being tired! I had so much rather know +it all. I must know it all." + +She was deathly pale, but her black eyes flashed impatience and +excitement. She even drew her hand out of the arm where Aldous was +tenderly holding it, and walked on erect by herself. + +"I have been with poor Dynes," said Aldous, sadly; "we had to take his +deposition. He died while I was there." + +"He died?" + +"Yes. The fiends who killed him had left small doubt of that. But he +lived long enough, thank God, to give the information which will, I +think, bring them to justice!" + +The tone of the magistrate and the magnate goaded Marcella's quivering +nerves. + +"What is justice?" she cried; "the system that wastes human lives in +protecting your tame pheasants?" + +A cloud came over the stern clearness of his look. He gave a bitter +sigh--the sigh of the man to whom his own position in life had been, as +it were, one long scruple. + +"You may well ask that!" he said. "You cannot imagine that I did not +ask it of myself a hundred times as I stood by that poor fellow's +bedside." + +They walked on in silence. She was hardly appeased. There was a deep, +inner excitement in her urging her towards difference, towards attack. +At last he resumed: + +"But whatever the merits of our present game system may be, the present +case is surely clear--horribly clear. Six men, with at least three guns +among them, probably more, go out on a pheasant-stealing expedition. +They come across two keepers, one a lad of seventeen, who have nothing +but a light stick apiece. The boy is beaten to death, the keeper shot +dead at the first brush by a man who has been his life-long enemy, and +threatened several times in public to 'do for him.' If that is not +brutal and deliberate murder, it is difficult to say what is!" + +Marcella stood still in the misty road trying to command herself. + +"It was _not_ deliberate," she said at last with difficulty; "not in +Hurd's case. I have heard it all from his own mouth. It was a +_struggle_--he might have been killed instead of Westall--Westall +attacked, Hurd defended himself." + +Aldous shook his head. + +"Of course Hurd would tell you so," he said sadly, "and his poor wife. +He is not a bad or vicious fellow, like the rest of the rascally pack. +Probably when he came to himself, after the moment of rage, he could not +simply believe what he had done. But that makes no difference. It was +murder; no judge or jury could possibly take any other view. Dynes's +evidence is clear, and the proof of motive is overwhelming." + +Then, as he saw her pallor and trembling, he broke off in deep distress. +"My dear one, if I could but have kept you out of this!" + +They were alone in the misty road. The boy with the horse was out of +sight. He would fain have put his arm round her, have consoled and +supported her. But she would not let him. + +"Please understand," she said in a sort of gasp, as she drew herself +away, "that I do _not_ believe Hurd is guilty--that I shall do my very +utmost to defend him. He is to me the victim of unjust, abominable laws! +If _you_ will not help me to protect him--then I must look to some one +else." + +Aldous felt a sudden stab of suspicion--presentiment. + +"Of course he will be well defended; he will have every chance; that you +may be sure of," he said slowly. + +Marcella controlled herself, and they walked on. As they entered the +drive of Mellor, Aldous thought passionately of those divine moments in +his sitting-room, hardly yet nine hours old. And now--_now_!--she walked +beside him as an enemy. + +The sound of a step on the gravel in front of them made them look up. +Past, present, and future met in the girl's bewildered and stormy sense +as she recognised Wharton. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +The first sitting of the Birmingham Labour Congress was just over, and +the streets about the hall in which it had been held were beginning to +fill with the issuing delegates. Rain was pouring down and umbrellas +were plentiful. + +Harry Wharton, accompanied by a group of men, left the main entrance of +the hall,--releasing himself with difficulty from the friendly crowd +about the doors--and crossed the street to his hotel. + +"Well, I'm glad you think I did decently," he said, as they mounted the +hotel stairs. "What a beastly day, and how stuffy that hall was! Come in +and have something to drink." + +He threw open the door of his sitting-room as he spoke. The four men +with him followed him in. + +"I must go back to the hall to see two or three men before everybody +disperses," said the one in front. "No refreshment for me, thank you, +Mr. Wharton. But I want to ask a question--what arrangements have you +made for the reporting of your speech?" + +The man who spoke was thin and dark, with a modest kindly eye. He wore a +black frock coat, and had the air of a minister. + +"Oh, thank you, Bennett, it's all right. The _Post_, the _Chronicle_, +and the _Northern Guardian_ will have full copies. I sent them off +before the meeting. And my own paper, of course. As to the rest they may +report it as they like. I don't care." + +"They'll all have it," said another man, bluntly. "It's the best speech +you've ever made--the best president's speech we've had yet, I +say,--don't you think so?" + +The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Both +nodded. + +"Hallin's speech last year was first-rate," he continued, "but somehow +Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just +now is _fight_--and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!" + +And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one to +another. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowded +hall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men present +indeed--though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in the +rest--had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenly +conscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emerged +successfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they went +over the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene which +had followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip. +Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his own +expense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving, +contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just delivered +had been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridor +at Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his own +room, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, and +make two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its range +nor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. The +programme of labour for the next five years had never been better +presented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin's +presidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in the +memory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, and +knew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellows +who would otherwise have stood in his way. + +Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He had +already betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to the +New Unionism, and affected a costume in character--fustian trousers, +flannel shirt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculated +to set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun life +as a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recently +formed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to be +already on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would win a +seat in the coming Parliament. + +The other two men were Molloy, secretary to the congress, short, +smooth-faced, and wiry, a man whose pleasant eye and manner were often +misleading, since he was in truth one of the hottest fighting men of a +fighting movement; and Wilkins, a friend of Casey's--ex-iron worker, +Union official, and Labour candidate for a Yorkshire division--an +uneducated, passionate fellow, speaking with a broad, Yorkshire accent, +a bad man of affairs, but honest, and endowed with the influence which +comes of sincerity, together with a gift for speaking and superhuman +powers of physical endurance. + +"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Wharton, throwing himself into a chair +with a long breath, and at the same time stretching out his hand to ring +the bell. "Casey, some whisky? No? Nor you, Wilkins? nor Molloy? As for +you, Bennett, I know it's no good asking you. By George! our +grandfathers would have thought us a poor lot! Well, some coffee at any +rate you must all of you have before you go back. Waiter! coffee. By the +way, I have been seeing something of Hallin, Bennett, down in the +country." + +He took out his cigarette case as he spoke, and offered it to the +others. All refused except Molloy. Casey took his half-smoked pipe out +of his pocket and lit up. He was not a teetotaler as the others were, +but he would have scorned to drink his whisky and water at the expense +of a "gentleman" like Wharton, or to smoke the "gentleman's" cigarettes. +His class-pride was irritably strong. Molloy, who was by nature +anybody's equal, took the cigarette with an easy good manners, which +made Casey look at him askance. + +Mr. Bennett drew his chair close to Wharton's. The mention of Hallin had +roused a look of anxiety in his quick dark eyes. + +"How is he, Mr. Wharton? The last letter I had from him he made light of +his health. But you know he only just avoided a breakdown in that strike +business. We only pulled him through by the skin of his teeth--Mr. +Raeburn and I." + +"Oh, he's no constitution; never had, I suppose. But he seemed much as +usual. He's staying with Raeburn, you know, and I've been staying with +the father of the young lady whom Raeburn 's going to marry." + +"Ah! I've heard of that," said Bennett, with a look of interest. "Well, +Mr. Raeburn isn't on our side, but for judgment and fair dealing there +are very few men of his class and circumstances I would trust as I would +him. The lady should be happy." + +"Of course," said Wharton, drily. "However, neither she nor Raeburn are +very happy just at this moment. A horrible affair happened down there +last night. One of Lord Maxwell's gamekeepers and a 'helper,' a lad of +seventeen, were killed last night in a fight with poachers. I only just +heard the outlines of it before I came away, but I got a telegram just +before going into congress, asking me to defend the man charged with the +murder." + +A quick expression of repulsion and disgust crossed Bennett's face. + +"There have been a whole crop of such cases lately," he said. "How shall +we ever escape from the _curse_ of this game system?" + +"We shan't escape it," said Wharton, quietly, knocking the end off his +cigarette, "not in your lifetime or mine. When we get more Radicals on +the bench we shall lighten the sentences; but that will only exasperate +the sporting class into finding new ways of protecting themselves. Oh! +the man will be hung--that's quite clear to me. But it will be a good +case--from the public point of view--will work up well--" + +He ran his hand through his curls, considering. + +"Will work up admirably," he added in a lower tone of voice, as though +to himself, his eyes keen and brilliant as ever, in spite of the marks +of sleeplessness and fatigue visible in the rest of the face, though +only visible there since he had allowed himself the repose of his +cigarette and arm-chair. + +"Are yo' comin' to dine at the 'Peterloo' to-night, Mr. Wharton?" said +Wilkins, as Wharton handed him a cup of coffee; "but of coorse you +are--part of yower duties, I suppose?" + +While Molloy and Casey were deep in animated discussion of the great +meeting of the afternoon he had been sitting silent against the edge of +the table--a short-bearded sombre figure, ready at any moment to make a +grievance, to suspect a slight. + +"I'm afraid I can't," said Wharton, bending forward and speaking in a +tone of concern; "that was just what I was going to ask you all--if you +would make my excuses to-night? I have been explaining to Bennett. I +have an important piece of business in the country--a labourer has been +getting into trouble for shooting a keeper; they have asked me to defend +him. The assizes come on in little more than a fortnight, worse luck! so +that the time is short--" + +And he went on to explain that, by taking an evening train back to +Widrington, he could get the following (Saturday) morning with the +solicitor in charge of the case, and be back in Birmingham, thanks to +the convenience of a new line lately opened, in time for the second +meeting of the congress, which was fixed for the early afternoon. + +He spoke with great cordiality and persuasiveness. Among the men who +surrounded him, his youth, good looks, and easy breeding shone out +conspicuous. In the opinion of Wilkins, indeed, who followed his every +word and gesture, he was far too well dressed and too well educated. A +day would soon come when the labour movement would be able to show these +young aristocrats the door. Not yet, however. + +"Well, I thowt you wouldn't dine with us," he said, turning away with a +blunt laugh. + +Bennett's mild eye showed annoyance. "Mr. Wharton has explained himself +very fully, I think," he said, turning to the others. "We shall miss him +at dinner--but this matter seems to be one of life and death. And we +mustn't forget anyway that Mr. Wharton is fulfilling this engagement at +great inconvenience to himself. We none of us knew when we elected him +last year that he would have to be fighting his election at the same +time. Next Saturday, isn't it?" + +Bennett rose as he spoke and carefully buttoned his coat. It was curious +to contrast his position among his fellows--one of marked ascendency and +authority--with his small insignificant physique. He had a gentle +deprecating eye, and the heart of a poet. He played the flute and +possessed the gift of repeating verse--especially Ebenezer Eliot's Corn +Law Rhymes--so as to stir a great audience to enthusiasm or tears. The +Wesleyan community of his native Cheshire village owned no more +successful class-leader, and no humbler Christian. At the same time he +could hold a large business meeting sternly in check, was the secretary +of one of the largest and oldest Unions in the country, had been in +Parliament for years, and was generally looked upon even by the men who +hated his "moderate" policy, as a power not to be ignored. + +"Next Saturday. Yes!" said Wharton, nodding in answer to his inquiry. + +"Well, are you going to do it?" said Casey, looking round at him. + +"Oh, yes!" said Wharton, cheerfully; "oh, yes! we shall do it. We shall +settle old Dodgson, I think." + +"Are the Raeburns as strong as they were?" asked Molloy, who knew +Brookshire. + +"What landlord is? Since '84 the ground is mined for them all--good and +bad--and they know it." + +"The mine takes a long time blowing up--too long for my patience," said +Wilkins, gruffly. "How the country can go on year after year paying its +tribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attack +them as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long as +Parliament and the Cabinet is made up of them and their hangers on." + +Wharton looked at him brightly, but silently, making a little assenting +inclination of the head. He was not surprised that anything should pass +Wilkins's comprehension, and he was determined to give him no opening +for holding forth. + +"Well, we'll let you alone," said Bennett. "You'll have very little time +to get off in. We'll make your excuses, Mr. Wharton. You may be sure +everybody is so pleased with your speech we shall find them all in a +good temper. It was grand!--let me congratulate you again. Good-night--I +hope you'll get your poacher off!" + +The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;--Molloy, +with an eager business reference to the order of the day for +Saturday,--"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everything +to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"--Casey, with the +off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his +benevolence mistaken for servility,--and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and +as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been read +in the manner of the last two, that although this young man had just +made a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far, +they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before they +must. In truth, both were already jealous of him; whereas Molloy, +absorbed in the business of the congress, cared for nothing except to +know whether in the next two days' debates Wharton would show himself as +good a chairman as he was an orator; and Bennett, while saying no word +that he did not mean, was fully conscious of an inner judgment, which +pronounced five minutes of Edward Hallin's company to be worth more to +him than anything which this brilliant young fellow could do or say. + + * * * * * + +Wharton saw them out, then came back and threw himself again into his +chair by the window. The venetian blinds were not closed, and he looked +out on a wide and handsome street of tall red-brick houses and shops, +crowded with people and carriages, and lit with a lavishness of gas +which overcame even the February dark and damp. But he noticed nothing, +and even the sensation of his triumph was passing off. He was once more +in the Mellor drive; Aldous Raeburn and Marcella stood in front of him; +the thrill of the moment beat once more in his pulse. + +He buried his head in his hands and thought. The news of the murder had +reached him from Mr. Boyce. The master of Mellor had heard the news from +William, the man-servant, at half-past seven, and had instantly knocked +up his guest, by way of sharing the excitement with which his own feeble +frame was throbbing. + +"By Gad! I never heard such an _atrocious_ business," said the invalid, +his thin hand shaking against his dressing-gown. "That's what your +Radical notions bring us to! We shall have them plundering and burning +the country houses next." + +"I don't think my Radical notions have much to do with it," said +Wharton, composedly. + +But there was a red spot in his cheeks which belied his manner. So when +he--_they_--saw Hurd cross the avenue he was on his way to this deed of +blood. The shot that he, Wharton, had heard had been the shot which slew +Westall? Probably. Well, what was the bearing of it? Could she keep her +own counsel or would they find themselves in the witness box? The idea +quickened his pulse amazingly. + +"Any clue? Any arrests?" he asked of his host. "Why, I told you," said +Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "They +have got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers +and police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's my +daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and +_preaching_ to me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at the +Court. I trust it will be a lesson to her." + +Wharton drew a breath of relief. So the man was in custody, and there +was other evidence. Good! There was no saying what a woman's conscience +might be capable of, even against her friends and herself. + +When Mr. Boyce at last left him free to dress and make his preparations +for the early train, by which the night before, after the ladies' +departure for the ball, he had suddenly made up his mind to leave +Mellor, it was some time before Wharton could rouse himself to action. +The situation absorbed him. Miss Boyce's friend was now in imminent +danger of his neck, and Miss Boyce's thoughts must be of necessity +concentrated upon his plight and that of his family. He foresaw the +passion, the _saeva indignatio_, that she must ultimately throw--the +general situation being what it was--into the struggle for Hurd's life. +Whatever the evidence might be, he would be to her either victim or +champion--and Westall, of course, merely the Holofernes of the piece. + +How would Raeburn take it? Ah, well! the situation must develop. It +occurred to him, however, that he would catch an earlier train to +Widrington than the one he had fixed on, and have half an hour's talk +with a solicitor who was a good friend of his before going on to +Birmingham. Accordingly, he rang for William--who came, all staring and +dishevelled, fresh from the agitation of the servants' hall--gave orders +for his luggage to be sent after him, got as much fresh information as +he could from the excited lad, plunged into his bath, and finally +emerged, fresh and vigorous in every nerve, showing no trace whatever of +the fact that two hours of broken sleep had been his sole portion for a +night, in which he had gone through emotions and sustained a travail of +brain either of which would have left their mark on most men. + + * * * * * + +Then the meeting in the drive! How plainly he saw them both--Raeburn +grave and pale, Marcella in her dark serge skirt and cap, with an eye +all passion and a cheek white as her hand. + +"A tragic splendour enwrapped her!--a fierce heroic air. She was the +embodiment of the moment--of the melancholy morning with its rain and +leafless woods--of the human anguish throbbing in the little village. +And I, who had seen her last in her festal dress, who had held her warm +perfumed youth in my arms, who had watched in her white breast the +heaving of the heart that I--_I_ had troubled!--how did I find it +possible to stand and face her? But I did. It rushed through me at once +_how_ I would make her forgive me--how I would regain possession of her. +I had thought the play was closed: it was suddenly plain to me that the +second act was but just beginning. She and Raeburn had already come to +words--I knew it directly I saw them. This business will divide them +more and more. His _conscience_ will come in--and a Raeburn's conscience +is the devil! + +"By now he hates me; every word I speak to him--still more every word +to her--galls him. But he controlled himself when I made him tell me the +story--I had no reason to complain--though every now and then I could +see him wince under the knowledge I must needs show of the persons and +places concerned--a knowledge I could only have got from _her_. And she +stood by meanwhile like a statue. Not a word, not a look, so far, though +she had been forced to touch my hand. But my instinct saved me. I roused +her--I played upon her! I took the line that I was morally certain +_she_ had been taking in their _tęte-ŕ-tęte_. Why not a scuffle?--a +general scrimmage?--in which it was matter of accident who fell? The man +surely was inoffensive and gentle, incapable of deliberate murder. And +as to the evidence of hatred, it told both ways. He stiffened and was +silent. What a fine brow he has--a look sometimes, when he is moved, of +antique power and probity! But she--she trembled--animation came back. +She would almost have spoken to me--but I did well not to prolong it--to +hurry on." + +Then he took the telegram out of his pocket which had been put into his +hands as he reached the hotel, his mouth quivering again with the +exultation which he had felt when he had received it. It recalled to his +ranging memory all the details of his hurried interview with the little +Widrington solicitor, who had already scented a job in the matter of +Hurd's defence. This man--needy, shrewd, and well equipped with local +knowledge--had done work for Wharton and the party, and asked nothing +better than to stand well with the future member for the division. +"There is a lady," Wharton had said, "the daughter of Mr. Boyce of +Mellor, who is already very much interested in this fellow and his +family. She takes this business greatly to heart. I have seen her this +morning, but had no time to discuss the matter with her. She will, I +have little doubt, try to help the relations in the arrangements for the +defence. Go to her this morning--tell her that the case has my +sympathy--that, as she knows, I am a barrister, and, if she wishes it, I +will defend Hurd. I shall be hard put to it to get up the case with the +election coming on, but I will do it--for the sake of the public +interest involved. You understand? Her father is a Tory--and she is just +about to marry Mr. Raeburn. Her position, therefore, is difficult. +Nevertheless, she will feel strongly--she does feel strongly about this +case, and about the whole game system--and I feel moved to support her. +She will take her own line, whatever happens. See her--see the wife, +too, who is entirely under Miss Boyce's influence--and wire to me at my +hotel at Birmingham. If they wish to make other arrangements, well and +good. I shall have all the more time to give to the election." + +Leaving this commission behind him, he had started on his journey. At +the end of it a telegram had been handed to him on the stairs of his +hotel: + +"Have seen the lady, also Mrs. Hurd. You are urgently asked to undertake +defence." + +He spread it out before him now, and pondered it. The bit of flimsy +paper contained for him the promise of all he most coveted,--influence, +emotion, excitement. "She will have returns upon herself," he thought +smiling, "when I see her again. She will be dignified, resentful; she +will suspect everything I say or do--still more, she will suspect +herself. No matter! The situation is in my hands. Whether I succeed or +fail, she will be forced to work with me, to consult with me--she will +owe me gratitude. What made her consent?--she must have felt it in some +sort a humiliation. Is it that Raeburn has been driving her to strong +measures--that she wants, woman-like, to win, and thought me after all +her best chance, and put her pride in her pocket? Or is it?--ah! one +should put _that_ out of one's head. It's like wine--it unsteadies one. +And for a thing like this one must go into training. Shall I write to +her--there is just time now, before I start--take the lofty tone, the +equal masculine tone, which I have noticed she likes?--ask her pardon +for an act of madness--before we go together to the rescue of a life? It +might do--it might go down. But no, I think not! Let the situation +develop itself. Action and reaction--the unexpected--I commit myself to +that. _She_--marry Aldous Raeburn in a month? Well, she may--certainly +she may. But there is no need for me, I think, to take it greatly into +account. Curious! twenty-four hours ago I thought it all done with--dead +and done with. 'So like Provvy,' as Bentham used to say, when he heard +of anything particularly unseemly in the way of natural catastrophe. Now +to dine, and be off! How little sleep can I do with in the next +fortnight?" + +He rang, ordered his cab, and then went to the coffee-room for some +hasty food. As he was passing one of the small tables with which the +room was filled, a man who was dining there with a friend recognised him +and gave him a cold nod. Wharton walked on to the further end of the +room, and, while waiting for his meal, buried himself in the local +evening paper, which already contained a report of his speech. + +"Did you see that man?" asked the stranger of his friend. + +"The small young fellow with the curly hair?" + +"Small young fellow, indeed! He is the wiriest athlete I +know--extraordinary physical strength for his size--and one of the +cleverest rascals out as a politician. I am a neighbour of his in the +country. His property joins mine. I knew his father--a little, dried-up +old chap of the old school--very elegant manners and very +obstinate--worried to death by his wife--oh, my goodness! such a woman!" + +"What's the name?" said the friend, interrupting. + +"Wharton--H.S. Wharton. His mother was a daughter of Lord Westgate, and +_her_ mother was an actress whom the old lord married in his dotage. +Lady Mildred Wharton was like Garrick, only natural when she was acting, +which she did on every possible occasion. A preposterous woman! Old +Wharton ought to have beaten her for her handwriting, and murdered her +for her gowns. Her signature took a sheet of note-paper, and as for her +dress I never could get out of her way. Whatever part of the room I +happened to be in I always found my feet tangled in her skirts. +Somehow, I never could understand how she was able to find so much stuff +of one pattern. But it was only to make you notice her, like all the +rest. Every bit of her was a pose, and the maternal pose was the worst +of all." + +"H.S. Wharton?" said the other. "Why, that's the man who has been +speaking here to-day. I've just been reading the account of it in the +_Evening Star_. A big meeting--called by a joint committee of the +leading Birmingham trades to consider the Liberal election programme as +it affects labour--that's the man--he's been at it hammer and +tongs--red-hot--all the usual devices for harrying the employer out of +existence, with a few trifles--graduated income-tax and land +nationalisation--thrown in. Oh! that's the man, is it?--they say he had +a great reception--spoke brilliantly--and is certainly going to get into +Parliament next week." + +The speaker, who had the air of a shrewd and prosperous manufacturer, +put up his eyeglass to look at this young Robespierre. His +_vis-ŕ-vis_--a stout country gentleman who had been in the army and +knocked about the world before coming into his estate--shrugged his +shoulders. + +"So I hear--he daren't show his nose as a candidate in _our_ part of the +world, though of course he does us all the harm he can. I remember a +good story of his mother--she quarrelled with her husband and all her +relations, his and hers, and then she took to speaking in public, +accompanied by her dear boy. On one occasion she was speaking at a +market town near us, and telling the farmers that as far as she was +concerned she would like to see the big properties cut up to-morrow. The +sooner her father's and husband's estates were made into small holdings +stocked with public capital the better. After it was all over, a friend +of mine, who was there, was coming home in a sort of omnibus that ran +between the town and a neighbouring village. He found himself between +two fat farmers, and this was the conversation--broad Lincolnshire, of +course: 'Did tha hear Lady Mildred Wharton say them things, Willum?' +'Aye, a did.' 'What did tha think, Willum?' 'What did _tha_ think, +George?' 'Wal, _aa_ thowt Laady Mildred Wharton wor a graät fule, +Willum, if tha asks me.' 'I'll uphowd tha, George! I'll uphowd tha!' +said the other, and then they talked no more for the rest of the +journey." + +The friend laughed. + +"So it was from the dear mamma that the young man got his opinions?" + +"Of course. She dragged him into every absurdity she could from the time +he was fifteen. When the husband died she tried to get the servants to +come in to meals, but the butler struck. So did Wharton himself, who, +for a Socialist, has always showed a very pretty turn for comfort. I am +bound to say he was cut up when she died. It was the only time I ever +felt like being civil to him--in those months after she departed. I +suppose she was devoted to him--which after all is something." + +"Good heavens!" said the other, still lazily turning over the pages of +the newspaper as they sat waiting for their second course, "here is +another poaching murder--in Brookshire--the third I have noticed within +a month. On Lord Maxwell's property--you know them?" + +"I know the old man a little--fine old fellow! They'll make him +President of the Council, I suppose. He can't have much work left in +him; but it is such a popular, respectable name. Ah! I'm sorry; the sort +of thing to distress him terribly." + +"I see the grandson is standing." + +"Oh yes; will get in too. A queer sort of man--great ability and high +character. But you can't imagine him getting on in politics, unless it's +by sheer weight of wealth and family influence. He'll find a scruple in +every bush--never stand the rough work of the House, or get on with the +_men_. My goodness! you have to pull with some queer customers nowadays. +By the way, I hear he is making an unsatisfactory marriage--a girl very +handsome, but with no manners, and like nobody else--the daughter, too, +of an extremely shady father. It's surprising; you'd have thought a man +like Aldous Raeburn would have looked for the pick of things." + +"Perhaps it was she looked for the pick of things!" said the other, with +a blunt laugh. "Waiter, another bottle of champagne." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Marcella was lying on the sofa in the Mellor drawing-room. The February +evening had just been shut out, but she had told William not to bring +the lamps till they were rung for. Even the fire-light seemed more than +she could bear. She was utterly exhausted both in body and mind; yet, as +she lay there with shut eyes, and hands clasped under her cheek, a start +went through her at every sound in the house, which showed that she was +not resting, but listening. She had spent the morning in the Hurds' +cottage, sitting by Mrs. Hurd and nursing the little boy. Minta Hurd, +always delicate and consumptive, was now generally too ill from shock +and misery to be anywhere but in her bed, and Willie was growing +steadily weaker, though the child's spirit was such that he would insist +on dressing, on hearing and knowing everything about his father, and on +moving about the house as usual. Yet every movement of his wasted bones +cost him the effort of a hero, and the dumb signs in him of longing for +his father increased the general impression as of some patient creature +driven by Nature to monstrous and disproportionate extremity. + +The plight of this handful of human beings worked in Marcella like some +fevering torture. She was wholly out of gear physically and morally. +Another practically sleepless night, peopled with images of horror, had +decreased her stock of sane self-control, already lessened by long +conflict of feeling and the pressure of self-contempt. Now, as she lay +listening for Aldous Raeburn's ring and step, she hardly knew whether to +be angry with him for coming so late, or miserable that he should come +at all. That there was a long score to settle between herself and him +she knew well. Shame for an experience which seemed to her maiden sense +indelible--both a weakness and a treachery--lay like a dull weight on +heart and conscience. But she would not realise it, she would not act +upon it. She shook the moral debate from her impatiently. Aldous should +have his due all in good time--should have ample opportunity of deciding +whether he would, after all, marry such a girl as she. Meanwhile his +attitude with regard to the murder exasperated her. Yet, in some strange +way it relieved her to be angry and sore with him--to have a grievance +she could avow, and on which she made it a merit to dwell. His gentle, +yet firm difference of opinion with her on the subject struck her as +something new in him. It gave her a kind of fierce pleasure to fight it. +He seemed somehow to be providing her with excuses--to be coming down to +her level--to be equalling wrong with wrong. + +The door handle turned. At last! She sprang up. But it was only William +coming in with the evening post. Mrs. Boyce followed him. She took a +quiet look at her daughter, and asked if her headache was better, and +then sat down near her to some needlework. During these two days she +had been unusually kind to Marcella. She had none of the little feminine +arts of consolation. She was incapable of fussing, and she never +caressed. But from the moment that Marcella had come home from the +village that morning, a pale, hollow-eyed wreck, the mother had asserted +her authority. She would not hear of the girl's crossing the threshold +again; she had put her on the sofa and dosed her with sal-volatile. And +Marcella was too exhausted to rebel. She had only stipulated that a note +should be sent to Aldous, asking him to come on to Mellor with the news +as soon as the verdict of the coroner's jury should be given. The jury +had been sitting all day, and the verdict was expected in the evening. + +Marcella turned over her letters till she came to one from a London firm +which contained a number of cloth patterns. As she touched it she threw +it aside with a sudden gesture of impatience, and sat upright. + +"Mamma! I have something to say to you." + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Mamma, the wedding must be put off!--it _must_!--for some weeks. I have +been thinking about it while I have been lying here. How _can_ I?--you +can see for yourself. That miserable woman depends on me altogether. How +can I spend my time on clothing and dressmakers? I feel as if I could +think of nothing else--nothing else in the world--but her and her +children." She spoke with difficulty, her voice high and strained. "The +assizes may be held that very week--who knows?--the very day we are +married." + +She stopped, looking at her mother almost threateningly. Mrs. Boyce +showed no sign of surprise. She put her work down. + +"I had imagined you might say something of the kind," she said after a +pause. "I don't know that, from your point of view, it is unreasonable. +But, of course, you must understand that very few people will see it +from your point of view. Aldous Raeburn may--you must know best. But his +people certainly won't; and your father will think it--" + +"Madness," she was going to say, but with her usual instinct for the +moderate fastidious word she corrected it to "foolish." + +Marcella's tired eyes were all wilfulness and defiance. + +"I can't help it. I couldn't do it. I will tell Aldous at once. It must +be put off for a month. And even that," she added with a shudder, "will +be bad enough." + +Mrs. Boyce could not help an unperceived shrug of the shoulders, and a +movement of pity towards the future husband. Then she said drily,-- + +"You must always consider whether it is just to Mr. Raeburn to let a +matter of this kind interfere so considerably with his wishes and his +plans. He must, I suppose, be in London for Parliament within six +weeks." + +Marcella did not answer. She sat with her hands round her knees lost in +perplexities. The wedding, as originally fixed, was now three weeks and +three days off. After it, she and Aldous were to have spent a short +fortnight's honeymoon at a famous house in the north, lent them for the +occasion by a Duke who was a cousin of Aldous's on the mother's side, +and had more houses than he knew what to do with. Then they were to go +immediately up to London for the opening of Parliament. The furnishing +of the Mayfair house was being pressed on. In her new-born impatience +with such things, Marcella had hardly of late concerned herself with it +at all, and Miss Raeburn, scandalised, yet not unwilling, had been doing +the whole of it, subject to conscientious worryings of the bride, +whenever she could be got hold of, on the subject of papers and +curtains. + +As they sat silent, the unspoken idea in the mother's mind was--"Eight +weeks more will carry us past the execution." Mrs. Boyce had already +possessed herself very clearly of the facts of the case, and it was her +perception that Marcella was throwing herself headlong into a hopeless +struggle--together with something else--a confession perhaps of a touch +of greatness in the girl's temper, passionate and violent as it was, +that had led to this unwonted softness of manner, this absence of +sarcasm. + +Very much the same thought--only treated as a nameless horror not to be +recognised or admitted--was in Marcella's mind also, joined however with +another, unsuspected even by Mrs. Boyce's acuteness. "Very likely--when +I tell him--he will not want to marry me at all--and of course I shall +tell him." + +But not yet--certainly not yet. She had the instinctive sense that +during the next few weeks she should want all her dignity with Aldous, +that she could not afford to put herself at a disadvantage with him. To +be troubled about her own sins at such a moment would be like the +meanness of the lazy and canting Christian, who whines about saving his +soul while he ought to be rather occupied with feeding the bodies of his +wife and children. + +A ring at the front door. Marcella rose, leaning one hand on the end of +the sofa--a long slim figure in her black dress--haggard and pathetic. + +When Aldous entered, her face was one question. He went up to her and +took her hand. + +"In the case of Westall the verdict is one of 'Wilful Murder' against +Hurd. In that of poor Charlie Dynes the court is adjourned. Enough +evidence has been taken to justify burial. But there is news to-night +that one of the Widrington gang has turned informer, and the police say +they will have their hands on them all within the next two or three +days." + +Marcella withdrew herself from him and fell back into the corner of the +sofa. Shading her eyes with her hand she tried to be very composed and +business-like. + +"Was Hurd himself examined?" + +"Yes, under the new Act. He gave the account which he gave to you and to +his wife. But the Court--" + +"Did not believe it?" + +"No. The evidence of motive was too strong. It was clear from his own +account that he was out for poaching purposes, that he was leading the +Oxford gang, and that he had a gun while Westall was unarmed. He +admitted too that Westall called on him to give up the bag of pheasants +he held, and the gun. He refused. Then he says Westall came at him, and +he fired. Dick Patton and one or two others gave evidence as to the +language he has habitually used about Westall for months past." + +"Cowards--curs!" cried Marcella, clenching both her hands, a kind of sob +in her throat. + +Aldous, already white and careworn, showed, Mrs. Boyce thought, a ray of +indignation for an instant. Then he resumed steadily-- + +"And Brown, our steward, gave evidence as to his employment since +October. The coroner summed up carefully, and I think fairly, and the +verdict was given about half-past six." + +"They took him back to prison?" + +"Of course. He comes before the magistrates on Thursday." + +"And you will be one!" + +The girl's tone was indescribable. + +Aldous started. Mrs. Boyce reddened with anger, and checking her +instinct to intervene began to put away her working materials that she +might leave them together. While she was still busy Aldous said: + +"You forget; no magistrate ever tries a case in which he is personally +concerned. I shall take no part in the trial. My grandfather, of course, +must prosecute." + +"But it will be a bench of landlords," cried Marcella; "of men with whom +a poacher is already condemned." + +"You are unjust to us, I think," said Aldous, slowly, after a pause, +during which Mrs. Boyce left the room--"to some of us, at any rate. +Besides, as of course you know, the case will be simply sent on for +trial at the assizes. By the way "--his tone changed--"I hear to-night +that Harry Wharton undertakes the defence." + +"Yes," said Marcella, defiantly. "Is there anything to say against it? +You wouldn't wish Hurd not to be defended, I suppose?" + +"Marcella!" + +Even her bitter mood was pierced by the tone. She had never wounded him +so deeply yet, and for a moment he felt the situation intolerable; the +surging grievance and reproach, with which his heart was really full, +all but found vent in an outburst which would have wholly swept away his +ordinary measure and self-control. But then, as he looked at her, it +struck his lover's sense painfully how pale and miserable she was. He +could not scold! But it came home to him strongly that for her own sake +and his it would be better there should be explanations. After all +things had been going untowardly for many weeks. His nature moved slowly +and with much self-doubt, but it was plain to him now that he must make +a stand. + +After his cry, her first instinct was to apologise. Then the words stuck +in her throat. To her, as to him, they seemed to be close on a trial of +strength. If she could not influence him in this matter--so obvious, as +it seemed to her, and so near to her heart--what was to become of that +lead of hers in their married life, on which she had been reckoning from +the beginning? All that was worst in her and all that was best rose to +the struggle. + +But, as he did not speak, she looked up at last. + +"I was waiting," he said in a low voice. + +"What for?" + +"Waiting till you should tell me you did not mean what you said." + +She saw that he was painfully moved; she also saw that he was +introducing something into their relation, an element of proud +self-assertion, which she had never felt in it before. Her own vanity +instantly rebelled. + +"I ought not to have said exactly what I did," she said, almost stifled +by her own excitement, and making great efforts not to play the mere +wilful child; "that I admit. But it has been clear to me from the +beginning that--that"--her words hurried, she took up a book and +restlessly lifted it and let it fall--"you have never looked at this +thing justly. You have looked at the crime as any one must who is a +landowner; you have never allowed for the provocation; you have not let +yourself feel pity--" + +He made an exclamation. + +"Do you know where I was before I went into the inquest?" + +"No," she said defiantly, determined not to be impressed, feeling a +childish irritation at the interruption. + +"I was with Mrs. Westall. Harden and I went in to see her. She is a +hard, silent woman. She is clearly not popular in the village, and no +one comes in to her. Her"--he hesitated--"her baby is expected before +long. She is in such a state of shock and excitement that Clarke thinks +it quite possible she may go out of her mind. I saw her sitting by the +fire, quite silent, not crying, but with a wild eye that means mischief. +We have sent in a nurse to help Mrs. Jellison watch her. She seems to +care nothing about her boy. Everything that that woman most desired in +life has been struck from her at a blow. Why? That a man who was in no +stress of poverty, who had friends and employment, should indulge +himself in acts which he knew to be against the law, and had promised +you and his wife to forego, and should at the same time satisfy a wild +beast's hatred against the man, who was simply defending his master's +property. Have _you_ no pity for Mrs. Westall or her child?" + +He spoke as calmly as he could, making his appeal to reason and moral +sense; but, in reality, every word was charged with electric feeling. + +"I _am_ sorry for her!" cried Marcella, passionately. "But, after all, +how can one feel for the oppressor, or those connected with him, as one +does for the victim?" He shook his head, protesting against the word, +but she rushed on. "You do know--for I told you yesterday--how under the +shelter of this _hateful_ game system Westall made Kurd's life a burden +to him when he was a young man--how he had begun to bully him again this +past year. We had the same sort of dispute the other day about that +murder in Ireland. You were shocked that I would not condemn the +Moonlighters who had shot their landlord from behind a hedge, as you +did. You said the man had tried to do his duty, and that the murder was +brutal and unprovoked. But I thought of the _system_--of the _memories_ +in the minds of the murderers. There _were_ excuses--he suffered for his +father--I am not going to judge that as I judge other murders. So, when +a Czar of Russia is blown up, do you expect one to think only of his +wife and children? No! I will think of the tyranny and the revolt; I +will pray, yes, _pray_ that I might have courage to do as they did! You +may think me wild and mad. I dare say. I am made so. I shall always feel +so!" + +She flung out her words at him, every limb quivering under the emotion +of them. His cool, penetrating eye, this manner she had never yet known +in him, exasperated her. + +"Where was the tyranny in this case?" he asked her quietly. "I agree +with you that there are murders and murders. But I thought your point +was that here was neither murder nor attack, but only an act of +self-defence. That is Hurd's plea." + +She hesitated and stumbled. "I know," she said, "I know. I believe it. +But, even if the attack had been on Hurd's part, I should still find +excuses, because of the system, and because of Westall's hatefulness." + +He shook his head again. + +"Because a man is harsh and masterful, and uses stinging language, is he +to be shot down like a dog?" + +There was a silence. Marcella was lashing herself up by thoughts of the +deformed man in his cell, looking forward after the wretched, +unsatisfied life, which was all society had allowed him, to the violent +death by which society would get rid of him--of the wife yearning her +heart away--of the boy, whom other human beings, under the name of law, +were about to separate from his father for ever. At last she broke out +thickly and indistinctly: + +"The terrible thing is that I cannot count upon you--that now I cannot +make you feel as I do--feel with me. And by-and-by, when I shall want +your help desperately, when your help might be everything--I suppose it +will be no good to ask it." + +He started, and bending forward he possessed himself of both her +hands--her hot trembling hands--and kissed them with a passionate +tenderness. + +"What help will you ask of me that I cannot give? That would be hard to +bear!" + +Still held by him, she answered his question by another: + +"Give me your idea of what will happen. Tell me how you think it will +end." + +"I shall only distress you, dear," he said sadly. + +"No; tell me. You think him guilty. You believe he will be convicted." + +"Unless some wholly fresh evidence is forthcoming," he said reluctantly, +"I can see no other issue." + +"Very well; then he will be sentenced to death. But, after sentence--I +know--that man from Widrington, that solicitor told me--if--if strong +influence is brought to bear--if anybody whose word counts--if Lord +Maxwell and you, were to join the movement to save him--There is sure to +be a movement--the Radicals will take it up. Will you do it--will you +promise me now--for my sake?" + +He was silent. + +She looked at him, all her heart burning in her eyes, conscious of her +woman's power too, and pressing it. + +"If that man is hung," she said pleadingly, "it will leave a mark on my +life nothing will ever smooth out. I shall feel myself somehow +responsible. I shall say to myself, if I had not been thinking about my +own selfish affairs--about getting married--about the straw-plaiting--I +might have seen what was going on. I might have saved these people, who +have been my friends--my _real_ friends--from this horror." + +She drew her hands away and fell back on the sofa, pressing her +handkerchief to her eyes. "If you had seen her this morning!" she said +in a strangled voice. "She was saying, 'Oh, miss, if they do find him +guilty, they can't hang him--not my poor deformed Jim, that never had a +chance of being like the others. Oh, we'll beg so hard. I know there's +many people will speak for him. He was mad, miss, when he did it. He'd +never been himself, not since last winter, when we all sat and starved, +and he was driven out of his senses by thinking of me and the children. +You'll get Mr. Raeburn to speak--won't you, miss?--and Lord Maxwell? It +was their game. I know it was their game. But they'll forgive him. +They're such great people, and so rich--and we--we've always had such a +struggle. Oh, the bad times we've had, and no one know! They'll try and +get him off, miss? Oh, I'll go and _beg_ of them.'" + +She stopped, unable to trust her voice any further. He stooped over her +and kissed her brow. There was a certain solemnity in the moment for +both of them. The pity of human fate overshadowed them. At last he said +firmly, yet with great feeling: + +"I will not prejudge anything, that I promise you. I will keep my mind +open to the last. But--I should like to say--it would not be any easier +to me to throw myself into an agitation for reprieve because this man +was tempted to crime by _my_ property--on _my_ land. I should think it +right to look at it altogether from the public point of view. The +satisfaction of my own private compunctions--of my own private +feelings--is not what I ought to regard. My own share in the +circumstances, in the conditions which made such an act possible does +indeed concern me deeply. You cannot imagine but that the moral problem +of it has possessed me ever since this dreadful thing happened. It +troubled me much before. Now, it has become an oppression--a torture. I +have never seen my grandfather so moved, so distressed, in all my +remembrance of him. Yet he is a man of the old school, with the old +standards. As for me, if ever I come to the estate I will change the +whole system, I will run no risks of such human wreck and ruin as +this--" + +His voice faltered. + +"But," he resumed, speaking steadily again, "I ought to warn you that +such considerations as these will not affect my judgment of this +particular case. In the first place, I have no quarrel with capital +punishment as such. I do not believe we could rightly give it up. Your +attitude properly means that wherever we can legitimately feel pity for +a murderer, we should let him escape his penalty. I, on the other hand, +believe that if the murderer saw things as they truly are, he would +himself _claim_ his own death, as his best chance, his only chance--in +this mysterious universe!--of self-recovery. Then it comes to this--was +the act murder? The English law of murder is not perfect, but it appears +to me to be substantially just, and guided by it--" + +"You talk as if there were no such things as mercy and pity in the +world," she interrupted wildly; "as if law were not made and +administered by men of just the same stuff and fabric as the +lawbreaker!" + +He looked troubled. + +"Ah, but _law_ is something beyond laws or those who administer them," +he said in a lower tone; "and the law--the _obligation-sense_--of our +own race and time, however imperfect it may be, is sacred, not because +it has been imposed upon us from without, but because it has grown up to +what it is, out of our own best life--ours, yet not ours--the best proof +we have, when we look back at it in the large, when we feel its work in +ourselves of some diviner power than our own will--our best clue to what +that power may be!" + +He spoke at first, looking away--wrestling out his thought, as it were, +by himself--then turning back to her, his eyes emphasised the appeal +implied, though not expressed, in what he said--intense appeal to her +for sympathy, forbearance, mutual respect, through all acuteness of +difference. His look both promised and implored. + +He bad spoken to her but very rarely or indirectly as yet of his own +religious or philosophical beliefs. She was in a stage when such things +interested her but little, and reticence in personal matters was so much +the law of his life that even to her expansion was difficult. So +that--inevitably--she was arrested, for the moment, as any quick +perception must be, by the things that unveil character. + +Then an upheaval of indignant feeling swept the impression away. All +that he said might be ideally, profoundly true--_but_--the red blood of +the common life was lacking in every word of it! He ought to be +incapable of saying it _now_. Her passionate question was, how could he +_argue_--how could he hold and mark the ethical balance--when a _woman_ +was suffering, when _children_ were to be left fatherless? Besides--the +ethical balance itself--does it not alter according to the hands that +hold it--poacher or landlord, rich or poor? + +But she was too exhausted to carry on the contest in words. Both felt it +would have to be renewed. But she said to herself secretly that Mr. +Wharton, when he got to work, would alter the whole aspect of affairs. +And she knew well that her vantage-ground as towards Aldous was strong. + +Then at last he was free to turn his whole attention for a little to her +and her physical state, which made him miserable. He had never imagined +that any one, vigorous and healthy as she was, could look so worn out in +so short a time. She let him talk to her--lament, entreat, advise--and +at last she took advantage of his anxiety and her admissions to come to +the point, to plead that the marriage should be put off. + +She used the same arguments that she had done to her mother. + +"How can I bear to be thinking of these things?"--she pointed a shaking +finger at the dress patterns lying scattered on the table--"with this +agony, this death, under my eyes?" + +It was a great blow to him, and the practical inconveniences involved +were great. But the fibre of him--of which she had just felt the +toughness--was delicate and sensitive as her own, and after a very short +recoil he met her with great chivalry and sweetness, agreeing that +everything should be put off for six weeks, till Easter in fact. She +would have been very grateful to him but that something--some secret +thought--checked the words she tried to say. + +"I must go home then," he said, rising and trying to smile. "I shall +have to make things straight with Aunt Neta, and set a great many +arrangements in train. Now, you will _try_ to think of something else? +Let me leave you with a book that I can imagine you will read." + +She let herself be tended and thought for. At the last, just as he was +going, he said: + +"Have you seen Mr. Wharton at all since this happened?" + +His manner was just as usual. She felt that her eye was guilty, but the +darkness of the firelit room shielded her. + +"I have not seen him since we met him in the drive. I saw the solicitor +who is working up the case for him yesterday. He came over to see Mrs. +Hurd and me. I had not thought of asking him, but we agreed that, if he +would undertake it, it would be the best chance." + +"It _is_ probably the best chance," said Aldous, thoughtfully. "I +believe Wharton has not done much at the Bar since he was called, but +that, no doubt, is because he has had so much on his hands in the way of +journalism and politics. His ability is enough for anything, and he will +throw himself into this. I do not think Hurd could do better." + +She did not answer. She felt that he was magnanimous, but felt it +coldly, without emotion. + +He came and stooped over her. + +"Good-night--good-night--tired child--dear heart! When I saw you in that +cottage this morning I thought of the words, 'Give, and it shall be +given unto you.' All that my life can do to pour good measure, pressed +down, running over, into yours, I vowed you then!" + +When the door closed upon him, Marcella, stretched in the darkness, shed +the bitterest tears that had ever yet been hers--tears which transformed +her youth--which baptised her, as it were, into the fulness of our +tragic life. + +She was still weeping when she heard the door softly opened. She sprang +up and dried her eyes, but the little figure that glided in was not one +to shrink from. Mary Harden came and sat down beside her. + +"I knew you would be miserable. Let me come and cry too. I have been my +round--have seen them all--and I came to bring you news." + +"How has she taken--the verdict?" asked Marcella, struggling with her +sobs, and succeeding at last in composing herself. + +"She was prepared for it. Charlie told her when he saw her after you +left this afternoon that she must expect it." + +There was a pause. + +"I shall soon hear, I suppose," said Marcella, in a hardening voice, her +hands round her knees, "what Mr. Wharton is doing for the defence. He +will appear before the magistrates, I suppose." + +"Yes; but Charlie thinks the defence will be mainly reserved. Only a +little more than a fortnight to the assizes! The time is so short. But +now this man has turned informer, they say the case is quite +straightforward. With all the other evidence the police have there will +be no difficulty in trying them all. Marcella!" + +"Yes." + +Had there been light enough to show it, Mary's face would have revealed +her timidity. + +"Marcella, Charlie asked me to give you a message. He begs you not +to--not to make Mrs. Hurd hope too much. He himself believes there is no +hope, and it is not kind." + +"Are you and he like all the rest," cried Marcella, her passion breaking +out again, "only eager to have blood for blood?" + +Mary waited an instant. + +"It has almost broken Charlie's heart," she said at last; "but he thinks +it was murder, and that Hurd will pay the penalty; nay, more "--she +spoke with a kind of religious awe in her gentle voice--"that he ought +to be glad to pay it. He believes it to be God's will, and I have heard +him say that he would even have executions in public again--under +stricter regulations of course--that we may not escape, as we always do +if we can--from all sight and thought of God's justice and God's +punishments." + +Marcella shuddered and rose. She almost threw Mary's hand away from her. + +"Tell your brother from me, Mary," she said, "that his God is to _me_ +just a constable in the service of the English game-laws! If He _is_ +such a one, I at least will fling my Everlasting No at him while I +live." + +And she swept from the room, leaving Mary aghast. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile there was consternation and wrath at Maxwell Court, where +Aldous, on his return from Mellor, had first of all given his great-aunt +the news of the coroner's verdict, and had then gone on to break to her +the putting-off of the marriage. His championship of Marcella in the +matter, and his disavowal of all grievance were so quiet and decided, +that Miss Raeburn had been only able to allow herself a very modified +strain of comment and remonstrance, so long as he was still there to +listen. But she was all the more outspoken when he was gone, and Lady +Winterbourne was sitting with her. Lady Winterbourne, who was at home +alone, while her husband was with a married daughter on the Riviera, had +come over to dine _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with her friend, finding it impossible +to remain solitary while so much was happening. + +"Well, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, shortly, as her guest entered the +room, "I may as well tell you at once that Aldous's marriage is put +off." + +"Put off!" exclaimed Lady Winterbourne, bewildered. "Why it was only +Thursday that I was discussing it all with Marcella, and she told me +everything was settled." + +"Thursday!--I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, stitching away with fiery +energy, "but since then a poacher has murdered one of our gamekeepers, +which makes all the difference." + +"What _do_ you mean, Agneta?" + +"What I say, my dear. The poacher was Marcella's friend, and she cannot +now distract her mind from him sufficiently to marry Aldous, though +every plan he has in the world will be upset by her proceedings. And as +for his election, you may depend upon it she will never ask or know +whether he gets in next Monday or no. That goes without saying. She is +meanwhile absorbed with the poacher's defence, _Mr. Wharton_, of course, +conducting it. This is your modern young woman, my dear--typical, I +should think." + +Miss Raeburn turned her buttonhole in fine style, and at lightning +speed, to show the coolness of her mind, then with a rattling of all her +lockets, looked up and waited for Lady Winterbourne's reflections. + +"She has often talked to me of these people--the Hurds," said Lady +Winterbourne, slowly. "She has always made special friends with them. +Don't you remember she told us about them that day she first came back +to lunch?" + +"Of course I remember! That day she lectured Maxwell, at first sight, +on his duties. She began well. As for these people," said Miss Raeburn, +more slowly, "one is, of course, sorry for the wife and children, though +I am a good deal sorrier for Mrs. Westall, and poor, poor Mrs. Dynes. +The whole affair has so upset Maxwell and me, we have hardly been able +to eat or sleep since. I thought it made Maxwell look dreadfully old +this morning, and with all that he has got before him too! I shall +insist on sending for Clarke to-morrow morning if he does not have a +better night. And now this postponement will be one more trouble--all +the engagements to alter, and the invitations. _Really_! that girl." + +And Miss Raeburn broke off short, feeling simply that the words which +were allowed to a well-bred person were wholly inadequate to her state +of mind. + +"But if she feels it--as you or I might feel such a thing about some one +we knew or cared for, Agneta?" + +"How can she feel it like that?" cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "How +can she know any one of--of that class well enough? It is not seemly, I +tell you, Adelaide, and I don't believe it is sincere. It's just done to +make herself conspicuous, and show her power over Aldous. For other +reasons too, if the truth were known!" + +Miss Raeburn turned over the shirt she was making for some charitable +society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which +relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate cheek had flushed. + +"I'm sure it's sincere," she said with emphasis. "Do you mean to say, +Agneta, that one can't sympathise, in such an awful thing, with people +of another class, as one would with one's own flesh and blood?" + +Miss Raeburn winced. She felt for a moment the pressure of a democratic +world--a hated, formidable world--through her friend's question. Then +she stood to her guns. + +"I dare say you'll think it sounds bad," she said stoutly; "but in my +young days it would have been thought a piece of posing--of +sentimentalism--something indecorous and unfitting--if a girl had put +herself in such a position. Marcella _ought_ to be absorbed in her +marriage; that is the natural thing. How Mrs. Boyce can allow her to mix +herself with such things as this murder--to _live_ in that cottage, as I +hear she has been doing, passes my comprehension." + +"You mean," said Lady Winterbourne, dreamily, "that if one had been very +fond of one's maid, and she died, one wouldn't put on mourning for her. +Marcella would." + +"I dare say," said Miss Raeburn, snappishly. "She is capable of anything +far-fetched and theatrical." + +The door opened and Hallin came in. He had been suffering of late, and +much confined to the house. But the news of the murder had made a deep +and painful impression upon him, and he had been eagerly acquainting +himself with the facts. Miss Raeburn, whose kindness ran with unceasing +flow along the channels she allowed it, was greatly attached to him in +spite of his views, and she now threw herself upon him for sympathy in +the matter of the wedding. In any grievance that concerned Aldous she +counted upon him, and her shrewd eyes had plainly perceived that he had +made no great friendship with Marcella. + +"I am very sorry for Aldous," he said at once; "but I understand _her_ +perfectly. So does Aldous." + +Miss Raeburn was angrily silent. But when Lord Maxwell, who had been +talking with Aldous, came in, he proved, to her final discomfiture, to +be very much of the same opinion. + +"My dear," he said wearily as he dropped into his chair, his old face +grey and pinched, "this thing is too terrible--the number of widows and +orphans that night's work will make before the end breaks my heart to +think of. It will be a relief not to have to consider festivities while +these men are actually before the courts. What I am anxious about is +that Marcella should not make herself ill with excitement. The man she +is interested in will be hung, must be hung; and with her somewhat +volatile, impulsive nature--" + +He spoke with old-fashioned discretion and measure. Then quickly he +pulled himself up, and, with some trivial question or other, offered his +arm to Lady Winterbourne, for Aldous had just come in, and dinner was +ready. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Nearly three weeks passed--short flashing weeks, crowded with +agitations, inward or outward, for all the persons of this story. + +After the inquiry before the magistrates--conducted, as she passionately +thought, with the most marked animus on the part of the bench and police +towards the prisoners--had resulted in the committal for trial of Hurd +and his five companions, Marcella wrote Aldous Raeburn a letter which +hurt him sorely. + +"Don't come over to see me for a little while," it ran. "My mind is all +given over to feelings which must seem to you--which, I know, do seem to +you--unreasonable and unjust. But they are my life, and when they are +criticised, or even treated coldly, I cannot bear it. When you are not +there to argue with, I can believe, most sincerely, that you have a +right to see this matter as you do, and that it is monstrous of me to +expect you to yield to me entirely in a thing that concerns your sense +of public duty. But don't come now--not before the trial. I will appeal +to you if I think you can help me. I _know_ you will if you can. Mr. +Wharton keeps me informed of everything. I enclose his last two letters, +which will show you the line he means to take up with regard to some of +the evidence." + +Aldous's reply cost him a prodigal amount of pain and difficulty. + +"I will do anything in the world to make these days less of a burden to +you. You can hardly imagine that it is not grievous to me to think of +any trouble of yours as being made worse by my being with you. But still +I understand. One thing only I ask--that you should not imagine the +difference between us greater than it is. The two letters you enclose +have given me much to ponder. If only the course of the trial enables me +with an honest heart to throw myself into your crusade of mercy, with +what joy shall I come and ask you to lead me, and to forgive my own +slower sense and pity! + +"I should like you to know that Hallin is very much inclined to agree +with you, to think that the whole affair was a 'scrimmage,' and that +Hurd at least ought to be reprieved. He would have come to talk it over +with you himself, but that Clarke forbids him anything that interests or +excites him for the present. He has been very ill and suffering for the +last fortnight, and, as you know, when these attacks come on we try to +keep everything from him that could pain or agitate him. But I see that +this whole affair is very much on his mind, in spite of my efforts. + +"... Oh, my darling! I am writing late at night, with your letter open +before me and your picture close to my hand. So many things rise in my +mind to say to you. There will come a time--there _must!_--when I may +pour them all out. Meanwhile, amid all jars and frets, remember this, +that I have loved you better each day since first we met. + +"I will not come to Mellor then for a little while. My election, little +heart as I have for it, will fill up the week. The nomination-day is +fixed for Thursday and the polling for Monday." + +Marcella read the letter with a confusion of feeling so great as to be +in itself monstrous and demoralising. Was she never to be simple, to see +her way clearly again? + +As for him, as he rode about the lanes and beechwoods in the days that +followed, alone often with that nature for which all such temperaments +as Aldous Raeburn's have so secret and so observant an affection, he was +perpetually occupied with this difficulty which had arisen between +Marcella and himself, turning it over and over in the quiet of the +morning, before the turmoil of the day began. + +He had followed the whole case before the magistrates with the most +scrupulous care. And since then, he had twice run across the Widrington +solicitor for the defence, who was now instructing Wharton. This man, +although a strong Radical, and employed generally by his own side, saw +no objection at all to letting Lord Maxwell's heir and representative +understand how in his opinion the case was going. Aldous Raeburn was a +person whom everybody respected; confidences were safe with him; and he +was himself deeply interested in the affair. The Raeburns being the +Raeburns, with all that that implied for smaller people in Brookshire, +little Mr. Burridge was aware of no reason whatever why Westall's +employers should not know that, although Mr. Wharton was working up the +defence with an energy and ability which set Burridge marvelling, it was +still his, Burridge's opinion, that everything that could be advanced +would be wholly unavailing with the jury; that the evidence, as it came +into final shape, looked worse for Hurd rather than better; and that the +only hope for the man lay in the after-movement for reprieve which can +always be got up in a game-preserving case. + +"And is as a rule political and anti-landlord," thought Aldous, on one +of these mornings, as he rode along the edge of the down. He foresaw +exactly what would happen. As he envisaged the immediate future, he saw +one figure as the centre of it--not Marcella, but Wharton! Wharton was +defending, Wharton would organise the petition, Wharton would apply for +his own support and his grandfather's, through Marcella. To Wharton +would belong not only the popular _kudos_ of the matter, but much more, +and above all, Marcella's gratitude. + +Aldous pulled up his horse an instant, recognising that spot in the +road, that downward stretching glade among the beeches, where he had +asked Marcella to be his wife. The pale February sunlight was spreading +from his left hand through the bare grey trunks, and over the distant +shoulders of the woods, far into the white and purple of the chalk +plain. Sounds of labour came from the distant fields; sounds of winter +birds from the branches round him. The place, the time, raised in him +all the intensest powers of consciousness. He saw himself as the man +_standing midway_ in everything--speculation, politics, sympathies--as +the perennially ineffective and, as it seemed to his morbid mood, the +perennially defeated type, beside the Whartons of this world. Wharton! +He knew him--had read him long ago--read him afresh of late. Raeburn's +lip showed the contempt, the bitterness which the philosopher could not +repress, showed also the humiliation of the lover. Here was he, banished +from Marcella; here was Wharton, in possession of her mind and +sympathies, busily forging a link-- + +"It shall be _broken!_" said Raeburn to himself with a sudden fierce +concentration of will. "So much I will claim--and enforce." + +But not now, nothing now, but patience, delicacy, prudence. He gathered +himself together with a long breath, and went his way. + + * * * * * + +For the rest, the clash of motives and affections he felt and foresaw in +this matter of the Disley murders, became day by day more harassing. The +moral debate was strenuous enough. The murders had roused all the humane +and ethical instincts, which were in fact the man, to such a point that +they pursued him constantly, in the pauses of his crowded days, like +avenging Erinnyes. Hallin's remark that "game-preserving creates crime" +left him no peace. Intellectually he argued it, and on the whole +rejected it; morally, and in feeling, it scourged him. He had suffered +all his mature life under a too painful and scrupulous sense that he, +more than other men, was called to be his brother's keeper. It was +natural that, during these exhausting days, the fierce death on +Westall's rugged face, the piteous agony in Dynes's young eyes and +limbs, should haunt him, should make his landlord's place and +responsibility often mere ashes and bitterness. + +But, as Marcella had been obliged to perceive, he drew the sharpest line +between the bearings of this ghastly business on his own private life +and action, and its relation to public order. That the gamekeepers +destroyed were his servants, or practically his servants, made no +difference to him whatever in his estimate of the crime itself. If the +circumstances had been such that he could honestly have held Hurd not to +be a murderer, no employer's interest, no landlord's desire for +vengeance, would have stood in his way. On the other hand, believing, as +he emphatically did, that Hurd's slaying of Westall had been of a kind +more deliberate and less capable of excuse than most murders, he would +have held it a piece of moral cowardice to allow his own qualms and +compunctions as to the rights and wrongs of game-preserving to interfere +with a duty to justice and society. + +Ay! and something infinitely dearer to him than his own qualms and +compunctions. + +Hallin, who watched the whole debate in his friend day by day, was +conscious that he had never seen Aldous more himself, in spite of +trouble of mind; more "in character," so to speak, than at this moment. +Spiritual dignity of mind and temper, blended with a painful personal +humility, and interfused with all--determining all--elements of +judgment, subtleties, prejudices, modes of looking at things, for which +he was hardly responsible, so deeply ingrained were they by inheritance +and custom. More than this: did not the ultimate explanation of the +whole attitude of the man lie in the slow but irresistible revolt of a +strong individuality against the passion which had for a time suppressed +it? The truth of certain moral relations may be for a time obscured and +distorted; none the less, _reality_ wins the day. So Hallin read it. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, during days when both for Aldous and Wharton the claims of a +bustling, shouting public, which must be canvassed, shaken hands with, +and spoken to, and the constant alternations of business meetings, +committee-rooms and the rest, made it impossible, after all, for either +man to spend more than the odds and ends of thought upon anything +outside the clatter of politics, Marcella had been living a life of +intense and monotonous feeling, shut up almost within the walls of a +tiny cottage, hanging over sick-beds, and thrilling to each pulse of +anguish as it beat in the miserable beings she tended. + +The marriage of the season, with all its accompanying festivities and +jubilations, had not been put off for seven weeks--till after +Easter--without arousing a storm of critical astonishment both in +village and county. And when the reason was known--that it was because +Miss Boyce had taken the Disley murder so desperately to heart, that +until the whole affair was over, and the men either executed or +reprieved, she could spare no thought to wedding clothes or cates--there +was curiously little sympathy with Marcella. Most of her own class +thought it a piece of posing, if they did not say so as frankly as Miss +Raeburn--something done for self-advertisement and to advance +anti-social opinions; while the Mellor cottagers, with the instinctive +English recoil from any touch of sentiment not, so to speak, in the +bargain, gossiped and joked about it freely. + +"She can't be very fond o' 'im, not of Muster Raeburn, she can't," said +old Patton, delivering himself as he sat leaning on his stick at his +open door, while his wife and another woman or two chattered inside. +"_Not_ what I'd call lover-y. She don't want to run in harness, she +don't, no sooner than, she need. She's a peert filly is Miss Boyce." + +"I've been a-waitin', an' a-waitin'," said his wife, with her gentle +sigh, "to hear summat o' that new straw-plaitin' she talk about. But +nary a word. They do say as it's give up althegither." + +"No, she's took up wi' nursin' Minta Hurd--wonderful took up," said +another woman. "They do say as Ann Mullins can't abear her. When she's +there nobody can open their mouth. When that kind o' thing happens in +the fambly it's bad enoof without havin' a lady trailin' about you all +day long, so that you have to be mindin' yersel', an' thinkin' about +givin' her a cheer, an' the like." + +One day in the dusk, more than a fortnight after the inquest, Marcella, +coming from the Hurds' cottage, overtook Mrs. Jellison, who was going +home after spending the afternoon with her daughter. + +Hitherto Marcella had held aloof from Isabella Westall and her +relations, mainly, to do her justice, from fear lest she might somehow +hurt or offend them. She had been to see Charlie Dynes's mother, but she +had only brought herself to send a message of sympathy through Mary +Harden to the keeper's widow. + +Mrs. Jellison looked at her askance with her old wild eyes as Marcella +came up with her. + +"Oh, she's _puddlin'_ along," she said in answer to Marcella's inquiry, +using a word very familiar in the village. "She'll not do herself a +mischief while there's Nurse Ellen an' me to watch her like a pair o' +cats. She's dreadful upset, is Isabella--shouldn't ha' thought it of +her. That fust day"--a cloud darkened the curious, dreamy face--"no, I'm +not a-goin' to think about that fust day, I'm not, 'tain't a ha'porth o' +good," she added resolutely; "but she was all right when they'd let her +get 'im 'ome, and wash an' settle 'im, an' put 'im comfortable like in +his coffin. He wor a big man, miss, when he wor laid out! Searle, as +made the coffin, told her as ee 'adn't made one such an extry size since +old Harry Flood, the blacksmith, fifteen year ago. Ee'd soon a done for +Jim Hurd if it 'ad been fists o' both sides. But guns is things as yer +can't reckon on.". + +"Why didn't he let Hurd alone," said Marcella, sadly, "and prosecute him +next day? It's attacking men when their blood is up that brings these +awful hings about." + +"Wal, I don't see that," said Mrs. Jellison, pugnaciously; "he wor paid +to do 't--an' he had the law on his side. 'Ow 's she?" she said, +lowering her voice and jerking her thumb in the direction of the Hurds' +cottage. + +"She's very ill," replied Marcella, with a contraction of the brow. +"Dr. Clarke says she ought to stay in bed, but of course she won't." + +"They're a-goin' to try 'im Thursday?" said Mrs. Jellison, inquiringly. + +"Yes." + +"An' Muster Wharton be a-goin' to defend 'im. Muster Wharton may be +cliver, ee may--they do say as ee can see the grass growin', ee's that +knowin'--but ee'll not get Jim Hurd off; there's nobody in the village +as b'lieves for a moment as 'ow he will. They'll best 'im. Lor' bless +yer, they'll best 'im. I was a-sayin' it to Isabella this +afternoon--ee'll not save 'is neck, don't you be afeared." + +Marcella drew herself up with a shiver of repulsion. + +"Will it mend your daughter's grief to see another woman's heart broken? +Don't you suppose it might bring her some comfort, Mrs. Jellison, if she +were to try and forgive that poor wretch? She might remember that her +husband gave him provocation, and that anyway, if his life is spared, +his punishment and their misery will be heavy enough!" + +"Oh, lor' no!" said Mrs. Jellison, composedly. "She don't want to be +forgivin' of 'im. Mr. Harden ee come talkin' to 'er, but she isn't one +o' that sort, isn't Isabella. I'm sartin sure she'll be better in +'erself when they've put 'im out o' the way. It makes her all ov a fever +to think of Muster Wharton gettin' 'im off. _I_ don't bear Jim Hurd no +pertickler malice. Isabella may talk herself black i' the face, but she +and Johnnie'll have to come 'ome and live along o' me, whatever she may +say. She can't stay in that cottage, cos they'll be wantin' it for +another keeper. Lord Maxwell ee's givin' her a fine pension, my word ee +is! an' says ee'll look after Johnnie. And what with my bit +airnins--we'll do, yer know, miss--we'll do!" + +The old woman looked up with a nod, her green eyes sparkling with the +queer inhuman light that belonged to them. + +Marcella could not bring herself to say good-night to her, and was +hurrying on without a word, when Mrs. Jellison stopped her. + +"An' 'ow about that straw-plaitin', miss?" she said slyly. + +"I have had to put it on one side for a bit," said Marcella, coldly, +hating the woman's society. "I have had my hands full and Lady +Winterbourne has been away, but we shall, of course, take it up again +later." + +She walked away quickly, and Mrs. Jellison hobbled after her, grinning +to herself every now and then as she caught the straight, tall figure +against the red evening sky. + +"I'll go in ter town termorrer," she thought, "an' have a crack wi' +Jimmy Gedge; _ee_ needn't be afeard for 'is livin'. An' them great fules +as ha' bin runnin' in a string arter 'er, an' cacklin' about their +eighteen-pence a score, as I've told 'em times, I'll eat my apron the +fust week as iver they get it. I don't hold wi' ladies--no, nor passons +neither--not when it comes to meddlin' wi' your wittles, an' dictatin' +to yer about forgivin' them as ha' got the better ov yer. That young +lady there, what do she matter? That sort's allus gaddin' about? What'll +she keer about us when she's got 'er fine husband? Here o' Saturday, +gone o' Monday--that's what she is. Now Jimmy Gedge, yer kin allus count +on '_im._ Thirty-six year ee ha' set there in that 'ere shop, and I +guess ee'll set there till they call 'im ter kingdom come. Be's a +cheatin', sweatin', greedy old skinflint is Jimmy Gedge; but when yer +wants 'im yer _kin_ find 'im." + + * * * * * + +Marcella hurried home, she was expecting a letter from Wharton, the +third within a week. She had not set eyes on him since they had met that +first morning in the drive, and it was plain to her that he was as +unwilling as she was that there should be any meeting between them. +Since the moment of his taking up the case, in spite of the pressure of +innumerable engagements, he had found time to send her, almost daily, +sheets covered with his small even writing, in which every detail and +prospect of the legal situation, so far as it concerned James Hurd, were +noted and criticised with a shrewdness and fulness which never wavered, +and never lost for a moment the professional note. + +"Dear Miss Boyce"--the letters began--leading up to a "Yours +faithfully," which Marcella read as carefully as the rest. Often, as she +turned them over, she asked herself whether that scene in the library +had not been a mere delusion of the brain, whether the man whose wild +words and act had burnt themselves into her life could possibly be +writing her these letters, in this key, without a reference, without an +allusion. Every day, as she opened them, she looked them through quietly +with a shaking pulse; every day she found herself proudly able to hand +them on to her mother, with the satisfaction of one who has nothing to +conceal, whatever the rest of the world may suspect. He was certainly +doing his best to replace their friendship on that level of high +comradeship in ideas and causes which, as she told herself, it had once +occupied. His own wanton aggression and her weakness had toppled it down +thence, and brought it to ruin. She could never speak to him, never know +him again till it was re-established. Still his letters galled her. He +assumed, she supposed, that such a thing could happen, and nothing more +be said about it? How little he knew her, or what she had in her mind! + +Now, as she walked along, wrapped in her plaid cape, her thought was one +long tumultuous succession of painful or passionate images, interrupted +none the less at times by those curious self-observing pauses of which +she had always been capable. She had been sitting for hours beside Mrs. +Hurd, with little Willie upon her knees. The mother, always anaemic and +consumptive, was by now prostrate, the prey of a long-drawn agony, +peopled by visions of Jim alone and in prison--Jim on the scaffold with +the white cap over his eyes--Jim in the prison coffin--which would rouse +her shrieking from dreams which were the rending asunder of soul and +body. Minta Hurd's love for the unhappy being who had brought her to +this pass had been infinitely maternal. There had been a boundless pity +in it, and the secret pride of a soul, which, humble and modest towards +all the rest of the world, yet knew itself to be the breath and +sustenance, the indispensable aid of one other soul in the universe, and +gloried accordingly. To be cut off now from all ministration, all +comforting--to have to lie there like a log, imagining the moment when +the neighbours should come in and say, "It is all over--they have broken +his neck--and buried him"--it was a doom beyond all even that her timid +pessimist heart had ever dreamed. She had already seen him twice in +prison, and she knew that she would see him again. She was to go on +Monday, Miss Boyce said, before the trial began, and after--if they +brought him in guilty--they would let her say good-bye. She was always +thirsting to see him. But when she went, the prison surroundings +paralysed her. Both she and Hurd felt themselves caught in the wheels of +a great relentless machine, of which the workings filled them with a +voiceless terror. He talked to her spasmodically of the most incongruous +things--breaking out sometimes with a glittering eye into a string of +instances bearing on Westall's bullying and tyrannous ways. He told her +to return the books Miss Boyce had lent him, but when asked if he would +like to see Marcella he shrank and said no. Mr. Wharton was "doin' +capital" for him; but she wasn't to count on his getting off. And he +didn't know that he wanted to, neither. Once she took Willie to see him; +the child nearly died of the journey; and the father, "though any one +can see, miss, he's just sick for 'im," would not hear of his coming +again. Sometimes he would hardly kiss her at parting; he sat on his +chair, with his great head drooped forward over his red hands, lost in a +kind of animal lethargy. Westall's name always roused him. Hate still +survived. But it made _her_ life faint within her to talk of the +murdered man--wherein she showed her lack of the usual peasant's +realism and curiosity in the presence of facts of blood and violence. +When she was told it was time for her to go, and the heavy door was +locked behind her, the poor creature, terrified at the warder and the +bare prison silences, would hurry away as though the heavy hand of this +awful Justice were laid upon her too, torn by the thought of him she +left behind, and by the remembrance that he had only kissed her once, +and yet impelled by mere physical instinct towards the relief of Ann +Mullins's rough face waiting for her--of the outer air and the free +heaven. + +As for Willie, he was fast dwindling. Another week or two--the doctor +said--no more. He lay on Marcella's knee on a pillow, wasted to an +infant's weight, panting and staring with those strange blue eyes, but +always patient, always struggling to say his painful "thank you" when +she fed him with some of the fruit constantly sent her from Maxwell +Court. Everything that was said about his father he took in and +understood, but he did not seem to fret. His mother was almost divided +from him by this passivity of the dying; nor could she give him or his +state much attention. Her gentle, sensitive, but not profound nature was +strained already beyond bearing by more gnawing griefs. + +After her long sit in Mrs. Hurd's kitchen Marcella found the air of the +February evening tonic and delightful. Unconsciously impressions stole +upon her--the lengthening day, the celandines in the hedges, the +swelling lilac buds in the cottage gardens. They spoke to her youth, and +out of mere physical congruity it could not but respond. Still, her face +kept the angered look with which she had parted from Mrs. Jellison. +More than that--the last few weeks had visibly changed it, had graved +upon it the signs of "living." It was more beautiful than ever in its +significant black and white, but it was older--a _woman_ spoke from it. +Marcella had gone down into reality, and had found there the rebellion +and the storm for which such souls as hers are made. Rebellion most of +all. She had been living with the poor, in their stifling rooms, amid +their perpetual struggle for a little food and clothes and bodily ease; +she had seen this struggle, so hard in itself, combined with agonies of +soul and spirit, which made the physical destitution seem to the +spectator something brutally gratuitous, a piece of careless and +tyrannous cruelty on the part of Nature--or God? She would hardly let +herself think of Aldous--though she _must_ think of him by-and-by! He +and his fared sumptuously every hour! As for her, it was as though in +her woman's arms, on her woman's breast, she carried Lazarus all day, +stooping to him with a hungering pity. And Aldous stood aloof. Aldous +would not help her--or not with any help worth having--in consoling this +misery--binding up these sores. Her heart cried shame on him. She had a +crime against him to confess--but she felt herself his superior none the +less. If he cast her off--why then surely they would be quits, quits for +good and all. + +As she reached the front door of Mellor, she saw a little two-wheeled +cart standing outside it, and William holding the pony. + +Visitors were nowadays more common at Mellor than they had been, and +her instinct was to escape. But as she was turning to a side door +William touched his cap to her. + +"Mr. Wharton's waiting to see you, miss." + +She stopped sharply. + +"Where is Mrs. Boyce, William?" + +"In the drawing-room, miss." + +She walked in calmly. Wharton was standing on the rug, talking; Mrs. +Boyce was listening to what he had to say with the light repellent air +Marcella knew so well. + +When she came in Wharton stepped forward ceremoniously to shake hands, +then began to speak at once, with the manner of one who is on a business +errand and has no time to waste. + +"I thought it best, Miss Boyce, as I had unexpectedly a couple of spare +hours this evening, to come and let you know how things were going. You +understand that the case comes on at the assizes next Thursday?" + +Marcella assented. She had seated herself on the old sofa beside the +fire, her ungloved hands on her knee. Something in her aspect made +Wharton's eyes waver an instant as he looked down upon her--but it was +the only sign. + +"I should like to warn you," he said gravely, "that I entertain no hope +whatever of getting James Hurd off. I shall do my best, but the verdict +will certainly be murder; and the judge, I think, is sure to take a +severe view. We may get a recommendation to mercy, though I believe it +to be extremely unlikely. But if so, the influence of the judge, +according to what I hear, will probably be against us. The prosecution +have got together extremely strong evidence--as to Hurd's long +connection with the gang, in spite of the Raeburns' kindness--as to his +repeated threats that he would 'do for' Westall if he and his friends +were interrupted--and so on. His own story is wholly uncorroborated; and +Dynes's deposition, so far as it goes, is all against it." + +He went on to elaborate these points with great clearness of exposition +and at some length; then he paused. + +"This being so," he resumed, "the question is, what can be done? There +must be a petition. Amongst my own party I shall be, of course, able to +do something, but we must have men of all sides. Without some at least +of the leading Conservatives, we shall fare badly. In one word--do you +imagine that you can induce Mr. Raeburn and Lord Maxwell to sign?" + +Mrs. Boyce watched him keenly. Marcella sat in frozen paleness. + +"I will try," she said at last, with deliberation. + +"Then"--he took up his gloves--"there may be a chance for us. If you +cannot succeed, no one else can. But if Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn can +be secured, others will easily follow. Their names--especially under all +the circumstances--will carry a peculiar weight. I may say everything, +in the first instance--the weight, the first effect of the +petition--depends on them. Well, then, I leave it in your hands. No time +should be lost after the sentence. As to the grounds of our plea, I +shall, of course, lay them down in court to the best of my ability." + +"I shall be there," she interrupted. + +He started. So did Mrs. Boyce, but characteristically she made no +comment. + +"Well, then," he resumed after a pause, "I need say no more for the +present. How is the wife?" + +She replied, and a few other formal sentences of inquiry or comment +passed between them. + +"And your election?" said Mrs. Boyce, still studying him with hostile +eyes, as he got up to take leave. + +"To-morrow!" He threw up his hands with a little gesture of impatience. +"That at least will be one thread spun off and out of the way, whatever +happens. I must get back to Widrington as fast as my pony can carry me. +Good-bye, Miss Boyce." + +Marcella went slowly upstairs. The scene which had just passed was +unreal, impossible; yet every limb was quivering. Then the sound of the +front door shutting sent a shock through her whole nature. The first +sensation was one of horrible emptiness, forlornness. The next--her mind +threw itself with fresh vehemence upon the question, "Can I, by any +means, get my way with Aldous?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +"And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" The deep-pitched words fell +slowly on Marcella's ears, as she sat leaning forward in the gallery of +the Widrington Assize Court. Women were sobbing beside and behind her. +Minta Hurd, to her left, lay in a half-swoon against her sister-in-law, +her face buried in Ann's black shawl. For an instant after Hurd's death +sentence had been spoken Marcella's nerves ceased to throb--the long +exhaustion of feeling stopped. The harsh light and shade of the ill-lit +room; the gas-lamps in front of the judge, blanching the ranged faces of +the jury; the long table of reporters below, some writing, but most +looking intently towards the dock; the figure of Wharton opposite, in +his barrister's gown and wig--that face of his, so small, nervous, +delicate--the frowning eyebrows a dark bar under the white of the +wig--his look, alert and hostile, fixed upon the judge; the heads and +attitudes of the condemned men, especially the form of a fair-haired +youth, the principal murderer of Charlie Dynes, who stood a little in +front of the line, next to Hurd, and overshadowing his dwarf's +stature--these things Marcella saw indeed; for years after she could +have described them point by point; but for some seconds or minutes her +eyes stared at them without conscious reaction of the mind on the +immediate spectacle. + +In place of it, the whole day, all these hours that she had been sitting +there, brushed before her in a synthesis of thought, replacing the +stream of impressions and images. The crushing accumulation of hostile +evidence--witness after witness coming forward to add to the damning +weight of it; the awful weakness of the defence--Wharton's irritation +under it--the sharpness, the useless, acrid ability of his +cross-examinations; yet, contrasting with the legal failure, the +personal success, the mixture of grace with energy, the technical +accomplishment of the manner, as one wrestling before his +equals--nothing left here of the garrulous vigour and brutality of the +labourers' meeting!--the masterly use of all that could avail, the few +quiet words addressed at the end to the pity of the jury, and by +implication to the larger ethical sense of the community,--all this she +thought of with great intellectual clearness while the judge's sonorous +voice rolled along, sentencing each prisoner in turn. Horror and pity +were alike weary; the brain asserted itself. + +The court was packed. Aldous Raeburn sat on Marcella's right hand; and +during the day the attention of everybody in the dingy building had been +largely divided between the scene below, and that strange group in the +gallery where the man who had just been elected Conservative member for +East Brookshire, who was Lord Maxwell's heir, and Westall's employer, +sat beside his betrothed, in charge of a party which comprised not only +Marcella Boyce, but the wife, sister, and little girl of Westall's +murderer. + +On one occasion some blunt answer of a witness had provoked a laugh +coming no one knew whence. The judge turned to the gallery and looked up +sternly--"I cannot conceive why men and women--women especially--should +come crowding in to hear such a case as this; but if I hear another +laugh I shall clear the court." Marcella, whose whole conscious nature +was by now one network of sensitive nerve, saw Aldous flush and shrink +as the words were spoken. Then, looking across the court, she caught the +eye of an old friend of the Raeburns, a county magistrate. At the +judge's remark he had turned involuntarily to where she and Aldous sat; +then, as he met Miss Boyce's face, instantly looked away again. She +perfectly--passionately--understood that Brookshire was very sorry for +Aldous Raeburn that day. + +The death sentences--three in number--were over. The judge was a very +ordinary man; but, even for the ordinary man, such an act carries with +it a great tradition of what is befitting, which imposes itself on voice +and gesture. When he ceased, the deep breath of natural emotion could be +felt and heard throughout the crowded court; loud wails of sobbing women +broke from the gallery. + +"Silence!" cried an official voice, and the judge resumed, amid stifled +sounds that stabbed Marcella's sense, once more nakedly alive to +everything around it. + +The sentences to penal servitude came to an end also. Then a ghastly +pause. The line of prisoners directed by the warders turned right about +face towards a door in the back wall of the court. As the men filed +out, the tall, fair youth, one of those condemned to death, stopped an +instant and waved his hand to his sobbing sweetheart in the gallery. +Hurd also turned irresolutely. + +"Look!" exclaimed Ann Mullins, propping up the fainting woman beside +her, "he's goin'." + +Marcella bent forward. She, rather than the wife, caught the last look +on his large dwarf's face, so white and dazed, the eyes blinking under +the gas. + +Aldous touched her softly on the arm. + +"Yes," she said quickly, "yes, we must get her out. Ann, can you lift +her?" + +Aldous went to one side of the helpless woman: Ann Mullins held her on +the other. Marcella followed, pressing the little girl close against her +long black cloak. The gallery made way for them; every one looked and +whispered till they had passed. Below, at the foot of the stairs, they +found themselves in a passage crowded with people--lawyers, witnesses, +officials, mixed with the populace. Again a road was opened for Aldous +and his charges. + +"This way, Mr. Raeburn," said a policeman, with alacrity. "Stand back, +please! Is your carriage there, sir?" + +"Let Ann Mullins take her--put them into the cab--I want to speak to Mr. +Wharton," said Marcella in Aldous's ear. + +"Get me a cab at once," he said to the policeman, "and tell my carriage +to wait." + +"Miss Boyce!" + +Marcella turned hastily and saw Wharton beside her. Aldous also saw +him, and the two men interchanged a few words. + +"There is a private room close by," said Wharton, "I am to take you +there, and Mr. Raeburn will join us at once." + +He led her along a corridor, and opened a door to the left. They entered +a small dingy room, looking through a begrimed window on a courtyard. +The gas was lit, and the table was strewn with papers. + +"Never, never more beautiful!" flashed through Wharton's mind, "with +that knit, strenuous brow--that tragic scorn for a base world--that +royal gait--" + +Aloud he said: + +"I have done my best privately among the people I can get at, and I +thought, before I go up to town to-night--you know Parliament meets on +Monday?--I would show you what I had been able to do, and ask you to +take charge of a copy of the petition." He pointed to a long envelope +lying on the table. "I have drafted it myself--I think it puts all the +points we can possibly urge--but as to the names--" + +He took out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. + +"It won't do," he said, looking down at it, and shaking his head. "As I +said to you, it is so far political merely. There is a very strong +Liberal and Radical feeling getting up about the case. But that won't +carry us far. This petition with these names is a demonstration against +game preserving and keepers' tyranny. What we want is the co-operation +of a _neighbourhood_, especially of its leading citizens. However, I +explained all this to you--there is no need to discuss it. Will you look +at the list?" + +Still holding it, he ran his finger over it, commenting here and there. +She stood beside him; the sleeve of his gown brushed her black cloak; +and under his perfect composure there beat a wild exultation in his +power--without any apology, any forgiveness--to hold her there, alone +with him, listening--her proud head stooped to his--her eye following +his with this effort of anxious attention. + +She made a few hurried remarks on the names, but her knowledge of the +county was naturally not very serviceable. He folded up the paper and +put it back. + +"I think we understand," he said. "You will do what you can in the only +quarter"--he spoke slowly--"that can really aid, and you will +communicate with me at the House of Commons? I shall do what I can, of +course, when the moment comes, in Parliament, and meanwhile I shall +start the matter in the Press--our best hope. The Radical papers are +already taking it up." + +There was a sound of steps in the passage outside. A policeman opened +the door, and Aldous Raeburn entered. His quick look ran over the two +figures standing beside the table. + +"I had some difficulty in finding a cab," he explained, "and we had to +get some brandy; but she came round, and we got her off. I sent one of +our men with her. The carriage is here." + +He spoke--to Marcella--with some formality. He was very pale, but there +was both authority and tension in his bearing. + +"I have been consulting with Miss Boyce," said Wharton, with equal +distance of manner, "as to the petition we are sending up to the Home +Office." + +Aldous made no reply. + +"One word, Miss Boyce,"--Wharton quietly turned to her. "May I ask you +to read the petition carefully, before you attempt to do anything with +it? It lays stress on the _only_ doubt that can reasonably be felt after +the evidence, and after the judge's summing up. That particular doubt I +hold to be entirely untouched by the trial; but it requires careful +stating--the issues may easily be confused." + +"Will you come?" said Aldous to Marcella. What she chose to think the +forced patience of his tone exasperated her. + +"I will do everything I can," she said in a low, distinct voice to +Wharton. "Good-bye." + +She held out her hand. To both the moment was one of infinite meaning; +to her, in her high spiritual excitement, a sacrament of pardon and +gratitude--expressed once for all--by this touch--in Aldous Raeburn's +presence. + +The two men nodded to each other. Wharton was already busy, putting his +papers together. + +"We shall meet next week, I suppose, in the House?" said Wharton, +casually. "Good-night." + + * * * * * + +"Will you take me to the Court?" said Marcella to Aldous, directly the +door of the carriage was shut upon them, and, amid a gaping crowd that +almost filled the little market-place of Widrington, the horses moved +off. "I told mamma, that, if I did not come home, I should be with you, +and that I should ask you to send me back from the Court to-night." + +She still held the packet Wharton had given her in her hand. As though +for air, she had thrown back the black gauze veil she had worn all +through the trial, and, as they passed through the lights of the town, +Aldous could see in her face the signs--the plain, startling signs--of +the effect of these weeks upon her. Pale, exhausted, yet showing in +every movement the nervous excitement which was driving her on--his +heart sank as he looked at her--foreseeing what was to come. + +As soon as the main street had been left behind, he put his head out of +the window, and gave the coachman, who had been told to go to Mellor, +the new order. + +"Will you mind if I don't talk?" said Marcella, when he was again beside +her. "I think I am tired out, but I might rest now a little. When we get +to the Court, will you ask Miss Raeburn to let me have some food in her +sitting-room? Then, at nine o'clock or so, may I come down and see Lord +Maxwell and you--together?" + +What she said, and the manner in which she said it, could only add to +his uneasiness; but he assented, put a cushion behind her, wrapped the +rugs round her, and then sat silent, train after train of close and +anxious thought passing through his mind as they rolled along the dark +roads. + +When they arrived at Maxwell Court, the sound of the carriage brought +Lord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn at once into the hall. + +Aldous went forward in front of Marcella. "I have brought Marcella," he +said hastily to his aunt. "Will you take her upstairs to your +sitting-room, and let her have some food and rest? She is not fit for +the exertion of dinner, but she wishes to speak to my grandfather +afterwards." + +Lord Maxwell had already hurried to meet the black-veiled figure +standing proudly in the dim light of the outer hall. + +"My dear! my dear!" he said, drawing her arm within his, and patting her +hand in fatherly fashion. "How worn-out you look!--Yes, +certainly--Agneta, take her up and let her rest--And you wish to speak +to me afterwards? Of course, my dear, of course--at any time." + +Miss Raeburn, controlling herself absolutely, partly because of Aldous's +manner, partly because of the servants, took her guest upstairs +straightway, put her on the sofa in a cheerful sitting-room with a +bright fire, and then, shrewdly guessing that she herself could not +possibly be a congenial companion to the girl at such a moment, whatever +might have happened or might be going to happen, she looked at her +watch, said that she must go down to dinner, and promptly left her to +the charge of a kind elderly maid, who was to do and get for her +whatever she would. + +Marcella made herself swallow some food and wine. Then she said that she +wished to be alone and rest for an hour, and would come downstairs at +nine o'clock. The maid, shocked by her pallor, was loth to leave her, +but Marcella insisted. + +When she was left alone she drew herself up to the fire and tried hard +to get warm, as she had tried to eat. When in this way a portion of +physical ease and strength had come back to her, she took out the +petition from its envelope and read it carefully. As she did so her lip +relaxed, her eye recovered something of its brightness. All the points +that had occurred to her confusedly, amateurishly, throughout the day, +were here thrown into luminous and admirable form. She had listened to +them indeed, as urged by Wharton in his concluding speech to the jury, +but it had not, alas! seemed so marvellous to her then, as it did now, +that, _after_ such a plea, the judge should have summed up as he did. + +When she had finished it and had sat thinking awhile over the declining +fire, an idea struck her. She took a piece of paper from Miss Raeburn's +desk, and wrote on it: + +"Will you read this--and Lord Maxwell--before I come down? I forgot that +you had not seen it.--M." + +A ring at the bell brought the maid. + +"Will you please get this taken to Mr. Raeburn? And then, don't disturb +me again for half an hour." + +And for that time she lay in Miss Raeburn's favourite chair, outwardly +at rest. Inwardly she was ranging all her arguments, marshalling all her +forces. + +When the chiming clock in the great hall below struck nine, she got up +and put the lamp for a moment on the mantelpiece, which held a mirror. +She had already bathed her face and smoothed her hair. But she looked at +herself again with attention, drew down the thick front waves of hair a +little lower on the white brow, as she liked to have them, and once +more straightened the collar and cuffs which were the only relief to her +plain black dress. + +The house as she stepped out into it seemed very still. Perfumed breaths +of flowers and pot-pourri ascended from the hall. The pictures along the +walls as she passed were those same Caroline and early Georgian beauties +that had so flashingly suggested her own future rule in this domain on +the day when Aldous proposed to her. + +She felt suddenly very shrinking and lonely as she went downstairs. The +ticking of a large clock somewhere--the short, screaming note of Miss +Raeburn's parrot in one of the ground-floor rooms--these sounds and the +beating of her own heart seemed to have the vast house to themselves. + +No!--that was a door opening--Aldous coming to fetch her. She drew a +childish breath of comfort. + +He sprang up the stairs, two or three steps at a time, as he saw her +coming. + +"Are you rested--were they good to you? Oh! my precious one!--how pale +you are still! Will you come and see my--grandfather now? He is quite +ready." + +She let him lead her in. Lord Maxwell was standing by his writing-table, +leaning over the petition which was open before him--one hand upon it. +At sight of her he lifted his white head. His fine aquiline face was +grave and disturbed. But nothing could have been kinder or more courtly +than his manner as he came towards her. + +"Sit down in that chair. Aldous, make her comfortable. Poor child, how +tired she looks! I hear you wished to speak to me on this most unhappy, +most miserable business." + +Marcella, who was sitting erect on the edge of the chair into which +Aldous had put her, lifted her eyes with a sudden confidence. She had +always liked Lord Maxwell. + +"Yes," she said, struggling to keep down eagerness and emotion. "Yes, I +came to bring you this petition, which is to be sent up to the Home +Secretary on behalf of Jim Hurd, and--and--to _beg_ of you and Aldous to +sign it, if in any way you can. I know it will be difficult, but I +thought I might--I might be able to suggest something to you--to +convince you--as I have known these people so well--and it is very +important to have your signatures." + +How crude it sounded--how mechanical! She felt that she had not yet +command of herself. The strange place, the stately room, the +consciousness of Aldous behind her--Aldous, who should have been on her +side and was not--all combined to intimidate her. + +Lord Maxwell's concern was evident. In the first place, he was +painfully, unexpectedly struck by the change in the speaker. Why, what +had Aldous been about? So thin! so frail and willowy in her black +dress--monstrous! + +"My dear," he said, walking up to her and laying a fatherly hand on her +shoulder, "my dear, I wish I could make you understand how gladly I +would do this, or anything else, for you, if I honourably could. I would +do it for your sake and for your grandfather's sake. But--this is a +matter of conscience, of public duty, both for Aldous and myself. You +will not surely _wish_ even, that we should be governed in our relations +to it by any private feeling or motive?" + +"No, but I have had no opportunity of speaking to you about it--and I +take such a different view from Aldous. He knows--everybody must +know--that there is another side, another possible view from that which +the judge took. You weren't in court to-day, were you, at all?" + +"No. But I read all the evidence before the magistrates with great care, +and I have just talked over the crucial points with Aldous, who followed +everything to-day, as you know, and seems to have taken special note of +Mr. Wharton's speeches." + +"Aldous!"--her voice broke irrepressibly into another note--"I thought +he would have let me speak to you first!--to-night!" + +Lord Maxwell, looking quickly at his grandson, was very sorry for him. +Aldous bent over her chair. + +"You remember," he said, "you sent down the petition. I thought that +meant that we were to read and discuss it. I am very sorry." + +She tried to command herself, pressing her hand to her brow. But already +she felt the irrevocable, and anger and despair were rising. + +"The whole point lies in this," she said, looking up: "_Can_ we believe +Hurd's own story? There is no evidence to corroborate it. I grant +that--the judge did not believe it--and there is the evidence of hatred. +But is it not possible and conceivable all the same? He says that he did +not go out with any thought whatever of killing Westall, but that when +Westall came upon him with his stick up, threatening and abusing him, +as he had done often before, in a fit of wild rage he shot at him. +Surely, _surely_ that is conceivable? There _is_--there _must_ be a +doubt; or, if it is murder, murder done in that way is quite, quite +different from other kinds and degrees of murder." + +Now she possessed herself. The gift of flowing persuasive speech which +was naturally hers, which the agitations, the debates of these weeks had +been maturing, came to her call. She leant forward and took up the +petition. One by one she went through its pleas, adding to them here and +there from her own knowledge of Hurd and his peasant's life--presenting +it all clearly, with great intellectual force, but in an atmosphere of +emotion, of high pity, charged throughout with the "tears of things." To +her, gradually, unconsciously, the whole matter--so sordid, commonplace, +brutal in Lord Maxwell's eyes!--had become a tragic poem, a thing of +fear and pity, to which her whole being vibrated. And as she conceived +it, so she reproduced it. Wharton's points were there indeed, but so +were Hurd's poverty, Hurd's deformity, Hurd as the boyish victim of a +tyrant's insults, the miserable wife, the branded children--emphasised, +all of them, by the occasional quiver, quickly steadied again, of the +girl's voice. + +Lord Maxwell sat by his writing-table, his head resting on his hand, one +knee crossed over the other. Aldous still hung over her chair. Neither +interrupted her. Once the eyes of the two men met over her head--a +distressed, significant look. Aldous heard all she said, but what +absorbed him mainly was the wild desire to kiss the dark hair, so close +below him, alternating with the miserable certainty that for him at that +moment to touch, to soothe her, was to be repulsed. + +When her voice broke--when she had said all she could think of--she +remained looking imploringly at Lord Maxwell. + +He was silent a little; then he stooped forward and took her hand. + +"You have spoken," he said with great feeling, "most nobly--most +well--like a good woman, with a true compassionate heart. But all these +things you have said are not new to me, my dear child. Aldous warned me +of this petition--he has pressed upon me, still more I am sure upon +himself, all that he conceived to be your view of the case--the view of +those who are now moving in the matter. But with the best will in the +world I cannot, and I believe that he cannot--though he must speak for +himself--I cannot take that view. In my belief Hurd's act was murder, +and deserves the penalty of murder. I have paid some attention to these +things. I was a practising barrister in my youth, and later I was for +two years Home Secretary. I will explain to you my grounds very +shortly." + +And, bending forward, he gave the reasons for his judgment of the case +as carefully and as lucidly as though he were stating them to a +fellow-expert, and not to an agitated girl of twenty-one. Both in words +and manner there was an implied tribute, not only to Marcella, but +perhaps to that altered position of the woman in our moving world which +affects so many things and persons in unexpected ways. + +Marcella listened, restlessly. She had drawn her hand away, and was +twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. The flush that had sprung +up while she was talking had died away. She grew whiter and whiter. When +Lord Maxwell ceased, she said quickly, and as he thought unreasonably-- + +"So you will not sign?" + +"No," he replied firmly, "I cannot sign. Holding the conviction about +the matter I do, I should be giving my name to statements I do not +believe; and in order to give myself the pleasure of pleasing you, and +of indulging the pity that every man must feel for every murderer's wife +and children, I should be not only committing a public wrong, but I +should be doing what I could to lessen the safety and security of one +whole class of my servants--men who give me honourable service--and two +of whom have been so cruelly, so wantonly hurried before their Maker!" + +His voice gave the first sign of his own deep and painful feeling on the +matter. Marcella shivered. + +"Then," she said slowly, "Hurd will be executed." + +Lord Maxwell had a movement of impatience. + +"Let me tell you," he said, "that that does not follow at all. There is +_some_ importance in signatures--or rather in the local movement that +the signatures imply. It enables a case to be reopened, which, in any +event, this case is sure to be. But any Home Secretary who could decide +a murder case on any other grounds whatever than those of law and his +own conscience would not deserve his place a day--an hour! Believe me, +you mistake the whole situation." + +He spoke slowly, with the sharp emphasis natural to his age and +authority. Marcella did not believe him. Every nerve was beginning to +throb anew with that passionate recoil against tyranny and prejudice, +which was in itself an agony. + +"And you say the same?" she said, turning to Aldous. + +"I cannot sign that petition," he said sadly. "Won't you try and believe +what it costs me to refuse?" + +It was a heavy blow to her. Amply as she had been prepared for it, there +had always been at the bottom of her mind a persuasion that in the end +she would get her way. She had been used to feel barriers go down before +that ultimate power of personality of which she was abundantly +conscious. Yet it had not availed her here--not even with the man who +loved her. + +Lord Maxwell looked at the two--the man's face of suffering, the girl's +struggling breath. + +"There, there, Aldous!" he said, rising. "I will leave you a minute. Do +make Marcella rest--get her, for all our sakes, to forget this a little. +Bring her in presently to us for some coffee. Above all, persuade her +that we love her and admire her with all our hearts, but that in a +matter of this kind she must leave us to do--as before God!--what we +think right." + +He stood before her an instant, gazing down upon her with dignity--nay, +a certain severity. Then he turned away and left the room. + +Marcella sprang up. + +"Will you order the carriage?" she said in a strangled voice. "I will go +upstairs." + +"Marcella!" cried Aldous; "can you not be just to me, if it is +impossible for you to be generous?" + +"Just!" she repeated, with a tone and gesture of repulsion, pushing him +back from her. "_You_ can talk of justice!" + +He tried to speak, stammered, and failed. That strange paralysis of the +will-forces which dogs the man of reflection at the moment when he must +either take his world by storm or lose it was upon him now. He had never +loved her more passionately--but as he stood there looking at her, +something broke within him, the first prescience of the inevitable +dawned. + +"_You_," she said again, walking stormily to and fro, and catching at +her breath--"_You_, in this house, with this life--to talk of +justice--the justice that comes of slaying a man like Hurd! And I must +go back to that cottage, to that woman, and tell her there is _no_ +hope--none! Because _you_ must follow your conscience--you who have +everything! Oh! I would not have your conscience--I wish you a +heart--rather! Don't come to me, please! Oh! I must think how it can be. +Things cannot go on so. I should kill myself, and make you miserable. +But now I must go to _her_--to the _poor_--to those whom I _love_, whom +I carry in my heart!" + +She broke off sobbing. He saw her, in her wild excitement, look round +the splendid room as though she would wither it to ruin with one fiery, +accusing glance. + +"You are very scornful of wealth," he said, catching her wrists, "but +one thing you have no right to scorn!--the man who has given you his +inmost heart--and now only asks you to believe in this, that he is not +the cruel hypocrite you are determined to make him!" + +His face quivered in every feature. She was checked a moment--checked by +the moral compulsion of his tone and manner, as well as by his words. +But again she tore herself away. + +"_Please_ go and order the carriage," she said. "I cannot bear any more. +I _must_ go home and rest. Some day I will ask your pardon--oh! for +this--and--and--" she was almost choked again--"other things. But now I +must go away. There is some one who will help me. I must not forget +that!" + +The reckless words, the inflection, turned Aldous to stone. +Unconsciously he drew himself proudly erect--their eyes met. Then he +went up to the bell and rang it. + +"The brougham at once, for Miss Boyce. Will you have a maid to go with +you?" he asked, motioning the servant to stay till Miss Boyce had given +her answer. + +"No, thank you. I must go and put on my things. Will you explain to Miss +Raeburn?" + +The footman opened the door for her. She went. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +"But this is unbearable!" said Aldous. "Do you mean to say that she is +at home and that she will not see me?" + +Mrs. Boyce's self-possession was shaken for once by the flushed +humiliation of the man before her. + +"I am afraid it is so," she said hurriedly. "I remonstrated with +Marcella, but I could do nothing. I think, if you are wise, you will not +for the present attempt to see her." + +Aldous sat down, with his hat in his hand, staring at the floor. After a +few moments' silence he looked up again. + +"And she gave you no message for me?" + +"No," said Mrs. Boyce, reluctantly. "Only that she could not bear to see +anybody from the Court, even you, while this matter was still +undecided." + +Aldous's eye travelled round the Mellor drawing-room. It was arrested by +a chair beside him. On it lay an envelope addressed to Miss Boyce, of +which the handwriting seemed to him familiar. A needle with some black +silk hanging from it had been thrust into the stuffed arm of the chair; +the cushion at the back still bore the imprint of the sitter. She had +been there, not three minutes ago, and had fled before him. The door +into Mrs. Boyce's sitting-room was still ajar. + +He looked again at the envelope on the chair, and recognised the +writing. Walking across to where Mrs. Boyce sat, he took a seat beside +her. + +"Will you tell me," he said steadily--"I think you will admit I have a +right to know--is Marcella in constant correspondence now with Henry +Wharton?" + +Mrs. Boyce's start was not perceptible. + +"I believe so," she quickly replied. "So far as I can judge, he writes +to her almost every other day." + +"Does she show you his letters?" + +"Very often. They are entirely concerned with his daily interviews and +efforts on Hurd's behalf." + +"Would you not say," he asked, after another pause, raising his clear +grey eyes to her, "that since his arrival here in December Marcella's +whole views and thoughts have been largely--perhaps vitally--influenced +by this man?" + +Mrs. Boyce had long expected questions of this kind--had, indeed, often +marvelled and cavilled that Aldous had not asked them weeks before. Now +that they were put to her she was, first of all, anxious to treat them +with common sense, and as much plain truth as might be fair to both +parties. The perpetual emotion in which Marcella lived tired and +oppressed the mother. For herself she asked to see things in a dry +light. Yet she knew well that the moment was critical. Her feeling was +more mixed than it had been. On the whole it was indignantly on Aldous's +side--with qualifications and impatiences, however. + +She took up her embroidery again before she answered him. In her +opinion the needle is to the woman what the cigarette is to the +diplomatist. + +"Yes, certainly," she said at last. "He has done a great deal to form +her opinions. He has made her both read and think on all those subjects +she has so long been fond of talking about." + +She saw Aldous wince; but she had her reasons for being plain with him. + +"Has there been nothing else than that in it?" said Aldous, in an odd +voice. + +Mrs. Boyce tried no evasions. She looked at him straight, her slight, +energetic head, with its pale gold hair lit up by the March sun behind +her. + +"I do not know," she said calmly; "that is the real truth. I _think_ +there is nothing else. But let me tell you what more I think." + +Aldous laid his hand on hers for an instant. In his pity and liking for +her he had once or twice allowed himself this quasi-filial freedom. + +"If you would," he entreated. + +"Leave Marcella quite alone--for the present. She is not herself--not +normal, in any way. Nor will she be till this dreadful thing is over. +But when it is over, and she has had time to recover a little, +_then_"--her thin voice expressed all the emphasis it could--"_then_ +assert yourself! Ask her that question you have asked me--and get your +answer." + +He understood. Her advice to him, and the tone of it, implied that she +had not always thought highly of his powers of self-defence in the past. +But there was a proud and sensitive instinct in him which both told him +that he could not have done differently and forbade him to explain. + +"You have come from London to-day?" said Mrs. Boyce, changing the +subject. All intimate and personal conversation was distasteful to her, +and she admitted few responsibilities. Her daughter hardly counted among +them. + +"Yes; London is hard at work cabinet-making," he said, trying to smile. +"I must get back to-night." + +"I don't know how you could be spared," said Mrs. Boyce. + +He paused; then he broke out: "When a man is in the doubt and trouble I +am, he must be spared. Indeed, since the night of the trial, I feel as +though I had been of very little use to any human being." + +He spoke simply, but every word touched her. What an inconceivable +entanglement the whole thing was! Yet she was no longer merely +contemptuous of it. + +"Look!" she said, lifting a bit of black stuff from the ground beside +the chair which held the envelope; "she is already making the mourning +for the children. I can see she despairs." + +He made a sound of horror. + +"Can you do nothing?" he cried reproachfully. "To think of her dwelling +upon this--nothing but this, day and night--and I, banished and +powerless!" + +He buried his head in his hands. + +"No, I can do nothing," said Mrs. Boyce, deliberately. Then, after a +pause, "You do not imagine there is any chance of success for her?" + +He looked up and shook his head. + +"The Radical papers are full of it, as you know. Wharton is managing it +with great ability, and has got some good supporters in the House. But I +happened to see the judge the day before yesterday, and I certainly +gathered from him that the Home Office was likely to stand firm. There +may be some delay. The new ministry will not kiss hands till Saturday. +But no doubt it will be the first business of the new Home +Secretary.--By the way, I had rather Marcella did not hear of my seeing +Judge Cartwright," he added hastily--almost imploringly. "I could not +bear that she should suppose--" + +Mrs. Boyce thought to herself indignantly that she never could have +imagined such a man in such a plight. + +"I must go," he said, rising. "Will you tell her from me," he added +slowly, "that I could never have believed she would be so unkind as to +let me come down from London to see her, and send me away empty--without +a word?" + +"Leave it to my discretion," said Mrs. Boyce, smiling and looking up. +"Oh, by the way, she told me to thank you. Mr. Wharton, in his letter +this morning, mentioned that you had given him two introductions which +were important to him. She specially wished you to be thanked for it." + +His exclamation had a note of impatient contempt that Mrs. Boyce was +genuinely glad to hear. In her opinion he was much too apt to forget +that the world yields itself only to the "violent." + +He walked away from the house without once looking back. Marcella, from, +her window, watched him go. + +"How _could_ she see him?" she asked herself passionately, both then +and on many other occasions during these rushing, ghastly days. His turn +would come, and it should be amply given him. But _now_ the very thought +of that half-hour in Lord Maxwell's library threw her into wild tears. +The time for entreaty--for argument--was gone by, so far as he was +concerned. He might have been her champion, and would not. She threw +herself recklessly, madly into the encouragement and support of the man +who had taken up the task which, in her eyes, should have been her +lover's. It had become to her a _fight_--with society, with the law, +with Aldous--in which her whole nature was absorbed. In the course of +the fight she had realised Aldous's strength, and it was a bitter +offence to her. + +How little she could do after all! She gathered together all the +newspapers that were debating the case, and feverishly read every line; +she wrote to Wharton, commenting on what she read, and on his letters; +she attended the meetings of the Reprieve Committee which had been +started at Widrington; and she passed hours of every day with Minta Hurd +and her children. She would hardly speak to Mary Harden and the rector, +because they had not signed the petition, and at home her relations with +her father were much strained. Mr. Boyce was awakening to a good deal of +alarm as to how things might end. He might not like the Raeburns, but +that anything should come in the way of his daughter's match was, +notwithstanding, the very last thing in the world, as he soon +discovered, that he really desired. During six months he had taken it +for granted; so had the county. He, of all men, could not afford to be +made ridiculous, apart from the solid, the extraordinary advantages of +the matter. He thought Marcella a foolish, unreasonable girl, and was +not the less in a panic because his wife let him understand that he had +had a good deal to do with it. So that between him and his daughter +there were now constant sparrings--sparrings which degraded Marcella in +her own eyes, and contributed not a little to make her keep away from +home. + +The one place where she breathed freely, where the soul had full course, +was in Minta Hurd's kitchen. Side by side with that piteous plaintive +misery, her own fierceness dwindled. She would sit with little Willie on +her knees in the dusk of the spring evenings, looking into the fire, and +crying silently. She never suspected that her presence was often a +burden and constraint, not only to the sulky sister-in-law but to the +wife herself. While Miss Boyce was there the village kept away; and Mrs. +Hurd was sometimes athirst, without knowing it, for homelier speech and +simpler consolations than any Marcella could give her. + +The last week arrived. Wharton's letters grew more uncertain and +despondent; the Radical press fought on with added heat as the cause +became more desperate. On Monday the wife went to see the condemned man, +who told her not to be so silly as to imagine there was any hope. +Tuesday night, Wharton asked his last question in Parliament. Friday was +the day fixed for the execution. + +The question in Parliament came on late. The Home Secretary's answer, +though not final in form, was final in substance. Wharton went out +immediately and wrote to Marcella. "She will not sleep if I telegraph +to-night," he thought, with that instinct for detail, especially for +physical detail, which had in it something of the woman. But, knowing +that his letter could not reach her by the early post with the stroke of +eight next morning, he sent out his telegram, that she might not learn +the news first from the papers. + +Marcella had wandered out before breakfast, feeling the house an +oppression, and knowing that, one way or another, the last news might +reach her any hour. + +She had just passed through the little wood behind and alongside of the +house, and was in a field beyond, when she heard some one running behind +her. William handed her the telegram, his own red face full of +understanding. Marcella took it, commanded herself till the boy was out +of sight and hearing again, then sank down on the grass to read it. + +"All over. The Home Secretary's official refusal to interfere with +sentence sent to Widrington to-day. Accept my sorrow and sympathy." + +She crushed it in her hand, raising her head mechanically. Before her +lay that same shallow cup of ploughed land stretching from her father's +big wood to the downs, on the edge of which Hurd had plied his ferrets +in the winter nights. But to-day the spring worked in it, and breathed +upon it. The young corn was already green in the furrows; the +hazel-catkins quivered in the hedge above her; larks were in the air, +daisies in the grass, and the march of sunny clouds could be seen in the +flying shadows they flung on the pale greens and sheeny purples of the +wide treeless basin. + +Human helplessness, human agony--set against the careless joy of +nature--there is no new way of feeling these things. But not to have +felt them, and with the mad, impotent passion and outcry which filled +Marcella's heart at this moment, is never to have risen to the full +stature of our kind. + + * * * * * + +"Marcella, it is my strong wish--my command--that you do _not_ go out to +the village to-night." + +"I must go, papa." + +It was Thursday night--the night before the Friday morning fixed for +Hurd's execution. Dinner at Mellor was just over. Mr. Boyce, who was +standing in front of the fire, unconsciously making the most of his own +inadequate height and size, looked angrily at his stately daughter. She +had not appeared at dinner, and she was now dressed in the long black +cloak and black hat she had worn so constantly in the last few weeks. +Mr. Boyce detested the garb. + +"You are making yourself _ridiculous_, Marcella. Pity for these wretched +people is all very well, but you have no business to carry it to such a +point that you--and we--become the talk, the laughing-stock of the +county. And I should like to see you, too, pay some attention to Aldous +Raeburn's feelings and wishes." + +The admonition, in her father's mouth, would almost have made her laugh, +if she could have laughed at anything. But, instead, she only repeated: + +"I must go, I have explained to mamma." + +"Evelyn! why do you permit it?" cried Mr. Boyce, turning aggressively to +his wife. + +"Marcella explained to me, as she truly said," replied Mrs. Boyce, +looking up calmly. "It is not her habit to ask permission of any one." + +"Mamma," exclaimed the girl, in her deep voice, "you would not wish to +stop me?" + +"No," said Mrs. Boyce, after a pause, "no. You have gone so far, I +understand your wish to do this. Richard,"--she got up and went to +him,--"don't excite yourself about it; shall I read to you, or play a +game with you?" + +He looked at her, trembling with anger. But her quiet eye warned him +that he had had threatenings of pain that afternoon. His anger sank into +fear. He became once more irritable and abject. + +"Let her gang her gait," he said, throwing himself into a chair. "But I +tell you I shall not put up with this kind of thing much longer, +Marcella." + +"I shall not ask you, papa," she said steadily, as she moved towards the +door. Mrs. Boyce paused where she stood, and looked after her daughter, +struck by her words. Mr. Boyce simply took them as referring to the +marriage which would emancipate her before long from any control of his, +and fumed, without finding a reply. + +The maid-servant who, by Mrs. Boyce's orders, was to accompany Marcella +to the village, was already at the front door. She carried a basket +containing invalid food for little Willie, and a lighted lantern. + +It was a dark night and raining fast. Marcella was fastening up her +tweed skirt in the hall, when she saw Mrs. Boyce hurry along the gallery +above, and immediately afterwards her mother came across the hall to +her. + +"You had better take the shawl, Marcella: it is cold and raw. If you are +going to sit up most of the night you will want it." + +She put a wrap of her own across Marcella's arm. + +"Your father is quite right," she went on. "You have had one horrible +experience to-day already--" + +"Don't, mamma!" exclaimed Marcella, interrupting her. Then suddenly she +threw her arms round her mother. + +"Kiss me, mamma! please kiss me!" + +Mrs. Boyce kissed her gravely, and let herself even linger a moment in +the girl's strong hold. + +"You are extraordinarily wilful," she said. "And it is so strange to me +that you think you do any good. Are you sure even that she wants to have +you?" + +Marcella's lip quivered. She could not speak, apparently. Waving her +hand to her mother, she joined the maid waiting for her, and the two +disappeared into the blackness. + +"But _does_ it do any good?" Mrs. Boyce repeated to herself as she went +back to the drawing-room. "_Sympathy!_ who was ever yet fed, warmed, +comforted by _sympathy_? Marcella robs that woman of the only thing that +the human being should want at such a moment--solitude. Why should we +force on the poor what to us would be an outrage?" + +Meanwhile Marcella battled through the wind and rain, thankful that the +warm spring burst was over, and that the skies no longer mocked this +horror which was beneath them. + +At the entrance to the village she stopped, and took the basket from the +little maid. + +"Now, Ruth, you can go home. Run quick, it is so dark, Ruth!" + +"Yes, miss." + +The young country girl trembled. Miss Boyce's tragic passion in this +matter had to some extent infected the whole household in which she +lived. + +"Ruth, when you say your prayers to-night, pray God to comfort the +poor,--and to punish the cruel!" + +"Yes, miss," said the girl, timidly, and ready to cry. The lantern she +held flashed its light on Miss Boyce's white face and tall form. Till +her mistress turned away she did not dare to move; that dark eye, so +wide, full, and living, roused in her a kind of terror. + +On the steps of the cottage Marcella paused. She heard voices inside--or +rather the rector's voice reading. + +A thought of scorn rose in her heart. "How long will the poor endure +this religion--this make-believe--which preaches patience, _patience_! +when it ought to be urging war?" + +But she went in softly, so as not to interrupt. The rector looked up and +made a grave sign of the head as she entered; her own gesture forbade +any other movement in the group; she took a stool beside Willie, whose +makeshift bed of chairs and pillows stood on one side of the fire; and +the reading went on. + +Since Minta Hurd had returned with Marcella from Widrington Gaol that +afternoon, she had been so ill that a doctor had been sent for. He had +bade them make up her bed downstairs in the warm; and accordingly a +mattress had been laid on the settle, and she was now stretched upon it. +Her huddled form, the staring whiteness of the narrow face and closed +eyelids, thrown out against the dark oak of the settle, and the +disordered mass of grizzled hair, made the centre of the cottage. + +Beside her on the floor sat Mary Harden, her head bowed over the rough +hand she held, her eyes red with weeping. Fronting them, beside a little +table, which held a small paraffin lamp, sat the young rector, his +Testament in his hand, his slight boy's figure cast in sharp shadow on +the cottage wall. He had placed himself so as to screen the crude light +of the lamp from the wife's eyes; and an old skirt had been hung over a +chair to keep it from little Willie. Between mother and child sat Ann +Mullins, rocking herself to and fro over the fire, and groaning from +time to time--a shapeless sullen creature, brutalised by many children +and much poverty--of whom Marcella was often impatient. + +"_And he said, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom. And +He said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me +in Paradise."_ + +The rector's voice, in its awed monotony, dwelt insistently on each +word, then paused. "_To-day_," whispered Mary, caressing Minta's hand, +while the tears streamed down her cheeks; "he repented, Minta, and the +Lord took him to Himself--at once--forgiving all his sins." + +Mrs. Hurd gave no sign, but the dark figure on the other side of the +cottage made an involuntary movement, which threw down a fire-iron, and +sent a start through Willie's wasted body. The reader resumed; but +perfect spontaneity was somehow lost both for him and for Mary. +Marcella's stormy presence worked in them both, like a troubling leaven. + +Nevertheless, the priest went steadily through his duty, dwelling on +every pang of the Passion, putting together every sacred and sublime +word. For centuries on centuries his brethren and forerunners had held +up the Man of Sorrows before the anguished and the dying; his turn had +come, his moment and place in the marvellous never-ending task; he +accepted it with the meek ardour of an undoubting faith. + +"_And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they +beheld the things that were done, returned, smiting their breasts_." + +He closed the book, and bent forward, so as to bring his voice close to +the wife's ear. + +"So He died--the Sinless and the Just--for you, for your husband. He has +passed through death--through cruel death; and where He has gone, we +poor, weak, stained sinners can follow,--holding to Him. No sin, however +black, can divide us from Him, can tear us from His hand in the dark +waters, if it be only repented,--thrown upon His Cross. Let us pray for +your husband, let us implore the Lord's mercy this night--this +hour!--upon his soul." + +A shudder of remembrance passed through Marcella. The rector knelt; Mrs. +Hurd lay motionless, save for deep gasps of struggling breath at +intervals; Ann Mullins sobbed loudly; and Mary Harden wept as she +prayed, lost in a mystical vision of the Lord Himself among them--there +on the cottage floor--stretching hands of pity over the woman beside +her, showing His marred side and brow. + +Marcella alone sat erect, her whole being one passionate protest against +a faith which could thus heap all the crimes and responsibilities of +this too real earth on the shadowy head of one far-off Redeemer. "This +very man who prays," she thought, "is in some sort an accomplice of +those who, after tempting, are now destroying, and killing, because they +know of nothing better to do with the life they themselves have made +outcast." + +And she hardened her heart. + +When the spoken prayer was over, Mr. Harden still knelt on silently for +some minutes. So did Mary. In the midst of the hush, Marcella saw the +boy's eyes unclose. He looked with a sort of remote wonder at his mother +and the figures beside her. Then suddenly the gaze became eager, +concrete; he sought for something. Her eye followed his, and she +perceived in the shadow beside him, on a broken chair placed behind the +rough screen which had been made for him, the four tiny animals of +pinched paper Wharton had once fashioned. She stooped noiselessly and +moved the chair a little forward that he might see them better. The +child with difficulty turned his wasted head, and lay with his skeleton +hand under his cheek, staring at his treasures--his little, all--with +just a gleam, a faint gleam, of that same exquisite content which had +fascinated Wharton. Then, for the first time that day, Marcella could +have wept. + +At last the rector and his sister rose. + +"God be with you, Mrs. Hurd," said Mr. Harden, stooping to her; "God +support you!" + +His voice trembled. Mrs. Hurd in bewilderment looked up. + +"Oh, Mr. Harden!" she cried with a sudden wail. "Mr. Harden!" + +Mary bent over her with tears, trying to still her, speaking again with +quivering lips of "the dear Lord, the Saviour." + +The rector turned to Marcella. + +"You are staying the night with her?" he asked, under his breath. + +"Yes. Mrs. Mullins was up all last night. I offered to come to-night." + +"You went with her to the prison to-day, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you see Hurd?" + +"For a very few minutes." + +"Did you hear anything of his state of mind?" he asked anxiously. "Is he +penitent?" + +"He talked to me of Willie," she said--a fierce humanness in her +unfriendly eyes. "I promised him that when the child died, he should be +buried respectably--not by the parish. And I told him I would always +look after the little girls." + +The rector sighed. He moved away. Then unexpectedly he came back again. + +"I must say it to you," he said firmly, but still so low as not to be +heard by any one else in the cottage. "You are taking a great +responsibility here to-night. Let me implore you not to fill that poor +woman with thoughts of bitterness and revenge at such a moment of her +life. That _you_ feel bitterly, I know. Mary has explained to me--but +ask yourself, I beg of you!--how is _she_ to be helped through her +misery, either now or in the future, except by patience and submission +to the will of God?" + +He had never made so long a speech to this formidable parishioner of +his, and his young cheek glowed with the effort. + +"You must leave me to do what I think best," said Marcella, coldly. She +felt herself wholly set free from that sort of moral compulsion which +his holiness of mind and character had once exerted upon her. That +hateful opinion of his, which Mary had reported, had broken the spell +once for all. + +Mary did not venture to kiss her friend. They all went. Ann Mulling, who +was dropping as much with sleep as grief, shuffled off last. When she +was going, Mrs. Hurd seemed to rouse a little, and held her by the +skirt, saying incoherent things. + +"Dear Mrs. Hurd," said Marcella, kneeling down beside her, "won't you +let Ann go? I am going to spend the night here, and take care of you and +Willie." + +Mrs. Hurd gave a painful start. + +"You're very good, miss," she said half-consciously, "very good, I'm +sure. But she's his own flesh and blood is Ann--his own flesh and blood. +Ann!" + +The two women clung together, the rough, ill-tempered sister-in-law +muttering what soothing she could think of. When she was gone, Minta +Hurd turned her face to the back of the settle and moaned, her hands +clenched under her breast. + +Marcella went about her preparations for the night. "She is extremely +weak," Dr. Clarke had said; "the heart in such a state she may die of +syncope on very small provocation. If she is to spend the night in +crying and exciting herself, it will go hard with her. Get her to sleep +if you possibly can." + +And he had left a sleeping draught. Marcella resolved that she would +persuade her to take it. "But I will wake her before eight o'clock," she +thought. "No human being has the right to rob her of herself through +that last hour." + +And tenderly she coaxed Minta to take the doctor's "medicine." Minta +swallowed it submissively, asking no questions. But the act of taking it +roused her for the time, and she would talk. She even got up and +tottered across to Willie. + +"Willie!--Willie!--Oh! look, miss, he's got his animals--he don't think +of nothing else. Oh, Willie! won't you think of your father?--you'll +never have a father, Willie, not after to-night!" + +The boy was startled by her appearance there beside him--his haggard, +dishevelled mother, with the dews of perspiration standing on the face, +and her black dress thrown open at the throat and breast for air. He +looked at her, and a little frown lined the white brow. But he did not +speak. Marcella thought he was too weak to speak, and for an instant it +struck her with a thrill of girlish fear that he was dying then and +there--that night--that hour. But when she had half helped, half forced +Mrs. Hurd back to bed again, and had returned to him, his eyelids had +fallen, he seemed asleep. The fast, whistling breath was much the same +as it had been for days; she reassured herself. + +And at last the wife slept too. The narcotic seized her. The aching +limbs relaxed, and all was still. Marcella, stooping over her, kissed +the shoulder of her dress for very joy, so grateful to every sense of +the watcher was the sudden lull in the long activity of anguish. + +Then she sat down in the rocking chair by the fire, yielding herself +with a momentary relief to the night and the silence. The tall clock +showed that it was not yet ten. She had brought a book with her, and she +drew it upon her knee; but it lay unopened. + +A fretting, gusty wind beat against the window, with occasional rushes +of rain. Marcella shivered, though she had built up the fire, and put on +her cloak. + +A few distant sounds from the village street round the corner, the +chiming of the church clock, the crackling of the fire close beside +her--she heard everything there was to hear, with unusual sharpness of +ear, and imagined more. + +All at once restlessness, or some undefined impression, made her look +round her. She saw that the scanty baize curtain was only half-drawn +across one of the windows, and she got up to close it. Fresh from the +light of the lamp, she stared through the panes into the night without +at first seeing anything. Then there flashed out upon the dark the door +of a public-house to the right, the last in the village road. A man came +out stumbling and reeling; the light within streamed out an instant on +the road and the common; then the pursuing rain and darkness fell upon +him. + +She was drawing back when, with sudden horror, she perceived something +else close beside her, pressing against the window. A woman's face!--the +powerful black and white of it--the strong aquiline features--the mad +keenness of the look were all plain to her. The eyes looked in hungrily +at the prostrate form on the settle--at the sleeping child. Another +figure appeared out of the dark, running up the path. There was a slight +scuffle, and voices outside. Marcella drew the curtain close with a +hasty hand, and sat down hardly able to breathe. The woman who had +looked in was Isabella Westall. It was said that she was becoming more +and more difficult to manage and to watch. + +Marcella was some time in recovering herself. That look, as of a +sleepless, hateful eagerness, clung to the memory. Once or twice, as it +haunted her, she got up again to make sure that the door was fast. + +The incident, with all it suggested, did but intensify the horror and +struggle in which the girl stood, made her mood more strained, more +piercingly awake and alert. Gradually, as the hours passed, as all +sounds from without, even that of the wind, died away, and the silence +settled round her in ever-widening circles, like deep waters sinking to +repose, Marcella felt herself a naked soul, alone on a wide sea, with +shapes of pain and agony and revolt. She looked at the sleeping wife. +"He, too, is probably asleep," she thought, remembering some information +which a kindly warder had given her in a few jerky, well-meant +sentences, while she was waiting downstairs in the gaol for Minta Hurd. +"Incredible! only so many hours, minutes left--so far as any mortal +_knows_--of living, thinking, recollecting, of all that makes us +something as against the _nothing_ of death--and a man wastes them in +sleep, in that which is only meant for the ease and repair of the daily +struggle. And Minta--her husband is her all--to-morrow she will have no +husband; yet she sleeps, and I have helped to make her. Ah! Nature may +well despise and trample on us; there is no reason in us--no dignity! +Oh, why are we here--why am _I_ here--to ache like this--to hate good +people like Charles Harden and Mary--to refuse all I could give--to +madden myself over pain I can never help? I cannot help it, yet I cannot +forsake it; it drives, it clings to me!" + +She sat over the fire, Willie's hand clasped in hers. He alone in this +forlorn household _loved_ her. Mrs. Hurd and the other children feared +and depended on her. This creature of thistle-down--this little thread +and patch of humanity--felt no fear of her. It was as though his +weakness divined through her harshness and unripeness those maternal and +protecting powers with which her nature was in truth so richly dowered. +He confided himself to her with no misgivings. He was at ease when she +was there. + +Little piteous hand!--its touch was to her symbolic, imperative. + +Eight months had she been at Mellor? And that Marcella, who had been +living and moving amid these woods and lanes all this time--that foolish +girl, delighting in new grandeurs, and flattered by Aldous Raeburn's +attentions--that hot, ambitious person who had meant to rule a county +through a husband--what had become of her? Up to the night of Hurd's +death sentence she had still existed in some sort, with her obligations, +qualms, remorses. But since then--every day, every hour had been +grinding, scorching her away--fashioning in flame and fever this new +Marcella who sat here, looking impatiently into another life, which +should know nothing of the bonds of the old. + +Ah, yes!--her _thought_ could distinguish between the act and the man, +between the man and his class; but in her _feeling_ all was confounded. +This awful growth of sympathy in her--strange irony!--had made all +sympathy for Aldous Raeburn impossible to her. Marry him?--no! +no!--never! But she would make it quite easy to him to give her up. +Pride should come in--he should feel no pain in doing it. She had in her +pocket the letter she had received from him that afternoon. She had +hardly been able to read it. Ear and heart were alike dull to it. + +From time to time she probably slept in her chair. Or else it was the +perpetual rush of images and sensations through the mind that hastened +the hours. Once when the first streaks of the March dawn were showing +through the curtains Minta Hurd sprang up with a loud cry: + +"Oh, my God! Jim, _Jim!_ Oh, no!--take that off. Oh, _please_, sir, +please! Oh, for God's sake, sir!" + +Agony struggled with sleep. Marcella, shuddering, held and soothed her, +and for a while sleep, or rather the drug in her veins, triumphed again. +For another hour or two she lay restlessly tossing from side to side, +but unconscious. + +Willie hardly moved all night. Again and again Marcella held beef-tea or +milk to his mouth, and tried to rouse him to take it, but she could make +no impression on the passive lips; the sleeping serenity of the brow +never changed. + +At last, with a start, Marcella looked round and saw that the morning +was fully there. A cold light was streaming through the curtains; the +fire was still glowing; but her limbs were stiff and chilled under her +shawl. She sprang up, horror descending on her. Her shaking fingers +could hardly draw out the watch in her belt. + +_Ten minutes to eight_! + +For the first time the girl felt nerve and resolution fail her. She +looked at Mrs. Hurd and wrung her hands. The mother was muttering and +moving, but not yet fully awake; and Willie lay as before. Hardly +knowing what she was doing, she drew the curtains back, as though +inspiration might come with the light. The rain-clouds trailed across +the common; water dripped heavily from the thatch of the cottage; and a +few birds twittered from some bedraggled larches at the edge of the +common. Far away, beyond and beneath those woods to the right, +Widrington lay on the plain, with that high-walled stone building at its +edge. She saw everything as it must now be happening as plainly as +though she were bodily present there--the last meal--the pinioning--the +chaplain. + +Goaded by the passing seconds, she turned back at last to wake that poor +sleeper behind her. But something diverted her. With a start she saw +that Willie's eyes were open. + +"Willie," she said, running to him, "how are you, dear? Shall I lift +your head a little?" + +He did not answer, though she thought he tried, and she was struck by +the blueness under the eyes and nose. Hurriedly she felt his tiny feet. +They were quite cold. + +"Mrs. Hurd!" she cried, rousing her in haste; "dear Mrs. Hurd, come and +see Willie!" + +The mother sprang up bewildered, and, hurrying across the room, threw +herself upon him. + +"Willie, what is it ails you, dear? Tell mother! Is it your feet are so +cold? But we'll rub them--we'll get you warm soon. And here's something +to make you better." Marcella handed her some brandy. "Drink it, dear; +drink it, sweetheart!" Her voice grew shrill. + +"He can't," said Marcella. "Do not let us plague him; it is the end. Dr. +Clarke said it would come in the morning." + +They hung over him, forgetting everything but him for the moment--the +only moment in his little life he came first even with his mother. + +There was a slight movement of the hand. + +"He wants his animals," said Marcella, the tears pouring down her +cheeks. She lifted them and put them on his breast, laying the cold +fingers over them. + +Then he tried to speak. + +"Daddy!" he whispered, looking up fully at his mother; "take 'em to +Daddy!" + +She fell on her knees beside him with a shriek, hiding her face, and +shaking from head to foot. Marcella alone saw the slight, mysterious +smile, the gradual sinking of the lids, the shudder of departing life +that ran through the limbs. + +A heavy sound swung through the air--a heavy repeated sound. Mrs. Hurd +held up her head and listened. The church clock tolled eight. She knelt +there, struck motionless by terror--by recollection. + +"Oh, Jim!" she said, under her breath--"my Jim!" + +The plaintive tone--as of a creature that has not even breath and +strength left wherewith to chide the fate that crushes it--broke +Marcella's heart. Sitting beside the dead son, she wrapt the mother in +her arms, and the only words that even her wild spirit could find +wherewith to sustain this woman through the moments of her husband's +death were words of prayer--the old shuddering cries wherewith the human +soul from the beginning has thrown itself on that awful encompassing +Life whence it issued, and whither it returns. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Two days later, in the afternoon, Aldous Raeburn found himself at the +door of Mellor. When he entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Boyce, who had +heard his ring, was hurrying away. + +"Don't go," he said, detaining her with a certain peremptoriness. "I +want all the light on this I can get. Tell me, she has _actually_ +brought herself to regard this man's death as in some sort my doing--as +something which ought to separate us?" + +Mrs. Boyce saw that he held an opened letter from Marcella crushed in +his hand. But she did not need the explanation. She had been expecting +him at any hour throughout the day, and in just this condition of mind. + +"Marcella must explain for herself," she said, after a moment's thought. +"I have no right whatever to speak for her. Besides, frankly, I do not +understand her, and when I argue with her she only makes me realise that +I have no part or lot in her--that I never had. It is just enough. She +was brought up away from me. And I have no natural hold. I cannot help +you, or any one else, with her." + +Aldous had been very tolerant and compassionate in the past of this +strange mother's abdication of her maternal place, and of its probable +causes. But it was not in human nature that he should be either to-day. +He resumed his questioning, not without sharpness. + +"One word, please. Tell me something of what has happened since +Thursday, before I see her. I have written--but till this morning I have +had not one line from her." + +They were standing by the window, he with his frowning gaze, in which +agitation struggled against all his normal habits of manner and +expression, fixed upon the lawn and the avenue. She told him briefly +what she knew of Marcella's doings since the arrival of Wharton's +telegram--of the night in the cottage, and the child's death. It was +plain that he listened with a shuddering repulsion. + +"Do you know," he exclaimed, turning upon her, "that she may never +recover this? Such a strain, such a horror! rushed upon so wantonly, so +needlessly." + +"I understand. You think that I have been to blame? I do not wonder. But +it is not true--not in this particular case. And anyway your view is not +mine. Life--and the iron of it--has to be faced, even by women--perhaps, +most of all, by women. But let me go now. Otherwise my husband will come +in. And I imagine you would rather see Marcella before you see him or +any one." + +That suggestion told. He instantly gathered himself together, and +nervously begged that she would send Marcella to him at once. He could +think of nothing, talk of nothing, till he had seen her. She went, and +Aldous was left to walk up and down the room planning what he should +say. After the ghastly intermingling of public interests and private +misery in which he had lived for these many weeks there was a certain +relief in having reached the cleared space--the decisive moment--when he +might at last give himself wholly to what truly concerned him. He would +not lose her without a struggle. None the less he knew, and had known +ever since the scene in the Court library, that the great disaster of +his life was upon him. + +The handle of the door turned. She was there. + +He did not go to meet her. She had come in wrought up to face +attack--reproaches, entreaties--ready to be angry or to be humble, as he +should give her the lead. But he gave her no lead. She had to break +through that quivering silence as best she could. + +"I wanted to explain everything to you," she said in a low voice, as she +came near to him. "I know my note last night was very hard and abrupt. I +didn't mean to be hard. But I am still so tired--and everything that one +says, and feels, hurts so." + +She sank down upon a chair. This womanish appeal to his pity had not +been at all in her programme. Nor did it immediately succeed. As he +looked at her, he could only feel the wantonness of this eclipse into +which she had plunged her youth and beauty. There was wrath, a +passionate protesting wrath, under his pain. + +"Marcella," he said, sitting down beside her, "did you read my letter +that I wrote you the day before--?" + +"Yes." + +"And after that, you could still believe that I was indifferent to your +grief--your suffering--or to the suffering of any human being for whom +you cared? You could still think it, and feel it?" + +"It was not what you have said all through," she replied, looking +sombrely away from him, her chin on her hand, "it is what you have +done." + +"What have I done?" he said proudly, bending forward from his seat +beside her. "What have I ever done but claim from you that freedom you +desire so passionately for others--freedom of conscience--freedom of +judgment? You denied me this freedom, though I asked it of you with all +my soul. And you denied me more. Through these five weeks you have +refused me the commonest right of love--the right to show you myself, to +prove to you that through all this misery of differing opinion--misery, +much more, oh, much more to me than to you!--I was in truth bent on the +same ends with you, bearing the same burden, groping towards the same +goal." + +"No! no!" she cried, turning upon him, and catching at a word; "what +burden have you ever borne? I know you were sorry--that there was a +struggle in your mind--that you pitied me--pitied _them_. But you judged +it all _from above_--you looked down--and I could not see that you had +any right. It made me mad to have such things seen from a height, when I +was below--in the midst--_close_ to the horror and anguish of them." + +"Whose fault was it," he interrupted, "that I was not with you? Did I +not offer--entreat? I could not sign a statement of fact which seemed +to me an untrue statement, but what prevented me--prevented +us.--However, let me take that point first. Would you,"--he spoke +deliberately, "would you have had me put my name to a public statement +which I, rightly or wrongly, believed to be false, because you asked me? +You owe it to me to answer." + +She could not escape the penetrating fire of his eye. The man's +mildness, his quiet self-renouncing reserve, were all burnt up at last +in this white heat of an accusing passion. In return she began to forget +her own resolve to bear herself gently. + +"You don't remember," she cried, "that what divided us was +your--your--incapacity to put the human pity first; to think of the +surrounding circumstances--of the debt that you and I and everybody like +us owe to a man like Hurd--to one who had been stunted and starved by +life as he had been." + +Her lip began to tremble. + +"Then it comes to this," he said steadily, "that if I had been a poor +man, you would have allowed me my conscience--my judgment of right and +wrong--in such a matter. You would have let me remember that I was a +citizen, and that pity is only one side of justice! You would have let +me plead that Hurd's sin was not against me, but against the community, +and that in determining whether to do what you wished or no, I must +think of the community and its good before even I thought of pleasing +you. If I had possessed no more than Hurd, all this would have been +permitted me; but because of Maxwell Court--because of my _money_,"--she +shrank before the accent of the word--"you refused me the commonest +moral rights. _My_ scruple, _my_ feeling, were nothing to you. Your +pride was engaged as well as your pity, and I must give way. Marcella! +you talk of justice--you talk of equality--is the only man who can get +neither at your hands--the man whom you promised to marry!" + +His voice dwelt on that last word, dwelt and broke. He leant over her in +his roused strength, and tried to take her hand. But she moved away from +him with a cry. + +"It is no use! Oh, don't--don't! It may be all true. I was vain, I dare +say, and unjust, and hard. But don't you see--don't you understand--if +we _could_ take such different views of such a case--if it could divide +us so deeply--what chance would there be if we were married? I ought +never--never--to have said 'Yes' to you--even as I was then. But _now_," +she turned to him slowly, "can't you see it for yourself? I am a changed +creature. Certain things in me are gone--_gone_--and instead there is a +fire--something driving, tormenting--which must burn its way out. When I +think of what I liked so much when you asked me to marry you--being +rich, and having beautiful things, and dresses, and jewels, and +servants, and power--social power--above all _that_--I feel sick and +choked. I couldn't breathe now in a house like Maxwell Court. The poor +have come to mean to me the only people who really _live_, and really +_suffer_. I must live with them, work for them, find out what I can do +for them. You must give me up--you must indeed. Oh! and you will! You +will be glad enough, thankful enough, when--when--you know what I _am_!" + +He started at the words. Where was the prophetess? He saw that she was +lying white and breathless, her face hidden against the arm of the +chair. + +In an instant he was on his knees beside her. + +"Marcella!" he could hardly command his voice, but he held her +struggling hand against his lips. "You think that suffering belongs to +one class? Have you really no conception of what you will be dealing to +me if you tear yourself away from me?" + +She withdrew her hand, sobbing. + +"Don't, don't stay near me!" she said; "there is--more--there is +something else." + +Aldous rose. + +"You mean," he said in an altered voice, after a pause of silence, "that +another influence--another man--has come between us?" + +She sat up, and with a strong effort drove back her weeping. + +"If I could say to you only this," she began at last, with long pauses, +"'I mistook myself and my part in life. I did wrong, but forgive me, and +let me go for both our sakes'--that would be--well!--that would be +difficult,--but easier than this! Haven't you understood at all? +When--when Mr. Wharton came, I began to see things very soon, not in my +own way, but in his way. I had never met any one like him--not any one +who showed me such possibilities in _myself_--such new ways of using +one's life, and not only one's possessions--of looking at all the great +questions. I thought it was just friendship, but it made me critical, +impatient of everything else. I was never myself from the beginning. +Then,--after the ball,"--he stooped over her that he might hear her the +more plainly,--"when I came home I was in my room and I heard +steps--there are ghost stories, you know, about that part of the house. +I went out to see. Perhaps, in my heart of hearts--oh, I can't tell, I +can't tell!--anyway, he was there. We went into the library, and we +talked. He did not want to touch our marriage,--but he said all sorts of +mad things,--and at last--he kissed me." + +The last words were only breathed. She had often pictured herself +confessing these things to him. But the humiliation in which she +actually found herself before him was more than she had ever dreamed of, +more than she could bear. All those great words of pity and mercy--all +that implication of a moral atmosphere to which he could never +attain--to end in this story! The effect of it, on herself, rather than +on him, was what she had not foreseen. + +Aldous raised himself slowly. + +"And when did this happen?" he asked after a moment. + +"I told you--the night of the ball--of the murder," she said with a +shiver; "we saw Hurd cross the avenue. I meant to have told you +everything at once." + +"And you gave up that intention?" he asked her, when he had waited a +little for more, and nothing came. + +She turned upon him with a flash of the old defiance. + +"How could I think of my own affairs?" + +"Or of mine?" he said bitterly. + +She made no answer. + +Aldous got up and walked to the chimney-piece. He was very pale, but his +eyes were bright and sparkling. When she looked up at him at last she +saw that her task was done. His scorn--his resentment--were they not the +expiation, the penalty she had looked forward to all along?--and with +that determination to bear them calmly? Yet, now that they were there in +front of her, they stung. + +"So that--for all those weeks--while you were letting me write as I did, +while you were letting me conceive you and your action as I did, you had +this on your mind? You never gave me a hint; you let me plead; you let +me regard you as wrapped up in the unselfish end; you sent me those +letters of his--those most misleading letters!--and all the time--" + +"But I meant to tell you--I always meant to tell you," she cried +passionately. "I would never have gone on with a secret like that--not +for your sake--but for my own." + +"Yet you did go on so long," he said steadily; "and my agony of mind +during those weeks--my feeling towards you--my--" + +He broke off, wrestling with himself. As for her, she had fallen back in +her chair, physically incapable of anything more. + +He walked over to her side and took up his hat. + +"You have done me wrong," he said, gazing down upon her. "I pray God you +may not do yourself a greater wrong in the future! Give me leave to +write to you once more, or to send my friend Edward Hallin to see you. +Then I will not trouble you again." + +He waited, but she could give him no answer. Her form as she lay there +in this physical and moral abasement printed itself upon his heart. Yet +he felt no desire whatever to snatch the last touch--the last kiss--that +wounded passion so often craves. Inwardly, and without words, he said +farewell to her. She heard his steps across the room; the door shut; she +was alone--and free. + + + + + +BOOK III. + + +"O Neigung, sage, wie hast du so tief + Im Herzen dich verstecket? +Wer hat dich, die verborgen schlief, + Gewecket?" + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"Don't suppose that I feel enthusiastic or sentimental about the 'claims +of Labour,'" said Wharton, smiling to the lady beside him. "You may get +that from other people, but not from me. I am not moral enough to be a +fanatic. My position is simplicity itself. When things are inevitable, I +prefer to be on the right side of them, and not on the wrong. There is +not much more in it than that. I would rather be on the back of the +'bore' for instance, as it sweeps up the tidal river, than the swimmer +caught underneath it." + +"Well, that is intelligible," said Lady Selina Farrell, looking at her +neighbour, as she crumbled her dinner-roll. To crumble your bread at +dinner is a sign of nervousness, according to Sydney Smith, who did it +with both hands when he sat next an Archbishop; yet no one for a good +many years past had ever suspected Lady Selina of nervousness, though +her powers had probably been tried before now by the neighbourhood of +many Primates, Catholic and Anglican. For Lady Selina went much into +society, and had begun it young. + +"Still, you know," she resumed after a moment's pause--"you _play_ +enthusiasm in public--I suppose you must." + +"Oh! of course," said Wharton, indifferently. "That is in the game." + +"Why should it be--always? If you are a leader of the people, why don't +you educate them? My father says that bringing feeling into politics is +like making rhymes in one's account book." + +"Well, when you have taught the masses how _not_ to feel," said Wharton, +laughing, "we will follow your advice. Meanwhile it is our brains and +their feelings that do the trick. And by the way, Lady Selina, are _you_ +always so cool? If you saw the Revolution coming to-morrow into the +garden of Alresford House, would you go to the balcony and argue?" + +"I devoutly hope there would be somebody ready to do something more to +the point," said Lady Selina, hastily. "But of course _we_ have +enthusiasms too." + +"What, the Flag--and the Throne--that kind of thing?" + +The ironical attention which Wharton began at this moment to devote to +the selection of an olive annoyed his companion. + +"Yes," she repeated emphatically, "the Flag and the Throne--all that has +made England great in the past. But we know very well that they are not +_your_ enthusiasms." + +Wharton's upper lip twitched a little. + +"And you are quite sure that Busbridge Towers has nothing to do with +it?" he said suddenly, looking round upon her. + +Busbridge Towers was the fine ancestral seat which belonged to Lady +Selina's father, that very respectable and ancient peer, Lord Alresford, +whom an ungrateful party had unaccountably omitted--for the first +time--from the latest Conservative administration. + +"Of course we perfectly understand," replied Lady Selina, scornfully, +"that your side--and especially your Socialist friends, put down all +that _we_ do and say to greed and selfishness. It is our +misfortune--hardly our fault." + +"Not at all," said Wharton, quietly, "I was only trying to convince you +that it is a little difficult to drive feeling out of politics. Do you +suppose our host succeeds? You perceive?--this is a Radical house--and a +Radical banquet?" + +He pushed the _menu_ towards her significantly. Then his eye travelled +with its usual keen rapidity over the room, over the splendid +dinner-table, with its display of flowers and plate, and over the +assembled guests. He and Lady Selina were dining at the hospitable board +of a certain rich manufacturer, who drew enormous revenues from the +west, had formed part of the Radical contingent of the last Liberal +ministry, and had especially distinguished himself by a series of +uncompromising attacks on the ground landlords of London. + +Lady Selina sighed. + +"It is all a horrible tangle," she said, "and what the next twenty years +will bring forth who can tell? Oh! one moment, Mr. Wharton, before I +forget. Are you engaged for Saturday week?" + +He drew a little note-book out of his pocket and consulted it. It +appeared that he was not engaged. + +"Then will you dine with us?" She lightly mentioned the names of four or +five distinguished guests, including the Conservative Premier of the +day. Wharton made her a little ceremonious bow. + +"I shall be delighted. Can you trust me to behave?" + +Lady Selina's smile made her his match for the moment. + +"Oh! we can defend ourselves!" she said. "By the way I think you told me +that Mr. Raeburn was not a friend of yours." + +"No," said Wharton, facing her look with coolness. "If you have asked +Mr. Raeburn for the 23rd, let me crave your leave to cancel that note in +my pocket-book. Not for my sake, you understand, at all." + +She had difficulty in concealing her curiosity. But his face betrayed +nothing. It always seemed to her that his very dark and straight +eyebrows, so obtrusive and unusual as compared with the delicacy of the +features, of the fair skin and light brown curls, made it easy for him +to wear any mask he pleased. By their mere physical emphasis they drew +attention away from the subtler and more revealing things of expression. + +"They say," she went on, "that he is sure to do well in the House, if +only he can be made to take interest enough in the party. But one of his +admirers told me that he was not at all anxious to accept this post they +have just given him. He only did it to please his grandfather. My father +thinks Lord Maxwell much aged this year. He is laid up now, with a chill +of some sort I believe. Mr. Raeburn will have to make haste if he is to +have any career in the Commons. But you can see he cares very little +about it. All his friends tell me they find him changed since that +unlucky affair last year. By the way, did you ever see that girl?" + +"Certainly. I was staying in her father's house while the engagement +was going on." + +"Were you!" said Lady Selina, eagerly, "and what did you think of her?" + +"Well, in the first place," said Wharton, slowly, "she is beautiful--you +knew that?" + +Lady Selina nodded. + +"Yes. Miss Raeburn, who has told me most of what I know, always throws +in a shrug and a 'but' when you ask about her looks. However, I have +seen a photograph of her, so I can judge for myself. It seemed to me a +beauty that men perhaps would admire more than women." + +Wharton devoted himself to his green peas, and made no reply. Lady +Selina glanced at him sharply. She herself was by no means a beauty. But +neither was she plain. She had a long, rather distinguished face, with a +marked nose and a wide thin-lipped mouth. Her plentiful fair hair, a +little dull and ashy in colour, was heaped up above her forehead in +infinitesimal curls and rolls which did great credit to her maid, and +gave additional height to the head and length to a thin white neck. Her +light blue eyes were very direct and observant. Their expression implied +both considerable knowledge of the world and a natural inquisitiveness. +Many persons indeed were of opinion that Lady Selina wished to know too +much about you and were on their guard when she approached. + +"You admired her very much, I see," she resumed, as Wharton still +remained silent. + +"Oh, yes. We talked Socialism, and then I defended her poacher for her." + +"Oh, I remember. And it is really true, as Miss Raeburn says, that she +broke it off because she could not get Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn to +sign the petition for the poacher?" + +"Somewhere about true," said Wharton, carelessly. + +"Miss Raeburn always gives the same account; you can never get anything +else out of her. But I sometimes wonder whether it is the _whole_ truth. +_You_ think she was sincere?" + +"Well, she gave up Maxwell Court and thirty thousand a year," he replied +drily. "I should say she had at least earned the benefit of the doubt." + +"I mean," said Lady Selina, "was she in love with anybody else, and was +the poacher an excuse?" + +She turned upon him as she spoke--a smiling, self-possessed person--a +little spoilt by those hard, inquisitive eyes. + +"No, I think not," said Wharton, throwing his head back to meet her +scrutiny. "If so, nothing has been heard of him yet. Miss Boyce has been +at St. Edward's Hospital for the last year." + +"To learn nursing? It is what all the women do nowadays, they tell me, +who can't get on with their relations or their lovers. Do you suppose it +is such a very hard life?" + +"I don't want to try!" said Wharton. "Do you?" + +She evaded his smile. + +"What is she going to do when she has done her training?" + +"Settle down and nurse among the poor, I believe." + +"Magnificent, no doubt, but hardly business, from her point of view. How +much more she might have done for the poor with thirty thousand a year! +And any woman could put up with Aldous Raeburn." + +Wharton shrugged his shoulders. + +"We come back to those feelings, Lady Selina, you think so badly of." + +She laughed. + +"Well, but feelings must be intelligible. And this seems so small a +cause. However, were you there when it was broken off?" + +"No; I have never seen her since the day of the poacher's trial." + +"Oh! So she has gone into complete seclusion from all her friends?" + +"That I can't answer for. I can only tell you my own experience." + +Lady Selina bethought herself of a great many more questions to ask, but +somehow did not ask them. The talk fell upon politics, which lasted till +the hostess gave the signal, and Lady Selina, gathering up her fan and +gloves, swept from the room next after the Countess at the head of the +table, while a host of elderly ladies, wives of ministers and the like, +stood meekly by to let her pass. + +As he sat down again, Wharton made the entry of the dinner at Alresford +House, to which he had just promised himself, a little plainer. It was +the second time in three weeks that Lady Selina had asked him, and he +was well aware that several other men at this dinner-table, of about the +same standing and prospects as himself, would be very glad to be in his +place. Lady Selina, though she was unmarried, and not particularly +handsome or particularly charming, was a personage--and knew it. As the +mistress of her father's various fine houses, and the kinswoman of half +the great families of England, she had ample social opportunities, and +made, on the whole, clever use of them. She was not exactly popular, but +in her day she had been extremely useful to many, and her invitations +were prized. Wharton had been introduced to her at the beginning of +this, his second session, had adopted with her the easy, aggressive, +"personal" manner--which, on the whole, was his natural manner towards +women--and had found it immediately successful. + +When he had replaced his pocket-book, he found himself approached by a +man on his own side of the table, a member of Parliament like himself, +with whom he was on moderately friendly terms. + +"Your motion comes on next Friday, I think," said the new-comer. + +Wharton nodded. + +"It'll be a beastly queer division," said the other--"a precious lot of +cross-voting." + +"That'll be the way with that kind of question for a good while to +come--don't you think"--said Wharton, smiling, "till we get a complete +reorganisation of parties?" + +As he leaned back in his chair, enjoying his cigarette, his half-shut +eyes behind the curls of smoke made a good-humoured but contemptuous +study of his companion. + +Mr. Bateson was a young manufacturer, recently returned to Parliament, +and newly married. He had an open, ruddy face, spoilt by an expression +of chronic perplexity, which was almost fretfulness. Not that the +countenance was without shrewdness; but it suggested that the man had +ambitions far beyond his powers of performance, and already knew himself +to be inadequate. + +"Well, I shouldn't wonder if you get a considerable vote," he resumed, +after a pause; "it's like women's suffrage. People will go on voting for +this kind of thing, till there seems a chance of getting it. _Then_!" + +"Ah, well!" said Wharton, easily, "I see we shan't get _you_." + +"_I_!--vote for an eight-hours day, by local and trade option! In my +opinion I might as well vote for striking the flag on the British Empire +at once! It would be the death-knell of all our prosperity." + +Wharton's artistic ear disliked the mixture of metaphor, and he frowned +slightly. + +Mr. Bateson hurried on. He was already excited, and had fallen upon +Wharton as a prey. + +"And you really desire to make it _penal_ for us manufacturers--for me +in my industry--in spite of all the chances and changes of the market, +to work my men more than eight hours a day--_even_ if they wish it!" + +"We must get our decision, our majority of the adult workers in any +given district in favour of an eight-hours day," said Wharton, blandly; +"then when they have voted for it, the local authority will put the Act +in motion." + +"And my men--conceivably--may have voted in the minority, against any +such tomfoolery; yet, when the vote is given, it will be a punishable +offence for them, and me, to work overtime? You _actually_ mean that; +how do you propose to punish us?" + +"Well," said Wharton, relighting his cigarette, "that is a much debated +point. Personally, I am in favour of imprisonment rather than fine." + +The other bounded on his chair. + +"You would imprison me for working overtime--with _willing men!_" + +Wharton eyed him with smiling composure. Two or three other men--an old +general, the smart private secretary of a cabinet minister, and a +well-known permanent official at the head of one of the great spending +departments--who were sitting grouped at the end of the table a few feet +away, stopped their conversation to listen. + +"Except in cases of emergency, which are provided for under the Act," +said Wharton. "Yes, I should imprison you, with the greatest pleasure in +life. Eight hours _plus_ overtime is what we are going to stop, _at all +hazards!_" + +A flash broke from his blue eyes. Then he tranquilly resumed his +smoking. + +The young manufacturer flushed with angry agitation. + +"But you must know, it is inconceivable that you should not know, that +the whole thing is stark staring lunacy. In our business, trade is +declining, the export falling every year, the imports from France +steadily advancing. And you are going to make us fight a country where +men work eleven hours a day, for lower wages, with our hands tied behind +our backs by legislation of this kind? Well, you know," he threw +himself back in his chair with a contemptuous laugh, "there can be only +one explanation. You and your friends, of course, have banished +political economy to Saturn--and you suppose that by doing so you get +rid of it for all the rest of the world. But I imagine it will beat you, +all the same!" + +He stopped in a heat. As usual what he found to say was not equal to +what he wanted to say, and beneath his anger with Wharton was the +familiar fuming at his own lack of impressiveness. + +"Well, I dare say," said Wharton, serenely. "However, let's take your +'political economy' a moment, and see if I can understand what you mean +by it. There never were two words that meant all things to all men so +disreputably!" + +And thereupon to the constant accompaniment of his cigarette, and with +the utmost composure and good temper, he began to "heckle" his +companion, putting questions, suggesting perfidious illustrations, +extracting innocent admissions, with a practised shrewdness and malice, +which presently left the unfortunate Bateson floundering in a sea of his +own contradictions, and totally unable for the moment to attach any +rational idea whatever to those great words of his favourite science, +wherewith he was generally accustomed to make such triumphant play, both +on the platform and in the bosom of the family. + +The permanent official round the corner watched the unequal fight with +attentive amusement. Once when it was a question of Mill's doctrine of +cost of production as compared with that of a leading modern +collectivist, he leant forward and supplied a correction of something +Wharton had said. Wharton instantly put down his cigarette and addressed +him in another tone. A rapid dialogue passed between them, the dialogue +of experts, sharp, allusive, elliptical, in the midst of which the host +gave the signal for joining the ladies. + +"Well, all I know is," said Bateson, as he got up, "that these kinds of +questions, if you and your friends have your way, will _wreck_ the +Liberal party before long--far more effectually than anything Irish has +ever done. On these things some of us will fight, if it must come to +that." + +Wharton laughed. + +"It would be a national misfortune if you didn't give us a stiff job," +he said, with an airy good-humour which at once made the other's +blustering look ridiculous. + +"I wonder what that fellow is going to do in the House," said the +permanent official to his companion as they went slowly upstairs, +Wharton being some distance ahead. "People are all beginning to talk of +him as a coming man, though nobody quite knows why, as yet. They tell me +he frames well in speaking, and will probably make a mark with his +speech next Friday. But his future seems to me very doubtful. He can +only become a power as the head of a new Labour party. But where is the +party? They all want to be kings. The best point in his favour is that +they are likely enough to take a gentleman if they must have a leader. +But there still remains the question whether he can make anything out of +the material." + +"I hope to God he can't!" said the old general, grimly; "it is these +town-chatterers of yours that will bring the Empire about our heads +before we've done. They've begun it already, wherever they saw a +chance." + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room Wharton devoted himself for a few minutes to his +hostess, a little pushing woman, who confided to his apparently +attentive ear a series of grievances as to the bad manners of the great +ladies of their common party, and the general evil plight of Liberalism +in London from the social point of view. + +"Either they give themselves airs--_rediculous_ airs!--or they admit +everybody!" she said, with a lavish use of white shoulders and scarlet +fan by way of emphasis. "My husband feels it just as much as I do. It is +a real misfortune for the party that its social affairs should be so +villainously managed. Oh! I dare say _you_ don't mind, Mr. Wharton, +because you are a Socialist. But, I assure you, those of us who still +believe in the influence of the best people don't like it." + +A point whence Wharton easily led her through a series of spiteful +anecdotes bearing on her own social mishaps and rebuffs, which were none +the less illuminating because of the teller's anxious effort to give +them a dignified and disinterested air. Then, when neither she nor her +plight were any longer amusing, he took his leave, exchanging another +skirmishing word or two on the staircase with Lady Selina, who it +appeared was "going on" as he was, and to the same house. + +In a few minutes his hansom landed him at the door of a great mansion +in Berkeley Square, where a huge evening party was proceeding, given by +one of those Liberal ladies whom his late hostess had been so freely +denouncing. The lady and the house belonged to a man who had held high +office in the late Administration. + +As he made his way slowly to the top of the crowded stairs, the stately +woman in white satin and diamonds who was "receiving" on the landing +marked him, and when his name was announced she came forward a step or +two. Nothing could have been more flattering than the smile with which +she gave him her gloved hand to touch. + +"Have you been out of town all these Sundays?" she said to him, with the +slightest air of soft reproach. "I am always at home, you know--I told +you so!" + +She spoke with the ease of one who could afford to make whatever social +advances she pleased. Wharton excused himself, and they chatted a little +in the intervals of her perpetual greetings to the mounting crowd. She +and he had met at a famous country house in the Easter recess, and her +aristocrat's instinct for all that gives savour and sharpness to the +dish of life had marked him at once. + +"Sir Hugh wants you to come down and see us in Sussex," she said, +stretching her white neck a little to speak after him, as he was at last +carried through the drawing-room door by the pressure behind him. "Will +you?" + +He threw back an answer which she rather took for granted than heard, +for she nodded and smiled through it--stiffening her delicate-face the +moment afterwards to meet the timid remarks of one of her husband's +constituents--asked by Sir Hugh in the streets that afternoon--who +happened to present her with the next hand to shake. + +Inside, Wharton soon found himself brought up against the ex-Secretary +of State himself, who greeted him cordially, and then bantered him a +little on his coming motion. + +"Oh, I shall be interested to see what you make of it. But, you know, it +has no _actuality_--never can have--till you can agree among yourselves. +You _say_ you want the same thing--I dare say you'll all swear it on +Friday--but _really_--" + +The statesman shook his head pleasantly. + +"The details are a little vague still, I grant you," said Wharton, +smiling. + +"And you think the principle matters twopence without the details? I +have always found that the difficulty with the Christian command, 'Be ye +perfect.' The principle doesn't trouble me at all!" + +The swaying of the entering throng parted the two speakers, and for a +second or two the portly host followed with his eye the fair profile and +lightly-built figure of the younger man as they receded from him in the +crowd. It was in his mind that the next twenty years, whether this man +or that turned out to be important or no, must see an enormous +quickening of the political pace. He himself was not conscious of any +jealousy of the younger men; but neither did he see among them any +commanding personality. This young fellow, with his vivacity, his +energy, and his Socialist whims, was interesting enough; and his +problem was interesting--the problem of whether he could make a party +out of the heterogeneous group of which he was turning out to be +indisputably the ablest member. But what was there _certain_ or +_inevitable_ about his future after all? And it was the same with all +the rest. Whereas the leaders of the past had surely announced +themselves beyond mistake from the beginning. He was inclined to think, +however, that we were levelling up rather than levelling down. The world +grew too clever, and leadership was more difficult every day. + +Meanwhile Wharton found his progress through these stately rooms +extremely pleasant. He was astonished at the multitude of people he +knew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, after +half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without +an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free +to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a +chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. A feeling of +surprise, too, which had not yet worn away. A year before he had told +Marcella Boyce, and with conviction, that he was an outcast from his +class. He smiled now at that past _naďveté_ which had allowed him to +take the flouts of his country neighbours and his mother's unpopularity +with her aristocratic relations for an index of the way in which +"society" in general would be likely to treat him and his opinions. He +now knew, on the contrary, that those opinions had been his best +advertisement. Few people, it appeared, were more in demand among the +great than those who gave it out that they would, if they could, abolish +the great. + +"It's because they're not enough afraid of us--yet," he said to himself, +not without spleen. "When we really get to business--if we ever do--I +shall not be coming to Lady Cradock's parties." + +"Mr. Wharton, do you ever do such a frivolous thing as go to the +theatre?" said a pretty, languishing creature at his elbow, the wife of +a London theatrical manager. "Suppose you come and see us in 'The +Minister's Wooing,' first night next Saturday. I've got _one_ seat in my +box, for somebody _very_ agreeable. Only it must be somebody who can +appreciate my frocks!" + +"I should be charmed," said Wharton. "Are the frocks so adorable?" + +"Adorable! Then I may write you a note? You don't have your horrid +Parliament that night, do you?" and she fluttered on. + +"I think you don't know my younger daughter, Mr. Wharton?" said a severe +voice at his elbow. + +He turned and saw an elderly matron with the usual matronly cap and +careworn countenance putting forward a young thing in white, to whom he +bowed with great ceremony. The lady was the wife of a north-country +magnate of very old family, and one of the most exclusive of her kind in +London. The daughter, a vision of young shyness and bloom, looked at him +with frightened eyes as he leant against the wall beside her and began +to talk. She wished he would go away and let her get to the girl friend +who was waiting for her and signalling to her across the room. But in a +minute or two she had forgotten to wish anything of the kind. The +mixture of audacity with a perfect self-command in the manner of her new +acquaintance, that searching half-mocking look, which saw everything in +detail, and was always pressing beyond the generalisations of talk and +manners, the lightness and brightness of the whole aspect, of the curls, +the eyes, the flexible determined mouth, these things arrested her. She +began to open her virgin heart, first in protesting against attack, then +in confession, till in ten minutes her white breast was heaving under +the excitement of her own temerity and Wharton knew practically all +about her, her mingled pleasure and remorse in "going out," her +astonishment at the difference between the world as it was this year, +and the world as it had been last, when she was still in the +school-room--her Sunday-school--her brothers--her ideals--for she was a +little nun at heart--her favourite clergyman--and all the rest of it. + +"I say, Wharton, come and dine, will you, Thursday, at the House--small +party--meet in my room?" + +So said one of the party whips, from behind into his ear. The speaker +was a popular young aristocrat who in the preceding year had treated the +member for West Brookshire with chilliness. Wharton turned--to consider +a moment--then gave a smiling assent. + +"All right!" said the other, withdrawing his hand from Wharton's +shoulder--"good-night!--two more of these beastly crushes to fight +through till I can get to my bed, worse luck! Are any of your fellows +here to-night?" + +Wharton shook his head. + +"Too austere, I suppose?" + +"A question of dress coats, I should think," said Wharton, drily. + +The other shrugged his shoulders. + +"And this calls itself a party gathering--in a radical and democratic +house--what a farce it all is!" + +"Agreed! good-night." + +And Wharton moved on, just catching as he did so the eyes of his new +girl acquaintance looking back at him from a distant door. Their shy +owner withdrew them instantly, coloured, and passed out of sight. + +At the same moment a guest entered by the same door, a tall grave man in +the prime of life, but already grey haired. Wharton, to his surprise, +recognised Aldous Raeburn, and saw also that the master of the house had +him by the arm. They came towards him, talking. The crowd prevented him +from getting effectually out of their way, but he turned aside and took +up a magazine lying on a bookcase near. + +"And you really think him a trifle better?" said the ex-minister. + +"Oh, yes, better--certainly better--but I am afraid he will hardly get +back to work this session--the doctors talk of sending him away at +once." + +"Ah, well," said the other, smiling, "we don't intend it seems to let +you send anything important up to the Lords yet awhile, so there will be +time for him to recruit." + +"I wish I was confident about the recruiting," said Raeburn, sadly. "He +has lost much strength. I shall go with them to the Italian lakes at the +end of next week, see them settled and come back at once." + +"Shall you miss a sitting of the commission?" asked his host. Both he +and Raeburn were members of an important Labour Commission appointed the +year before by the new Conservative government. + +"Hardly, I think," said Raeburn, "I am particularly anxious not to miss +D----'s evidence." + +And they fell talking a little about the Commission and the witnesses +recently examined before it. Wharton, who was wedged in by a group of +ladies, and could not for the moment move, heard most of what they were +saying, much against his will. Moreover Raeburn's tone of quiet and +masterly familiarity with what he and his companion were discussing +annoyed him. There was nothing in the world that he himself would more +eagerly have accepted than a seat on that Commission. + +"Ah! there is Lady Cradock!" said Raeburn, perceiving his hostess across +a sea of intervening faces, and responding to her little wave of the +hand. "I must go and get a few words with her, and then take my aunt +away." + +As he made his way towards her, he suddenly brushed against Wharton, who +could not escape. Raeburn looked up, recognised the man he had touched, +flushed slightly and passed on. A bystander would have supposed them +strangers to each other. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Two or three minutes later, Wharton was walking down a side street +towards Piccadilly. After all the flattering incidents of the evening, +the chance meeting with which it concluded had jarred unpleasantly. +Confound the fellow! Was he the first man in the world who had been +thrown over by a girl because he had been discovered to be a tiresome +pedant? For even supposing Miss Boyce had described that little scene in +the library at Mellor to her _fiancé_ at the moment of giving him his +dismissal--and the year before, by the help of all the news that reached +him about the broken engagement, by the help still more of the look, or +rather the entire absence of look wherewith Raeburn had walked past his +greeting and his outstretched hand in a corridor of the House, on the +first occasion of their meeting after the news had become public +property, Wharton was inclined to think she _had_--what then? No doubt +the stern moralist might have something to say on the subject of taking +advantage of a guest's position to tamper with another man's betrothed. +If so, the stern moralist would only show his usual incapacity to grasp +the actual facts of flesh and blood. What chance would he or any one +else have had with Marcella Boyce, if she had happened to be in love +with the man she had promised to marry? That little trifle had been left +out in the arrangement. It might have worked through perfectly well +without; as it happened it had broken down. _Realities_ had broken it +down. Small blame to them! + +"I stood for _truth_!" he said to himself with a kind of rage--"that +moment when I held her in the library, she _lived_.--Raeburn offered her +a platform, a position; _I_ made her think, and feel. I helped her to +know herself. Our relation was not passion; it stood on the +threshold--but it was real--a true relation so far as it went. That it +went no farther was due again to circumstances--realities--of another +kind. That _he_ should scorn and resent my performance at Mellor is +natural enough. If we were in France he would call me out and I should +give him satisfaction with all the pleasure in life. But what am _I_ +about? Are his ways mine? I should have nothing left but to shoot myself +to-morrow if they were!" + +He walked on swiftly, angrily rating himself for those symptoms of a +merely false and conventional conscience which were apt to be roused in +him by contact with Aldous Raeburn. + +"Has he not interfered with my freedom--stamped his pedantic foot on +me--ever since we were boys together! I have owed him one for many +years--now I have paid it. Let him take the chances of war!" + +Then, driven on by an irritation not to be quieted, he began against his +will to think of those various occasions on which he and Aldous Raeburn +had crossed each other in the past--of that incident in particular which +Miss Raeburn had roughly recalled to Lady Winterbourne's reluctant +memory. + +Well, and what of it? It had occurred when Wharton was a lad of +twenty-one, and during an interval of some months when Aldous Raeburn, +who had left Cambridge some three years before, and was already the man +of importance, had shown a decided disposition to take up the brilliant, +unmanageable boy, whom the Levens, among other relations, had already +washed their hands of. + +"What did he do it for?" thought Wharton. "Philanthropic motives of +course. He is one of the men who must always be saving their souls, and +the black sheep of the world come in handy for the purpose. I remember I +was flattered then. It takes one some time to understand the workings of +the Hebraistic conscience!" + +Yes--as it galled him to recollect--he had shown great plasticity for a +time. He was then in the middle of his Oxford years, and Raeburn's +letters and Raeburn's influence had certainly pulled him through various +scrapes that might have been disastrous. Then--a little later--he could +see the shooting lodge on the moors above Loch Etive, where he and +Raeburn, Lord Maxwell, Miss Raeburn, and a small party had spent the +August of his twenty-first birthday. Well--that surly keeper, and his +pretty wife who had been Miss Raeburn's maid--could anything be more +inevitable? A hard and jealous husband, and one of the softest, most +sensuous natures that ever idleness made love to. The thing was in the +air!--in the summer, in the blood--as little to be resisted as the +impulse to eat when you are hungry, or drink when you thirst. Besides, +what particular harm had been done, what particular harm _could_ have +been done with such a Cerberus of a husband? As to the outcry which had +followed one special incident, nothing could have been more uncalled +for, more superfluous. Aldous had demanded contrition, had said strong +things with the flashing eyes, the set mouth of a Cato. And the culprit +had turned obstinate--would repent nothing--not for the asking. +Everything was arguable, and Renan's doubt as to whether he or Théophile +Gautier were in the right of it, would remain a doubt to all time--that +was all Raeburn could get out of him. After which the Hebraist friend of +course had turned his back on the offender, and there was an end of it. + +That incident, however, had belonged to a stage in his past life, a +stage marked by a certain prolonged tumult of the senses, on which he +now looked back with great composure. That tumult had found vent in +other adventures more emphatic a good deal than the adventure of the +keeper's wife. He believed that one or two of them had been not unknown +to Raeburn. + +Well, that was done with! His mother's death--that wanton stupidity on +the part of fate--and the shock it had somehow caused him, had first +drawn him out of the slough of a cheap and facile pleasure on which he +now looked back with contempt. Afterwards, his two years of travel, and +the joys at once virile and pure they had brought with them, joys of +adventure, bodily endurance, discovery, together with the intellectual +stimulus which comes of perpetual change, of new heavens, new seas, new +societies, had loosened the yoke of the flesh and saved him from +himself. The deliverance so begun had been completed at home, by the +various chances and opportunities which had since opened to him a solid +and tempting career in that Labour movement his mother had linked him +with, without indeed ever understanding either its objects or its men. +The attack on capital now developing on all sides, the planning of the +vast campaign, and the handling of its industrial troops, these things +had made the pursuit of women look insipid, coupled as they were with +the thrill of increasing personal success. Passion would require to +present itself in new forms, if it was now to take possession of him +again. + +As to his relation to Raeburn, he well remembered that when, after that +long break in his life, he and Aldous had met casually again, in London +or elsewhere, Aldous had shown a certain disposition to forget the old +quarrel, and to behave with civility, though not with friendliness. As +to Wharton he was quite willing, though at the same time he had gone +down to contest West Brookshire, and, above all, had found himself in +the same house as Aldous Raeburn's betrothed, with an even livelier +sense than usual of the excitement to be got out of mere living. + +No doubt when Raeburn heard that story of the library--if he had heard +it--he recognised in it the man and the character he had known of old, +and had shrunk from the connection of both with Marcella Boyce in bitter +and insurmountable disgust. A mere Hebraist's mistake! + +"That girl's attraction for me was not an attraction of the +senses--except so far that for every normal man and woman charm is +charm, and ginger is hot in the mouth and always will be! What I played +for with her was _power_--power over a nature that piqued and yet by +natural affinity belonged to me. I could not have retained that power, +as it happened, by any bait of passion. Even without the Hurd affair, if +I had gone on to approach her so, her whole moral nature would have +risen against me and her own treachery. I knew that perfectly well, and +took the line I did because for the moment the game was too exciting, +too interesting, to give up. For the moment! then a few days,--a few +weeks later--Good Lord! what stuff we mortals be!" + +And he raised his shoulders, mocking, yet by no means disliking his own +idiosyncrasies. It had been strange, indeed, that complete change of +mental emphasis, that alteration of spiritual axis that had befallen him +within the first weeks of his parliamentary life, nay, even before the +Hurd agitation was over. That agitation had brought him vigorously and +profitably into public notice at a convenient moment. But what had +originally sprung from the impulse to retain a hold over a woman, became +in the end the instrument of a new and quite other situation. Wharton +had no sooner entered the House of Commons than he felt himself +strangely at home there. He had the instinct for debate, the instinct +for management, together with a sensitive and contriving ambition. He +found himself possessed for the moment of powers of nervous endurance +that astonished him--a patience of boredom besides, a capacity for +drudgery, and for making the best of dull men. The omens were all +favourable, sometimes startlingly so. He was no longer hampered by the +ill-will of a county or a family connection. Here in this new world, +every man counted strictly for what, in the parliamentary sense, he was +worth. Wharton saw that, owing to his public appearances during the two +preceding years, he was noticed, listened to, talked about in the House, +from the first; and that his position in the newly-formed though still +loosely-bound Labour party was one of indefinite promise. The anxieties +and pitfalls of the position only made it the more absorbing. + +The quick, elastic nature adjusted itself at once. To some kinds of +success, nothing is so important as the ability to forget--to sweep the +mind free of everything irrelevant and superfluous. Marcella Boyce, and +all connected with her, passed clean out of Wharton's consciousness. +Except that once or twice he said to himself with a passing smile that +it was a good thing he had not got himself into a worse scrape at +Mellor. Good heavens! in what plight would a man stand--a man with his +career to make--who had given Marcella Boyce claims upon him! As well +entangle oneself with the Tragic Muse at once as with that stormy, +unmanageable soul! + +So much for a year ago. To-night, however, the past had been thrust back +upon him, both by Lady Selina's talk and by the meeting with Raeburn. To +smart indeed once more under that old ascendency of Raeburn's, was to +be provoked into thinking of Raeburn's old love. + +Where was Miss Boyce? Surely her year of hospital training must be up by +now? + +He turned into St. James Street, stopped at a door not far from the +Palace end, let himself in, and groped his way to the second floor. A +sleepy man-servant turned out of his room, and finding that his master +was not inclined to go to bed, brought lights and mineral water. Wharton +was practically a teetotaller. He had taken a whim that way as a boy, +and a few experiments in drunkenness which he had made at college had +only confirmed what had been originally perhaps a piece of +notoriety-hunting. He had, as a rule, flawless health; and the +unaccustomed headaches and nausea which followed these occasional +excesses had disgusted and deterred him. He shook himself easily free of +a habit which had never gained a hold upon him, and had ever since found +his abstinence a source both of vanity and of distinction. Nothing +annoyed him more than to hear it put down to any ethical motive. "If I +liked the beastly stuff, I should swim in it to-morrow," he would say +with an angry eye when certain acquaintance--not those he made at Labour +Congresses--goaded him on the point. "As it is, why should I make it, or +chloral, or morphia, or any other poison, my master! What's the +inducement--eh, you fellows?" + +_En revanche_ he smoked inordinately. + +"Is that all, sir," said his servant, pausing behind his chair, after +candles, matches, cigarettes, and Apollinaris had been supplied in +abundance. + +"Yes; go to bed, Williams, but don't lock up. Good-night." + +The man departed, and Wharton, going to the window which opened on a +balcony looking over St. James Street, threw it wide, and smoked a +cigarette leaning against the wall. It was on the whole a fine night and +warm, though the nip of the east wind was not yet out of the air. In the +street below there was still a good deal of movement, for it was only +just past midnight and the clubs were not yet empty. To his right the +turreted gate-house of the Palace with its clock rose dark against a sky +covered with light, windy cloud. Beyond it his eye sought instinctively +for the Clock Tower, which stood to-night dull and beaconless--like some +one in a stupid silence. That light of the sitting House had become to +him one of the standing pleasures of life. He had never yet been +honestly glad of its extinction. + +"I'm a precious raw hand," he confessed to himself with a shake of the +head as he stood there smoking. "And it can't last--nothing does." + +Presently he laid down his cigarette a moment on the edge of the +balcony, and, coming back into the room, opened a drawer, searched a +little, and finally took out a letter. He stooped over the lamp to read +it. It was the letter which Marcella Boyce had written him some two or +three days after the breach of her engagement. That fact was barely +mentioned at the beginning of it, without explanation or comment of any +kind. Then the letter continued: + +"I have never yet thanked you as I ought for all that you have done and +attempted through these many weeks. But for them it must have been plain +to us both that we could never rightly meet again. I am very destitute +just now--and I cling to self-respect as though it were the only thing +left me. But that scene in the past, which put us both wrong with +honour and conscience, has surely been wiped out--_thought--suffered_ +away. I feel that I dare now say to you, as I would to any other +co-worker and co-thinker--if in the future you ever want my work, if you +can set me, with others, to any task that wants doing and that I could +do--ask me, and I am not likely to refuse. + +"But for the present I am going quite away into another world. I have +been more ill than I have ever been in my life this last few days, and +they are all, even my father, ready to agree with me that I must go. As +soon as I am a little stronger I am to have a year's training at a +London hospital, and then I shall probably live for a while in town and +nurse. This scheme occurred to me as I came back with the wife from +seeing Hurd the day before the execution. I knew then that all was over +for me at Mellor. + +"As for the wretched break-down of everything--of all my schemes and +friendships here--I had better not speak of it. I feel that I have given +these village-folk, whom I had promised to help, one more reason to +despair of life. It is not pleasant to carry such a thought away with +one. But if the tool breaks and blunts, how can the task be done? It can +be of no use till it has been re-set. + +"I should like to know how your plans prosper. But I shall see your +paper and follow what goes on in Parliament. For the present I want +neither to write nor get letters. They tell me that as a probationer I +shall spend my time at first in washing glasses, and polishing +bath-taps, on which my mind rests! + +"If you come across my friends of whom I have spoken to you--Louis, +Anthony, and Edith Craven--and could make any use of Louis for the +_Labour Clarion_, I should be grateful. I hear they have had bad times +of late, and Louis has engaged himself, and wants to be married. You +remember I told you how we worked at the South Kensington classes +together, and how they made me a Venturist? + + "Yours very truly, + + "MARCELLA BOYCE." + +Wharton laid down the letter, making a wry mouth over some of its +phrases. + +"'_Put us both wrong with honour and conscience.' 'One more reason for +despair of life'--'All was over for me at Mellor_'--dear! dear!--how +women like the big words--the emphatic pose. All those little odds and +ends of charities--that absurd straw-plaiting scheme! Well, perhaps one +could hardly expect her to show a sense of humour just then. But why +does nature so often leave it out in these splendid creatures?" + +"Hullo!" he added, as he bent over the table to look for a pen; "why +didn't that idiot give me these?" + +For there, under an evening paper which he had not touched, lay a pile +of unopened letters. His servant had forgotten to point them out to him. +On the top was a letter on which Wharton pounced at once. It was +addressed in a bold inky hand, and he took it to be from Nehemiah +Wilkins, M.P., his former colleague at the Birmingham Labour Congress, +of late a member of the _Labour Clarion_ staff, and as such a daily +increasing plague and anxiety to the _Clarion's_ proprietor. + +However, the letter was not from Wilkins. It was from the secretary of +a Midland trades-union, with whom Wharton had already been in +communication. The union was recent, and represented the as yet feeble +organisation of a metal industry in process of transition from the +home-workshop to the full factory, or Great Industry stage. The +conditions of work were extremely bad, and grievances many; wages were +low, and local distress very great. The secretary, a young man of +ability and enthusiasm, wrote to Wharton to say that certain alterations +in the local "payment lists" lately made by the employers amounted to a +reduction of wages; that the workers, beginning to feel the heartening +effects of their union, were determined not to submit; that bitter and +even desperate agitation was spreading fast, and that a far-reaching +strike was imminent. Could they count on the support of the _Clarion_? +The _Clarion_ had already published certain letters on the industry from +a Special Commissioner--letters which had drawn public attention, and +had been eagerly read in the district itself. Would the _Clarion_ now +"go in" for them? Would Mr. Wharton personally support them, in or out +of Parliament, and get his friends to do the same? To which questions, +couched in terms extremely flattering to the power of the _Clarion_ and +its owner, the secretary appended a long and technical statement of the +situation. + +Wharton looked up from the letter with a kindling eye. He foresaw an +extremely effective case, both for the newspaper and the House of +Commons. One of the chief capitalists involved was a man called Denny, +who had been long in the House, for whom the owner of the _Clarion_ +entertained a strong personal dislike. Denny had thwarted him +vexatiously--had perhaps even made him ridiculous--on one or two +occasions; and Wharton saw no reason whatever for forgiving one's +enemies until, like Narvaez, one had "shot them all." There would be +much satisfaction in making Denny understand who were his masters. And +with these motives there mingled a perfectly genuine sympathy with the +"poor devils" in question, and a desire to see them righted. + +"Somebody must be sent down at once," he said to himself. "I suppose," +he added, with discontent, "it must be Wilkins." + +For the man who had written the articles for the _Labour Clarion_, as +Special Commissioner, had some three weeks before left England to take +command of a colonial newspaper. + +Still pondering, he took up the other letters, turned them +over--childishly pleased for the thousandth time by the M.P. on each +envelope and the number and variety of his correspondence--and eagerly +chose out three--one from his bankers, one from his Lincolnshire agent, +and one from the _Clarion_ office, undoubtedly this time in Wilkins's +hand. + +He read them, grew a little pale, swore under his breath, and, angrily +flinging the letters away from him, he took up his cigarette again and +thought. + +The letter from his bankers asked his attention in stiff terms to a +largely overdrawn account, and entirely declined to advance a sum of +money for which he had applied to them without the guarantee of two +substantial names in addition to his own. The letter from his agent +warned him that the extraordinary drought of the past six weeks, +together with the general agricultural depression, would certainly mean +a large remission of rents at the June quarter day, and also informed +him that the holders of his co-operative farm would not be able to pay +their half-yearly interest on the capital advanced to them by the +landlord. + +As to the third letter, it was in truth much more serious than the two +others. Wilkins, the passionate and suspicious workman, of great natural +ability, who had been in many ways a thorn in Wharton's side since the +beginning of his public career, was now member for a mining +constituency. His means of support were extremely scanty, and at the +opening of the new Parliament Wharton had offered him well-paid work on +the _Clarion_ newspaper. It had seemed to the proprietor of the +_Clarion_ a way of attaching a dangerous man to himself, perhaps also of +controlling him. Wilkins had grudgingly accepted, understanding +perfectly well what was meant. + +Since then the relation between the two men had been one of perpetual +friction. Wilkins's irritable pride would yield nothing, either in the +House or in the _Clarion_ office, to Wharton's university education and +class advantages, while Wharton watched with alarm the growing influence +of this insubordinate and hostile member of his own staff on those +labour circles from which the _Clarion_ drew its chief support. + +In the letter he had just read Wilkins announced to the proprietor of +the _Clarion_ that in consequence of the "scandalous mismanagement" of +that paper's handling of a certain trade arbitration which had just +closed, he, Wilkins, could no longer continue to write for it, and +begged to terminate his engagement at once, there being no formal +agreement between himself and Wharton as to length of notice on either +side. A lively attack on the present management and future prospects of +the _Clarion_ followed, together with the threat that the writer would +do what in him lay henceforward to promote the cause of a certain rival +organ lately started, among such working men as he might be able to +influence. + +"_Brute_! jealous, impracticable brute!" exclaimed Wharton aloud, as he +stood chafing and smoking by the window. All the difficulties which this +open breach was likely to sow in his path stood out before him in clear +relief. + +"_Personal_ leadership, there is the whole problem," he said to himself +in moody despair. "Can I--like Parnell--make a party and keep it +together? Can I through the _Clarion_--and through influence _outside_ +the House--coerce the men _in_ the House? If so, we can do something, +and Lady Cradock will no longer throw me her smiles. If not the game is +up, both for me and for them. They have no cohesion, no common +information, no real power. Without leaders they are a mere set of +half-educated firebrands whom the trained mind of the country humours +because it must, and so far as they have brute force behind them. +Without _leadership_, _I_ am a mere unit of the weakest group in the House. +Yet, by Jove! it looks as though I had not the gifts." + +And he looked back with passionate chagrin on the whole course of his +connection with Wilkins, his unavailing concessions and small +humiliations, his belief in his own tact and success, all the time that +the man dealt with was really slipping out of his hands. + +"Damn the fellow!" he said at last, flinging his cigarette away. "Well, +that's done with. All the same, he would have liked that Midland job! He +has been hankering after a strike there for some time, and might have +ranted as he pleased. I shall have the satisfaction of informing him he +has lost his opportunity. Now then--who to send? By Jove! what about +Miss Boyce's friend?" + +He stood a moment twisting the quill-pen he had taken up, then he +hastily found a sheet of paper and wrote: + +"Dear Miss Boyce,--It is more than a year since I have heard of you, and +I have been wondering with much interest lately whether you have really +taken up a nursing life. You remember speaking to me of your friends the +Cravens? I come across them sometimes at the Venturist meetings, and +have always admired their ability. Last year I could do nothing +practical to meet your wishes. This year, however, there is an opening +on the _Clarion_, and I should like to discuss it with you. Are you in +town or to be found? I could come any afternoon next week, _early_--I go +down to the House at four--or on Saturdays. But I should like it to be +Tuesday or Wednesday, that I might try and persuade you to come to our +Eight Hours debate on Friday night. It would interest you, and I think I +could get you a seat. We Labour members are like the Irishmen--we can +always get our friends in. + +"I must send this round by Mellor, so it may not reach you till Tuesday. +Perhaps you will kindly telegraph. The _Clarion_ matter is pressing. + + "Yours sincerely, + + "H.S. WHARTON." + +When he had finished he lingered a moment over the letter, the play of +conflicting motives and memories bringing a vague smile to the lips. + +Reverie, however, was soon dispersed. He recollected his other +correspondents, and springing up he began to pace his room, gloomily +thinking over his money difficulties, which were many. He and his mother +had always been in want of money ever since he could remember. Lady +Mildred would spend huge sums on her various crotchets and campaigns, +and then subside for six months into wretched lodgings in a back street +of Southsea or Worthing, while the Suffolk house was let, and her son +mostly went abroad. This perpetual worry of needy circumstances had +always, indeed, sat lightly on Wharton. He was unmarried, and so far +scarcity had generally passed into temporary comfort before he had time +to find it intolerable. But now the whole situation was becoming more +serious. In the first place, his subscriptions and obligations as a +member of Parliament, and as one of the few propertied persons in a +moneyless movement, were considerable. Whatever Socialism might make of +money in the future, he was well aware that money in the present was no +less useful to a Socialist politician than to any one else. In the next +place, the starting and pushing of the _Clarion_ newspaper--originally +purchased by the help of a small legacy from an uncle--had enormously +increased the scale of his money transactions and the risks of life. + +How was it that, with all his efforts, the _Clarion_ was not making, but +losing money? During the three years he had possessed it he had raised +it from the position of a small and foul-mouthed print, indifferently +nourished on a series of small scandals, to that of a Labour organ of +some importance. He had written a weekly signed article for it, which +had served from the beginning to bring both him and the paper into +notice; he had taken pains with the organisation and improvement of the +staff; above all, he had spent a great deal more money upon it, in the +way of premises and appliances, than he had been, as it turned out, in +any way justified in spending. + +Hence, indeed, these tears. Rather more than a year before, while the +_Clarion_ was still enjoying a first spurt of success and notoriety, he +had, with a certain recklessness which belonged to his character, +invested in new and costly machinery, and had transferred the paper to +larger offices. All this had been done on borrowed money. + +Then, for some reason or other, the _Clarion_ had ceased to answer to +the spur--had, indeed, during the past eight months been flagging +heavily. The outside world was beginning to regard the _Clarion_ as an +important paper. Wharton knew all the time that its advertisements were +falling off, and its circulation declining. Why? Who can say? If it is +true that books have their fates, it is still more true of newspapers. +Was it that a collectivist paper--the rival organ mentioned by +Wilkins--recently started by a group of young and outrageously clever +Venturists and more closely in touch than the _Clarion_ with two or +three of the great unions, had filched the _Clarion's_ ground? Or was it +simply that, as Wharton put it to himself in moments of rage and +despondency, the majority of working men "are either sots or +block-heads, and will read and support _nothing_ but the low racing or +police-court news, which is all their intelligences deserve?" Few people +had at the bottom of their souls a more scornful distrust of the +"masses" than the man whose one ambition at the present moment was to be +the accepted leader of English labour. + +Finally, his private expenditure had always been luxurious; and he was +liable, it will be seen, to a kind of debt that is not easily kept +waiting. On the whole, his bankers had behaved to him with great +indulgence. + +He fretted and fumed, turning over plan after plan as he walked, his +curly head sunk in his shoulders, his hands behind his back. Presently +he stopped--absently--in front of the inner wall of the room, where, +above a heavy rosewood bookcase, brought from his Lincolnshire house, a +number of large framed photographs were hung close together. + +His eye caught one and brightened. With an impatient gesture, like that +of a reckless boy, he flung his thoughts away from him. + +"If ever the game becomes too tiresome here, why, the next steamer will +take me out of it! What a _gorgeous_ time we had on that glacier!" + +He stood looking at a splendid photograph of a glacier in the Thibetan +Himalayas, where, in the year following his mother's death, he had spent +four months with an exploring party. The plate had caught the very grain +and glisten of the snow, the very sheen and tint of the ice. He could +_feel_ the azure of the sky, the breath of the mountain wind. The man +seated on the ladder over that bottomless crevasse was himself. And +there were the guides, two from Chamounix, one from Grindelwald, and +that fine young fellow, the son of the elder Chamounix guide, whom they +had lost by a stone-shower on that nameless peak towering to the left of +the glacier. Ah, those had been years of _life_, those _Wanderjahre_! He +ran over the photographs with a kind of greed, his mind meanwhile losing +itself in covetous memories of foamy seas, of long, low, tropical shores +with their scattered palms, of superb rivers sweeping with sound and +fury round innumerable islands, of great buildings ivory white amid the +wealth of creepers which had pulled them into ruin, vacant now for ever +of the voice of man, and ringed by untrodden forests. + +"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay,'" he thought. +"Ah! but how much did the man who wrote that know about Cathay?" + +And with his hands thrust into his pockets, he stood lost awhile in a +flying dream that defied civilisation and its cares. How well, how +indispensable to remember, that beyond these sweltering streets where we +choke and swarm, Cathay stands always waiting! _Somewhere_, while we +toil in the gloom and the crowd, there is _air_, there is _sea_, the joy +of the sun, the life of the body, so good, so satisfying! This +interminable ethical or economical battle, these struggles selfish or +altruistic, in which we shout ourselves hoarse to no purpose--why! they +could be shaken off at a moment's notice! + +"However"--he turned on his heel--"suppose we try a few other trifles +first. What time? those fellows won't have gone to bed yet!" + +He took out his watch, then extinguished his candles, and made his way +to the street. A hundred yards or so away from his own door he stopped +before a well-known fashionable club, extremely small, and extremely +select, where his mother's brother, the peer of the family, had +introduced him when he was young and tender, and his mother's relations +still cherished hopes of snatching him as a brand from the burning. + +The front rooms of the club were tolerably full still. He passed on to +the back. A door-keeper stationed in the passage stepped back and +silently opened a door. It closed instantly behind him, and Wharton +found himself in a room with some twenty other young fellows playing +baccarat, piles of shining money on the tables, the electric lamps hung +over each, lighting every detail of the scene with the same searching +disenchanting glare. + +"I say!" cried a young dark-haired fellow, like a dishevelled Lord +Byron. "Here comes the Labour leader--make room!" + +And amid laughter and chaffing he was drawn down to the baccarat table, +where a new deal was just beginning. He felt in his pockets for money; +his eyes, intent and shining, followed every motion of the dealer's +hand. For three years now, ever since his return from his travels, the +gambler's passion had been stealing on him. Already this season he had +lost and won--on the whole lost--large sums. And the fact was--so +far--absolutely unknown except to the men with whom he played in this +room. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"If yer goin' downstairs, Nuss, you'd better take that there scuttle +with yer, for the coals is gittin' low an' it ull save yer a journey!" + +Marcella looked with amusement at her adviser--a small bandy-legged boy +in shirt and knickerbockers, with black Jewish eyes in a strongly +featured face. He stood leaning on the broom he had just been wielding, +his sleeves rolled up to the shoulder showing his tiny arms; his +expression sharp and keen as a hawk's. + +"Well, Benny, then you look after your mother while I'm gone, and don't +let any one in but the doctor." + +And Marcella turned for an instant towards the bed whereon lay a sick +woman too feeble apparently to speak or move. + +"I aint a goin' ter," said the boy, shortly, beginning to sweep again +with energy, "an' if this 'ere baby cries, give it the bottle, I +s'pose?" + +"No, certainly not," said Marcella, firmly; "it has just had one. You +sweep away, Benny, and let the baby alone." + +Benny looked a trifle wounded, but recovered himself immediately, and +ran a general's eye over Marcella who was just about to leave the room. + +"Now look 'ere, Nuss," he said in a tone of pitying remonstrance, "yer +never a goin' down to that 'ere coal cellar without a light. Yer'll 'ave +to come runnin' up all them stairs again--sure as I'm alive yer will!" + +And darting to a cupboard he pulled out a grimy candlestick with an end +of dip and some matches, disposed of them at the bottom of the +coal-scuttle that Marcella carried over her left arm, and then, still +masterfully considering her, let her go. + +Marcella groped her way downstairs. The house was one of a type familiar +all over the poorer parts of West Central London--the eighteenth-century +house inhabited by law or fashion in the days of Dr. Johnson, now +parcelled out into insanitary tenements, miserably provided with air, +water, and all the necessaries of life, but still showing in its +chimney-piece or its decaying staircase signs of the graceful domestic +art which had ruled at the building and fitting of it. + +Marcella, however, had no eye whatever at the moment for the panelling +on the staircase, or the delicate ironwork of the broken balustrade. +Rather it seemed to her, as she looked into some of the half-open doors +of the swarming rooms she passed, or noticed with disgust the dirt and +dilapidation of the stairs, and the evil smells of the basement, that +the house added one more to the standing shames of the district--an +opinion doubly strong in her when at last she emerged from her gropings +among the dens of the lower regions, and began to toil upstairs again +with her filled kettle and coal-scuttle. + +The load was heavy, even for her young strength, and she had just passed +a sleepless night. The evening before she had been sent for in haste to +a woman in desperate illness. She came, and found a young Jewess, with a +ten days old child beside her, struggling with her husband and two women +friends in a state of raging delirium. The room, was full to suffocation +of loud-tongued, large-eyed Jewesses, all taking turns at holding the +patient, and chattering or quarrelling between their turns. It had been +Marcella's first and arduous duty to get the place cleared, and she had +done it without ever raising her voice or losing her temper for an +instant. The noisy pack had been turned out; the most competent woman +among them chosen to guard the door and fetch and carry for the nurse; +while Marcella set to work to wash her patient and remake the bed as +best she could, in the midst of the poor thing's wild shrieks and +wrestlings. + +It was a task to test both muscular strength and moral force to their +utmost. After her year's training Marcella took it simply in the day's +work. Some hours of intense effort and strain; then she and the husband +looked down upon the patient, a woman of about six-and-twenty, plunged +suddenly in narcotic sleep, her matted black hair, which Marcella had +not dared to touch, lying in wild waves on the clean bed-clothes and +night-gear that her nurse had extracted from this neighbour and +that--she could hardly have told how. + +"_Ach, mein Gott, mein Gott!_" said the husband, rising and shaking +himself. He was a Jew from German Poland, and, unlike most of his race, +a huge man, with the make and the muscles of a prize-fighter. Yet, +after the struggle of the last two hours he was in a bath of +perspiration. + +"You will have to send her to the infirmary if this comes on again," +said Marcella. + +The husband stared in helpless misery, first at his wife, then at the +nurse. + +"You will not go away, mees," he implored, "you will not leaf me alone?" + +Wearied as she was, Marcella could have smiled at the abject giant. + +"No, I will stay with her till the morning and till the doctor comes. +You had better go to bed." + +It was close on three o'clock. The man demurred a little, but he was in +truth too worn out to resist. He went into the back room and lay down +with the children. + +Then Marcella was left through the long summer dawn alone with her +patient. Her quick ear caught every sound about her--the heavy breaths +of the father and children in the back room, the twittering of the +sparrows, the first cries about the streets, the first movements in the +crowded house. Her mind all the time was running partly on contrivances +for pulling the woman through--for it was what a nurse calls "a good +case," one that rouses all her nursing skill and faculty--partly on the +extraordinary misconduct of the doctor, to whose criminal neglect and +mismanagement of the case she hotly attributed the whole of the woman's +illness; and partly--in deep, swift sinkings of meditative thought--on +the strangeness of the fact that she should be there at all, sitting in +this chair in this miserable room, keeping guard over this Jewish mother +and her child! + +The year in hospital had _rushed_--dreamless sleep by night, exhausting +fatigue of mind and body by day. A hospital nurse, if her work _seizes_ +her, as it had seized Marcella, never thinks of herself. Now, for some +six or seven weeks she had been living in rooms, as a district nurse, +under the control of a central office and superintendent. Her work lay +in the homes of the poor, and was of the most varied kind. The life was +freer, more elastic; allowed room at last to self-consciousness. + + * * * * * + +But now the night was over. The husband had gone off to work at a +factory near, whence he could be summoned at any moment; the children +had been disposed of to Mrs. Levi, the helpful neighbour; she herself +had been home for an hour to breakfast and dress, had sent to the office +asking that her other cases might be attended to, and was at present in +sole charge, with Benny to help her, waiting for the doctor. + +When she reached the sick-room again with her burdens, she found +Benjamin sitting pensive, with the broom across his knees. + +"Well, Benny!" she said as she entered, "how have you got on?" + +"Yer can't move the dirt on them boards with sweepin'," said Benny, +looking at them with disgust; "an' I ain't a goin' to try it no more." + +"You're about right there, Benny," said Marcella, mournfully, as she +inspected them; "well, we'll get Mrs. Levi to come in and scrub--as soon +as your mother can bear it." + +She stepped up to the bed and looked at her patient, who seemed to be +passing into a state of restless prostration, more or less under the +influence of morphia. Marcella fed her with strong beef tea made by +herself during the night, and debated whether she should give brandy. +No--either the doctor would come directly, or she would send for him. +She had not seen him yet, and her lip curled at the thought of him. He +had ordered a nurse the night before, but had not stayed to meet her, +and Marcella had been obliged to make out his instructions from the +husband as best she could. + +Benny looked up at her with a wink as she went back to the fire. + +"I didn't let none o' _them_ in," he said, jerking his thumb over his +shoulder. "They come a whisperin' at the door, an' a rattlin' ov the +handle as soon as ever you gone downstairs. But I tole 'em just to take +theirselves off, an' as 'ow you didn't want 'em. Sillies!" + +And taking a crust smeared with treacle out of his pocket, Benny +returned with a severe air to the sucking of it. + +Marcella laughed. + +"Clever Benny," she said, patting his head; "but why aren't you at +school, sir?" + +Benjamin grinned. + +"'Ow d'yer s'pose my ma's goin' to git along without me to do for 'er +and the babby?" he replied slily. + +"Well, Benny, you'll have the Board officer down on you." + +At this the urchin laughed out. + +"Why, 'e wor here last week! Ee can't be troublin' 'isself about this +'ere bloomin' street _ev_ery day in the week." + +There was a sharp knock at the door. + +"The doctor," she said, as her face dismissed the frolic brightness +which had stolen upon it for a moment. "Run away, Benny." + +Benny opened the door, looked the doctor coolly up and down, and then +withdrew to the landing, where his sisters were waiting to play with +him. + +The doctor, a tall man of thirty, with a red, blurred face and a fair +moustache, walked in hurriedly, and stared at the nurse standing by the +fire. + +"You come from the St. Martin's Association?" + +Marcella stiffly replied. He took her temperature-chart from her hand +and asked her some questions about the night, staring at her from time +to time with eyes that displeased her. Presently she came to an account +of the condition in which she had found her patient. The edge on the +words, for all their professional quiet, was unmistakable. She saw him +flush. + +He moved towards the bed, and she went with him. The woman moaned as he +approached her. He set about his business with hands that shook. +Marcella decided at once that he was not sober, and watched his +proceedings with increasing disgust and amazement. Presently she could +bear it no longer. + +"I think," she said, touching his arm, "that you had better leave it to +me--and--go away!" + +He drew himself up with a start which sent the things he held flying, +and faced her fiercely. + +"What do you mean?" he said, "don't you know your place?" + +The girl was very white, but her eyes were scornfully steady. + +"Yes--I know my place!" + +Then with a composure as fearless as it was scathing she said what she +had to say. She knew--and he could not deny--that he had endangered his +patient's life. She pointed out that he was in a fair way to endanger it +again. Every word she said lay absolutely within her sphere as a nurse. +His cloudy brain cleared under the stress of it. + +Then his eyes flamed, his cheeks became purple, and Marcella thought for +an instant he would have struck her. Finally he turned down his +shirt-cuffs and walked away. + +"You understand," he said thickly, turning upon her, with his hat in his +hand, "that I shall not attend this case again till your Association can +send me a nurse that will do as she is told without insolence to the +doctor. I shall now write a report to your superintendent." + +"As you please," said Marcella, quietly. And she went to the door and +opened it. + +He passed her sneering: + +"A precious superior lot you lady-nurses think yourselves, I dare say. +I'd sooner have one old gamp than the whole boiling of you!" + +Marcella eyed him sternly, her nostrils tightening. "Will you go?" she +said. + +He gave her a furious glance, and plunged down the stairs outside, +breathing threats. + +Marcella put her hand to her head a moment, and drew a long breath. +There was a certain piteousness in the action, a consciousness of youth +and strain. + +Then she saw that the landing and the stairs above were beginning to +fill with dark-haired Jewesses, eagerly peering and talking. In another +minute or two she would be besieged by them. She called sharply, +"Benny!" + +Instantly Benny appeared from the landing above, elbowing the Jewesses +to right and left. + +"What is it you want, Nuss? No, she don't want none o' _you_--_there_!" + +And Benjamin darted into the room, and would have slammed the door in +all their faces, but that Marcella said to him-- + +"Let in Mrs. Levi, please." + +The kind neighbour, who had been taking care of the children, was +admitted, and then the key was turned. Marcella scribbled a line on a +half-sheet of paper, and, with careful directions, despatched Benny with +it. + +"I have sent for a new doctor," she explained, still frowning and white, +to Mrs. Levi. "That one was not fit." + +The woman's olive-skinned face lightened all over. "Thanks to the Lord!" +she said, throwing up her hands. "But how in the world did you do 't, +miss? There isn't a single soul in this house that doesn't go all of a +tremble at the sight of 'im. Yet all the women has 'im when they're +ill--bound to. They thinks he must be clever, 'cos he's such a brute. I +do believe sometimes it's that. He _is_ a brute!" + +Marcella was bending over her patient, trying so far as she could to set +her straight and comfortable again. But the woman had begun to mutter +once more words in a strange dialect that Marcella did not understand, +and could no longer be kept still. The temperature was rising again, and +another fit of delirium was imminent. Marcella could only hope that she +and Mrs. Levi between them would be able to hold her till the doctor +came. When she had done all that was in her power, she sat beside the +poor tossing creature, controlling and calming her as best she could, +while Mrs. Levi poured into her shrinking ear the story of the woman's +illness and of Dr. Blank's conduct of it. Marcella's feeling, as she +listened, was made up of that old agony of rage and pity! The sufferings +of the poor, _because_ they were poor--these things often, still, +darkened earth and heaven for her. That wretch would have been quite +capable, no doubt, of conducting himself decently and even competently, +if he had been called to some supposed lady in one of the well-to-do +squares which made the centre of this poor and crowded district. + +"Hullo, nurse!" said a cheery voice; "you seem to have got a bad case." + +The sound was as music in Marcella's ears. The woman she held was fast +becoming unmanageable--had just shrieked, first for "poison," then for a +"knife," to kill herself with, and could hardly be prevented by the +combined strength of her nurse and Mrs. Levi, now from throwing herself +madly out of bed, and now from tearing out her black hair in handfuls. +The doctor--a young Scotchman with spectacles, and stubbly red +beard--came quickly up to the bed, asked Marcella a few short questions, +shrugged his shoulders over her dry report of Dr. Blank's proceedings, +then took out a black case from his pocket, and put his morphia syringe +together. + +For a long time no result whatever could be obtained by any treatment. +The husband was sent for, and came trembling, imploring doctor and +nurse, in the intervals of his wife's paroxysms, not to leave him alone. + +Marcella, absorbed in the tragic horror of the case, took no note of the +passage of time. Everything that the doctor suggested she carried out +with a deftness, a tenderness, a power of mind, which keenly affected +his professional sense. Once, the poor mother, left unguarded for an +instant, struck out with a wild right hand. The blow caught Marcella on +the cheek, and she drew back with a slight involuntary cry. + +"You are hurt," said Dr. Angus, running up to her. + +"No, no," she said, smiling through the tears that the shock had called +into her eyes, and putting him rather impatiently aside; "it is nothing. +You said you wanted some fresh ice." + +And she went into the back room to get it. + +The doctor stood with his hands in his pockets, studying the patient. + +"You will have to send her to the infirmary," he said to the husband; +"there is nothing else for it." + +Marcella came back with the ice, and was able to apply it to the head. +The patient was quieter--was, in fact, now groaning herself into a fresh +period of exhaustion. + +The doctor's sharp eyes took note of the two figures, the huddled +creature on the pillows and the stately head bending over her, with the +delicately hollowed cheek, whereon the marks of those mad fingers stood +out red and angry. He had already had experience of this girl in one or +two other cases. + +"Well," he said, taking up his hat, "it is no good shilly-shallying. I +will go and find Dr. Swift." Dr. Swift was the parish doctor. + +When he had gone, the big husband broke down and cried, with his head +against the iron of the bed close to his wife. He put his great hand on +hers, and talked to her brokenly in their own patois. They had been +eight years married, and she had never had a day's serious illness till +now. Marcella's eyes filled with tears as she moved about the room, +doing various little tasks. + +At last she went up to him. + +"Won't you go and have some dinner?" she said to him kindly. "There's +Benjamin calling you," and she pointed to the door of the back room, +where stood Benny, his face puckered with weeping, forlornly holding out +a plate of fried fish, in the hope of attracting his father's attention. + +The man, who in spite of his size and strength was in truth childishly +soft and ductile, went as he was bid, and Marcella and Mrs. Levi set +about doing what they could to prepare the wife for her removal. + +Presently parish doctor and sanitary inspector appeared, strange and +peremptory invaders who did but add to the terror and misery of the +husband. Then at last came the ambulance, and Dr. Angus with it. The +patient, now once more plunged in narcotic stupor, was carried +downstairs by two male nurses, Dr. Angus presiding. Marcella stood in +the doorway and watched the scene,--the gradual disappearance of the +helpless form on the stretcher, with its fevered face under the dark mat +of hair; the figures of the straining men heavily descending step by +step, their heads and shoulders thrown out against the dirty drabs and +browns of the staircase; the crowd of Jewesses on the stairs and +landing, craning their necks, gesticulating and talking, so that Dr. +Angus could hardly make his directions heard, angrily as he bade them +stand back; and on the top stair, the big husband, following the form of +his departing and unconscious wife with his eyes, his face convulsed +with weeping, the whimpering children clinging about his knees. + +How hot it was!--how stifling the staircase smelt, and how the sun beat +down from that upper window on the towzled unkempt women with their +large-eyed children. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Marcella on her way home turned into a little street leading to a great +block of model dwellings, which rose on the right hand side and made +everything else, the mews entrance opposite, the lines of squalid shops +on either side, look particularly small and dirty. The sun was beating +fiercely down, and she was sick and tired. + +As she entered the iron gate of the dwellings, and saw before her the +large asphalted court round which they ran--blazing heat on one side of +it, and on the other some children playing cricket against the wall with +chalk marks for wickets--she was seized with depression. The tall yet +mean buildings, the smell of dust and heat, the general impression of +packed and crowded humanity--these things, instead of offering her rest, +only continued and accented the sense of strain, called for more +endurance, more making the best of it. + +But she found a tired smile for some of the children who ran up to her, +and then she climbed the stairs of the E. block, and opened the door of +her own tenement, number 10. In number 9 lived Minta Hurd and her +children, who had joined Marcella in London some two months before. In +sets 7 and 8, on either side of Marcella and the Hurds, lived two +widows, each with a family, who were mostly out charing during the day. + +Marcella's Association allowed its District Nurses to live outside the +"home" of the district on certain conditions, which had been fulfilled +in Marcella's case by her settlement next door to her old friends in +these buildings which were inhabited by a very respectable though poor +class. Meanwhile the trustees of the buildings had allowed her to make a +temporary communication between her room and the Hurds, so that she +could either live her own solitary and independent life, or call for +their companionship, as she pleased. + +As she shut her door behind her she found herself in a little passage or +entry. To the left was her bedroom. Straight in front of her was the +living room with a small close range in it, and behind it a little back +kitchen. + +The living room was cheerful and even pretty. Her art-student's training +showed itself. The cheap blue and white paper, the couple of oak flap +tables from a broker's shop in Marchmont Street, the two or three cane +chairs with their bright chintz cushions, the Indian rug or two on the +varnished boards, the photographs and etchings on the walls, the books +on the tables--there was not one of these things that was not in its +degree a pleasure to her young senses, that did not help her to live her +life. This afternoon as she opened the door and looked in, the pretty +colours and forms in the tiny room were as water to the thirsty. Her +mother had sent her some flowers the day before. There they were on the +tables, great bunches of honey-suckles, of blue-bells, and Banksia +roses. And over the mantelpiece was a photograph of the place where such +flowers as Mellor possessed mostly grew--the unkempt lawn, the old +fountain and grey walls of the Cedar Garden. + +The green blind over the one window which looked into the court, had +been drawn down against the glare of the sun, as though by a careful +hand. Beside a light wooden rocking chair, which was Marcella's +favourite seat, a tray of tea things had been put out. Marcella drew a +long breath of comfort as she put down her bag. + +"Now, _can_ I wait for my tea till I have washed and dressed?" + +She argued with herself an instant as though she had been a greedy +child, then, going swiftly into the back kitchen, she opened the door +between her rooms and the Hurds. + +"Minta!" + +A voice responded. + +"Minta, make me some tea and boil an egg! there's a good soul! I will be +back directly." + +And in ten minutes or so she came back again into the sitting-room, +daintily fresh and clean but very pale. She had taken off her nurse's +dress and apron, and had put on something loose and white that hung +about her in cool folds. + +But Minta Hurd, who had just brought in the tea, looked at her +disapprovingly. + +"Whatever are you so late for?" she asked a little peevishly. "You'll +get ill if you go missing your dinner." + +"I couldn't help it, Minta, it was such a bad case." + +Mrs. Hurd poured out the tea in silence, unappeased. Her mind was +constantly full of protest against this nursing. Why should Miss Boyce +do such "funny things"--why should she live as she did, at all? + +Their relation to each other was a curious one. Marcella, knowing that +the life of Hurd's widow at Mellor was gall and bitterness, had sent for +her at the moment that she herself was leaving the hospital, offering +her a weekly sum in return for a little cooking and house service. Minta +already possessed a weekly pension, coming from a giver unknown to her. +It was regularly handed to her by Mr. Harden, and she could only imagine +that one of the "gentlemen" who had belonged to the Hurd Reprieve +Committee, and had worked so hard for Jim, was responsible for it, out +of pity for her and her children. The payment offered her by Miss Boyce +would defray the expense of London house-rent, the children's schooling, +and leave a trifle over. Moreover she was pining to get away from +Mellor. Her first instinct after her husband's execution had been to +hide herself from all the world. But for a long time her precarious +state of health, and her dependence first on Marcella, then on Mary +Harden, made it impossible for her to leave the village. It was not till +Marcella's proposal came that her way was clear. She sold her bits of +things at once, took her children and went up to Brown's buildings. + +Marcella met her with the tenderness, the tragic tremor of feeling from +which the peasant's wife shrank anew, bewildered, as she had often +shrunk from it in the past. Jim's fate had made her an old woman at +thirty-two. She was now a little shrivelled consumptive creature with +almost white hair, and a face from which youth had gone, unless perhaps +there were some traces of it in the still charming eyes, and small open +mouth. But these changes had come upon her she knew not why, as the +result of blows she felt but had never reasoned about. Marcella's fixed +mode of conceiving her and her story caused her from the beginning of +their fresh acquaintance a dumb irritation and trouble she could never +have explained. It was so tragic, reflective, exacting. It seemed to ask +of her feelings that she could not have, to expect from her expression +that was impossible. And it stood also between her and the friends and +distractions that she would like to have. Why shouldn't that queer man, +Mr. Strozzi, who lived down below, and whose name she could not +pronounce, come and sit sometimes of an evening, and amuse her and the +children? He was a "Professor of Elocution," and said and sung comic +pieces. He was very civil and obliging too; she liked him. Yet Miss +Boyce was evidently astonished that she could make friends with him, and +Minta perfectly understood the lift of her dark eyebrows whenever she +came in and found him sitting there. + +Meanwhile Marcella had expected her with emotion, and had meant through +this experiment to bring herself truly near to the poor. Minta must not +call her Miss Boyce, but by her name; which, however, Minta, reddening, +had declared she could never do. Her relation to Marcella was not to be +that of servant in any sense, but of friend and sister; and on her and +her children Marcella had spent from the beginning a number of new +womanish wiles which, strangely enough, this hard, strenuous life had +been developing in her. She would come and help put the children to bed; +she would romp with them in their night-gowns; she would bend her +imperious head over the anxious endeavour to hem a pink cotton pinafore +for Daisy, or dress a doll for the baby. But the relation jarred and +limped perpetually, and Marcella wistfully thought it her fault. + +Just now, however, as she sat gently swaying backwards and forwards in +the rocking-chair, enjoying her tea, her mood was one of nothing but +content. + +"Oh, Minta, give me another cup. I want to have a sleep so badly, and +then I am going to see Miss Hallin, and stay to supper with them." + +"Well, you mustn't go out in them nursin' things again," said Minta, +quickly; "I've put you in some lace in your black dress, an' it looks +beautiful." + +"Oh, thank you, Minta; but that black dress always seems to me too smart +to walk about these streets in." + +"It's just _nice_," said Minta, with decision. "It's just what everybody +that knows you--what your mamma--would like to see you in. I can't abide +them nursin' clothes--nasty things!" + +"I declare!" cried Marcella, laughing, but outraged; "I never like +myself so well in anything." + +Minta was silent, but her small mouth took an obstinate look. What she +really felt was that it was absurd for ladies to wear caps and aprons +and plain black bonnets, when there was no need for them to do anything +of the kind. + +"Whatever have you been doing to your cheek?" she exclaimed, suddenly, +as Marcella handed her the empty cup to take away. + +Marcella explained shortly, and Minta looked more discontented than +ever. "A lot of low people as ought to look after themselves," that was +how in her inmost mind she generally defined Marcella's patients. She +had been often kind and soft to her neighbours at Mellor, but these +dirty, crowded Londoners were another matter. + +"Where is Daisy?" asked Marcella as Minta was going away with the tea; +"she must have come back from school." + +"Here I am," said Daisy, with a grin, peeping in through the door of the +back kitchen. "Mother, baby's woke up." + +"Come here, you monkey," said Marcella; "come and go to sleep with me. +Have you had your tea?" + +"Yes, lots," said Daisy, climbing up into Marcella's lap. "Are you going +to be asleep a long time?" + +"No--only a nap. Oh! Daisy, I'm so tired. Come and cuddlie a bit! If you +don't go to sleep you know you can slip away--I shan't wake." + +The child, a slight, red-haired thing, with something of the ethereal +charm that her dead brother had possessed, settled herself on Marcella's +knees, slipped her left thumb into her mouth, and flung her other arm +round Marcella's neck. They had often gone to sleep so. Mrs. Hurd came +back, drew down the blind further, threw a light shawl over them both, +and left them. + +An hour and a half later Minta came in again as she had been told. +Daisy had slipped away, but Marcella was still lying in the perfect +gentleness and relaxation of sleep. + +"You said I was to come and wake you," said Minta, drawing up the blind; +"but I don't believe you're a bit fit to be going about. Here's some hot +water, and there's a letter just come." + +Marcella woke with a start, Minta put the letter on her knee, and dream +and reality flowed together as she saw her own name in Wharton's +handwriting. + +She read the letter, then sat flushed and thinking for a while with her +hands on her knees. + +A little while later she opened the Hurds' front-door. + +"Minta, I am going now. I shall be back early after supper, for I +haven't written my report." + +"There--now you look something like!" said Minta, scanning her +approvingly--the wide hat and pretty black dress. "Shall Daisy run out +with that telegram?" + +"No, thanks. I shall pass the post. Good-bye." + +And she stooped and kissed the little withered woman. She wished, +ardently wished, that Minta would be more truly friends with her! + +After a brisk walk through the June evening she stopped--still within +the same district--at the door of a house in a long, old-fashioned +street, wherein the builder was busy on either hand, since most of the +long leases had just fallen in. But the house she entered was still +untouched. She climbed a last-century staircase, adorned with panels of +stucco work--slender Italianate reliefs of wreaths, ribbons, and +medallions on a pale green ground. The decoration was clean and cared +for, the house in good order. Eighty years ago it was the home of a +famous judge, who entertained in its rooms the legal and literary +celebrities of his day. Now it was let out to professional people in +lodgings or unfurnished rooms. Edward Hallin and his sister occupied the +top floor. + +Miss Hallin, a pleasant-looking, plain woman of about thirty-five, came +at once in answer to Marcella's knock, and greeted her affectionately. +Edward Hallin sprang up from a table at the further end of the room. + +"You are so late! Alice and I had made up our minds you had forgotten +us!" + +"I didn't get home till four, and then I had to have a sleep," she +explained, half shyly. + +"What! you haven't been night-nursing?" + +"Yes, for once." + +"Alice, tell them to bring up supper, and let's look after her." + +He wheeled round a comfortable chair to the open window--the charming +circular bow of last-century design, which filled up the end of the room +and gave it character. The window looked out on a quiet line of back +gardens, such as may still be seen in Bloomsbury, with fine plane trees +here and there just coming into full leaf; and beyond them the backs of +another line of houses in a distant square, with pleasant irregularities +of old brickwork and tiled roof. The mottled trunks of the planes, their +blackened twigs and branches, their thin, beautiful leaves, the forms of +the houses beyond, rose in a charming medley of line against the blue +and peaceful sky. No near sound was to be heard, only the distant murmur +that no Londoner escapes; and some of the British Museum pigeons were +sunning themselves on the garden-wall below. + +Within, the Hallins' room was spacious and barely furnished. The walls, +indeed, were crowded with books, and broken, where the books ceased, by +photographs of Italy and Greece; but of furniture proper there seemed to +be little beside Hallin's large writing-table facing the window, and a +few chairs, placed on the blue drugget which brother and sister had +chosen with a certain anxiety, dreading secretly lest it should be a +piece of self-indulgence to buy what pleased them both so much. On one +side of the fireplace was Miss Hallin's particular corner; her chair, +the table that held her few special books, her work-basket, with its +knitting, her accounts. There, in the intervals of many activities, she +sat and worked or read, always cheerful and busy, and always watching +over her brother. + +"I wish," said Hallin, with some discontent, when Marcella had settled +herself, "that we were going to be alone to-night; that would have +rested you more." + +"Why, who is coming?" said Marcella, a little flatly. She had certainly +hoped to find them alone. + +"Your old friend, Frank Leven, is coming to supper. When he heard you +were to be here he vowed that nothing could or should keep him away. +Then, after supper, one or two people asked if they might come in. There +are some anxious things going on." + +He leant his head on his hand for a moment with a sigh, then forcibly +wrenched himself from what were evidently recurrent thoughts. + +"Do tell me some more of what you are doing!" he said, bending forward +to her. "You don't know how much I have thought of what you have told me +already." + +"I'm doing just the same," she said, laughing. "Don't take so much +interest in it. It's the fashion just now to admire nurses; but it's +ridiculous. We do our work like other people--sometimes badly, sometimes +well. And some of us wouldn't do it if we could help it." + +She threw out the last words with a certain vehemence, as though eager +to get away from any sentimentalism about herself. Hallin studied her +kindly. + +"Is this miscellaneous work a relief to you after hospital?" he asked. + +"For the present. It is more exciting, and one sees more character. But +there are drawbacks. In hospital everything was settled for you--every +hour was full, and there were always orders to follow. And the 'off' +times were no trouble--I never did anything else but walk up and down +the Embankment if it was fine, or go to the National Gallery if it was +wet." + +"And it was the monotony you liked?" + +She made a sign of assent. + +"Strange!" said Hallin, "who could ever have foreseen it?" + +She flushed. + +"You might have foreseen it, I think," she said, not without a little +impatience. "But I didn't like it all at once. I hated a great deal of +it. If they had let me alone all the time to scrub and polish and +wash--the things they set me to at first--I thought I should have been +quite happy. To see my table full of glasses without a spot, and my +brass-taps shining, made me as proud as a peacock! But then of course I +had to learn the real work, and that was very odd at first." + +"How? Morally?" + +She nodded, laughing at her own remembrances. "Yes--it seemed to me all +topsy-turvy. I thought the Sister at the head of the ward rather a +stupid person. If I had seen her at Mellor I shouldn't have spoken two +words to her. And here she was ordering me about--rating me as I had +never rated a house-maid--laughing at me for not knowing this or that, +and generally making me feel that a raw probationer was one of the +things of least account in the whole universe. I knew perfectly well +that she had said to herself, 'Now then I must take that proud girl down +a peg, or she will be no use to anybody;' and I had somehow to put up +with it." + +"Drastic!" said Hallin, laughing; "did you comfort yourself by +reflecting that it was everybody's fate?" + +Her lip twitched with amusement. + +"Not for a long time. I used to have the most absurd ideas!--sometimes +looking back I can hardly believe it--perhaps it was partly a queer +state of nerves. When I was at school and got in a passion I used to try +and overawe the girls by shaking my Speaker great-uncle in their faces. +And so in hospital; it would flash across me sometimes in a plaintive +sort of way that they _couldn't_ know that I was Miss Boyce of Mellor, +and had been mothering and ruling the whole of my father's village--or +they wouldn't treat me so. Mercifully I held my tongue. But one day it +came to a crisis. I had had to get things ready for an operation, and +had done very well. Dr. Marshall had paid me even a little compliment +all to myself. But then afterwards the patient was some time in coming +to, and there had to be hot-water bottles. I had them ready of course; +but they were too hot, and in my zeal and nervousness I burnt the +patient's elbow in two places. Oh! the _fuss_, and the scolding, and the +humiliation! When I left the ward that evening I thought I would go home +next day." + +"But you didn't?" + +"If I could have sat down and thought it out, I should probably have +gone. But I couldn't think it out--I was too _dead_ tired. That is the +chief feature of your first months in hospital--the utter helpless +fatigue at night. You go to bed aching and you wake up aching. If you +are healthy as I was, it doesn't hurt you; but, when your time comes to +sleep, sleep you _must_. Even that miserable night my head was no sooner +on the pillow than I was asleep; and next morning there was all the +routine as usual, and the dread of being a minute late on duty. Then +when I got into the ward the Sister looked at me rather queerly and went +out of her way to be kind to me. Oh! I was so grateful to her! I could +have brushed her boots or done any other menial service for her with +delight. And--then--somehow I pulled through. The enormous interest of +the work seized me--I grew ambitious--they pushed me on +rapidly--everybody seemed suddenly to become my friend instead of my +enemy--and I ended by thinking the hospital the most fascinating and +engrossing place in the whole world." + +"A curious experience," said Hallin. "I suppose you had never obeyed any +one in your life before?" + +"Not since I was at school--and then--not much!" + +Hallin glanced at her as she lay back in her chair. How richly human the +face had grown! It was as forcible as ever in expression and colour, but +that look which had often repelled him in his first acquaintance with +her, as of a hard speculative eagerness more like the ardent boy than +the woman, had very much disappeared. It seemed to him absorbed in +something new--something sad and yet benignant, informed with all the +pathos and the pain of growth. + +"How long have you been at work to-day?" he asked her. + +"I went at eleven last night. I came away at four this afternoon." + +Hallin exclaimed, "You had food?" + +"Do you think I should let myself starve with my work to do?" she asked +him, with a shade of scorn and her most professional air. "And don't +suppose that such a case occurs often. It is a very rare thing for us to +undertake night-nursing at all." + +"Can you tell me what the case was?" + +She told him vaguely, describing also in a few words her encounter with +Dr. Blank. + +"I suppose he will make a fuss," she said, with a restless look, "and +that I shall be blamed." + +"I should think your second doctor will take care of that!" said Hallin. + +"I don't know. I couldn't help it. But it is one of our first principles +not to question a doctor. And last week too I got the Association into +trouble. A patient I had been nursing for weeks and got quite fond of +had to be removed to hospital. She asked me to cut her hair. It was +matted dreadfully, and would have been cut off directly she got to the +ward. So I cut it, left her all comfortable, and was to come back at one +to meet the doctor and help get her off. When I came, I found the whole +court in an uproar. The sister of the woman, who had been watching for +me, stood on the doorstep, and implored me to go away. The husband had +gone out of his senses with rage because I had cut his wife's hair +without his consent. 'He'll murder you, Nuss!' said the sister, 'if he +sees you! Don't come in!--he's mad--he's _been going round on 'is 'ands +and knees on the floor_!'"--Hallin interrupted with a shout of laughter. +Marcella laughed too; but to his amazement he saw that her hand shook, +and that there were tears in her eyes. + +"It's all very well," she said with a sigh, "but I had to come away in +disgrace, all the street looking on. And he made such a fuss at the +office as never was. It was unfortunate--we don't want the people set +against the nurses. And now Dr. Blank!--I seem to be always getting into +scrapes. It is different from hospital, where everything is settled for +one." + +Hallin could hardly believe his ears. Such womanish terrors and +depressions from Marcella Boyce! Was she, after all, too young for the +work, or was there some fret of the soul reducing her natural force? He +felt an unwonted impulse of tenderness towards her--such as one might +feel towards a tired child--and set himself to cheer and rest her. + +He had succeeded to some extent, when he saw her give a little start, +and following her eyes he perceived that unconsciously his arm, which +was resting on the table, had pushed into her view a photograph in a +little frame, which had been hitherto concealed from her by a glass of +flowers. He would have quietly put it out of sight again, but she sat up +in her chair. + +"Will you give it me?" she said, putting out her hand. + +He gave it her at once. + +"Alice brought it home from Miss Raeburn the other day. His aunt made +him sit to one of the photographers who are always besieging public men. +We thought it good." + +"It is very good," she said, after a pause. "Is the hair really--as grey +as that?" She pointed to it. + +"Quite. I am very glad that he is going off with Lord Maxwell to Italy. +It will be ten days' break for him at any rate. His work this last year +has been very heavy. He has had his grandfather's to do really, as well +as his own; and this Commission has been a stiff job too. I am rather +sorry that he has taken this new post." + +"What post?" + +"Didn't you hear? They have made him Under-secretary to the Home +Department. So that he is now in the Government." + +She put back the photograph, and moved her chair a little so as to see +more of the plane trees and the strips of sunset cloud. + +"How is Lord Maxwell?" she asked presently. + +"Much changed. It might end in a sudden break-up at any time." + +Hallin saw a slight contraction pass over her face. He knew that she had +always felt an affection for Lord Maxwell. Suddenly Marcella looked +hastily round her. Miss Hallin was busy with a little servant at the +other end of the room making arrangements for supper. + +"Tell me," she said, bending over the arm of her chair and speaking in a +low, eager voice, "he is beginning to forget it?" + +Hallin looked at her in silence, but his half sad, half ironic smile +suggested an answer from which she turned away. + +"If he only would!" she said, speaking almost to herself, with a kind of +impatience. "He ought to marry, for everybody's sake." + +"I see no sign of his marrying--at present," said Hallin, drily. + +He began to put some papers under his hand in order. There was a cold +dignity in his manner which she perfectly understood. Ever since that +day--that never-forgotten day--when he had come to her the morning after +her last interview with Aldous Raeburn--come with reluctance and +dislike, because Aldous had asked it of him--and had gone away her +friend, more drawn to her, more touched by her than he had ever been in +the days of the engagement, their relation on this subject had been the +same. His sweetness and kindness to her, his influence over her life +during the past eighteen months, had been very great. In that first +interview, the object of which had been to convey to her a warning on +the subject of the man it was thought she might allow herself to marry, +something in the manner with which he had attempted his incredibly +difficult task--its simplicity, its delicate respect for her +personality, its suggestion of a character richer and saintlier than +anything she had yet known, and unconsciously revealing itself under the +stress of emotion--this something had suddenly broken down his pale, +proud companion, had to his own great dismay brought her to tears, and +to such confidences, such indirect askings for help and understanding as +amazed them both. + +Experiences of this kind were not new to him. His life consecrated to +ideas, devoted to the wresting of the maximum of human service from a +crippling physical weakness; the precarious health itself which cut him +off from a hundred ordinary amusements and occupations, and especially +cut him off from marriage--together with the ardent temperament, the +charm, the imaginative insight which had been his cradle-gifts--these +things ever since he was a lad had made him again and again the guide +and prop of natures stronger and stormier than his own. Often the +unwilling guide; for he had the half-impatient breathless instincts of +the man who has set himself a task, and painfully doubts whether he will +have power and time to finish it. The claims made upon him seemed to him +often to cost him physical and brain energy he could ill spare. + +But his quick tremulous sympathy rendered him really a defenceless prey +in such matters. Marcella threw herself upon him as others had done; and +there was no help for it. Since their first memorable interview, at long +intervals, he had written to her and she to him. Of her hospital life, +till to-night, she had never told him much. Her letters had been the +passionate outpourings of a nature sick of itself, and for the moment of +living; full of explanations which really explained little; full too of +the untaught pangs and questionings of a mind which had never given any +sustained or exhaustive effort to any philosophical or social question, +and yet was in a sense tortured by them all--athirst for an impossible +justice, and aflame for ideals mocked first and above all by the +writer's own weakness and defect. Hallin had felt them interesting, sad, +and, in a sense, fine; but he had never braced himself to answer them +without groans. There were so many other people in the world in the same +plight! + +Nevertheless, all through the growth of friendship one thing had never +altered between them from the beginning--Hallin's irrevocable judgment +of the treatment she had bestowed on Aldous Raeburn. Never throughout +the whole course of their acquaintance had he expressed that judgment to +her in so many words. Notwithstanding, she knew perfectly well both the +nature and the force of it. It lay like a rock in the stream of their +friendship. The currents of talk might circle round it, imply it, glance +off from it; they left it unchanged. At the root of his mind towards +her, at the bottom of his gentle sensitive nature, there was a +sternness which he often forgot--she never. + +This hard fact in their relation had insensibly influenced her greatly, +was constantly indeed working in and upon her, especially since the +chances of her nursing career had brought her to settle in this +district, within a stone's throw of him and his sister, so that she saw +them often and intimately. But it worked in different ways. +Sometimes--as to-night--it evoked a kind of defiance. + +A minute or two after he had made his remark about Aldous, she said to +him suddenly, + +"I had a letter from Mr. Wharton to-day. He is coming to tea with me +to-morrow, and I shall probably go to the House on Friday with Edith +Craven to hear him speak." + +Hallin gave a slight start at the name. Then he said nothing; but went +on sorting some letters of the day into different heaps. His silence +roused her irritation. + +"Do you remember," she said, in a low, energetic voice, "that I told you +I could never be ungrateful, never forget what he had done?" + +"Yes, I remember," he said, not without a certain sharpness of tone. +"You spoke of giving him help if he ever asked it of you--has he asked +it?" + +She explained that what he seemed to be asking was Louis Craven's help, +and that his overtures with regard to the _Labour Clarion_ were +particularly opportune, seeing that Louis was pining to be able to +marry, and was losing heart, hope, and health for want of some fixed +employment. She spoke warmly of her friends and their troubles, and +Hallin's inward distaste had to admit that all she said was plausible. +Since the moment in that strange talk which had drawn them together, +when she had turned upon him with the passionate cry--"I see what you +mean, perfectly! but I am not going to marry Mr. Wharton, so don't +trouble to warn me--for the matter of that he has warned me +himself:--but my _gratitude_ he _has_ earned, and if he asks for it I +will _never_ deny it him "--since that moment there had been no word of +Wharton between them. At the bottom of his heart Hallin distrusted her, +and was ashamed of himself because of it. His soreness and jealousy for +his friend knew no bounds. "If that were to come on again"--he was +saying to himself now, as she talked to him--"I could not bear it, I +could not forgive her!" + +He only wished that she would give up talking about Wharton altogether. +But, on the contrary, she would talk of him--and with a curious +persistence. She must needs know what Hallin thought of his career in +Parliament, of his prospects, of his powers as a speaker. Hallin +answered shortly, like some one approached on a subject for which he +cares nothing. + +"Yet, of course, it is not that; it is injustice!" she said to herself, +with vehemence. "He _must_ care; they are his subjects, his interests +too. But he will not look at it dispassionately, because--" + +So they fell out with each other a little, and the talk dragged. Yet, +all the while, Marcella's inner mind was conscious of quite different +thoughts. How good it was to be here, in this room, beside these two +people! She must show herself fractious and difficult with Hallin +sometimes; it was her nature. But in reality, that slight and fragile +form, that spiritual presence were now shrined in the girl's eager +reverence and affection. She felt towards him as many a Catholic has +felt towards his director; though the hidden yearning to be led by him +was often oddly covered, as now, by an outer self-assertion. Perhaps her +quarrel with him was that he would not lead her enough--would not tell +her precisely enough what she was to do with herself. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +While she and Hallin were sitting thus, momentarily out of tune with +each other, the silence was suddenly broken by a familiar voice. + +"I say, Hallin--is this all right?" + +The words came from a young man who, having knocked unheeded, opened the +door, and cautiously put in a curly head. + +"Frank!--is that you? Come in," cried Hallin, springing up. + +Frank Leven came in, and at once perceived the lady sitting in the +window. + +"Well, I _am_ glad!" he cried, striding across the room and shaking +Hallin's hand by the way. "Miss Boyce! I thought none of your friends +were ever going to get a sight of you again! Why, what--" + +He drew back scanning her, a gay look of quizzing surprise on his fair +boy's face. + +"He expected me in cap and apron," said Marcella, laughing; "or means to +pretend he did." + +"I expected a sensation! And here you are, just as you were, only twice +as--I say, Hallin, doesn't she look well!"--this in a stage aside to +Hallin, while the speaker was drawing off his gloves, and still studying +Marcella. + +"Well, _I_ think she looks tired," said Hallin, with a little attempt at +a smile, but turning away. Everybody felt a certain tension, a certain +danger, even in the simplest words, and Miss Hallin's call to supper was +very welcome. + +The frugal meal went gaily. The chattering Christchurch boy brought to +it a breath of happy, careless life, to which the three +others--over-driven and over-pressed, all of them--responded with a kind +of eagerness. Hallin especially delighted in him, and would have out all +his budget--his peacock's pride at having been just put into the +'Varsity eleven, his cricket engagements for the summer, his rows with +his dons, above all his lasting amazement that he should have just +scraped through his Mods. + +"I thought those Roman emperors would have done for me!" he declared, +with a child's complacency. "_Brutes!_ I couldn't remember them. I +learnt them up and down, backwards and forwards--but it was no good; +they nearly dished me!" + +"Yet it comes back to me," said Hallin, slily, "that when a certain +person was once asked to name the winner of the Derby in some obscure +year, he began at the beginning, and gave us all of them, from first to +last, without a hitch." + +"The winner of the _Derby_!" said the lad, eagerly, bending forward with +his hands on his knees; "why, I should rather think so! That isn't +memory; that's _knowledge_!--Goodness! who's this?" + +The last remark was addressed _sotto voce_ to Marcella. Supper was just +over, and the two guests, with Hallin, had returned to the window, while +Miss Hallin, stoutly refusing their help, herself cleared the table and +set all straight. + +Hallin, hearing a knock, had gone to the door while Leven was speaking. +Four men came crowding in, all of them apparently well known both to +Hallin and his sister. The last two seemed to be workmen; the others +were Bennett, Hallin's old and tried friend among the Labour-leaders, +and Nehemiah Wilkins, M.P. Hallin introduced them all to Marcella and +Leven; but the new-comers took little notice of any one but their host, +and were soon seated about him discussing a matter already apparently +familiar to them, and into which Hallin had thrown himself at once with +that passionate directness which, in the social and speculative field, +replaced his ordinary gentleness of manner. He seemed to be in strong +disagreement with the rest--a disagreement which troubled himself and +irritated them. + +Marcella watched them with quick curiosity from the window where she was +sitting, and would have liked to go forward to listen. But Frank Leven +turned suddenly round upon her with sparkling eyes. + +"Oh, I say! don't go. Do come and sit here with me a bit. Oh, isn't it +rum! isn't it _rum_! Look at Hallin,--those are the people whom he +_cares_ to talk to. That's a shoemaker, that man to the left--really an +awfully cute fellow--and this man in front, I think he told me he was a +mason, a Socialist of course--would like to string _me_ up to-morrow. +Did you ever see such a countenance? Whenever that man begins, I think +we must be precious near to shooting. And he's pious too, would pray +over us first and shoot us afterwards--which isn't the case, I +understand, with many of 'em. Then the others--you know them? That's +Bennett--regular good fellow--always telling his pals not to make fools +of themselves--for which of course they love him no more than they are +obliged--And Wilkins--oh! _Wilkins_"--he chuckled--"they say it'll come +to a beautiful row in the House before they've done, between him and my +charming cousin, Harry Wharton. My father says he backs Wilkins." + +Then suddenly the lad recollected himself and his clear cheek coloured a +little after a hasty glance at his companion. He fell to silence and +looking at his boots. Marcella wondered what was the matter with him. +Since her flight from Mellor she had lived, so to speak, with her head +in the sand. She herself had never talked directly of her own affairs to +anybody. Her sensitive pride did not let her realise that, +notwithstanding, all the world was aware of them. + +"I don't suppose you know much about your cousin!" she said to him with +a little scorn. + +"Well, I don't want to!" said the lad, "that's one comfort! But I don't +know anything about anything!--Miss Boyce!" + +He plunged his head in his hands, and Marcella, looking at him, saw at +once that she was meant to understand she had woe and lamentation beside +her. + +Her black eyes danced with laughter. At Mellor she had been several +times his confidante. The handsome lad was not apparently very fond of +his sisters and had taken to her from the beginning. To-night she +recognised the old symptoms. + +"What, you have been getting into scrapes again?" she said--"how many +since we met last?" + +"There! you make fun of it!" he said indignantly from behind his +fingers--"you're like all the rest." + +Marcella teased him a little more till at last she was astonished by a +flash of genuine wrath from the hastily uncovered eyes. + +"If you're only going to chaff a fellow let's go over there and talk! +And yet I did want to tell you about it--you were awfully kind to me +down at home. I want to tell you--and I don't want to tell you--perhaps +I _oughtn't_ to tell you--you'll think me a brute, I dare say, an +ungentlemanly brute for speaking of it at all--and yet somehow--" + +The boy, crimson, bit his lips. Marcella, arrested and puzzled, laid a +hand on his arm. She had been used to these motherly ways with him at +Mellor, on the strength of her seniority, so inadequately measured by +its two years or so of time! + +"I won't laugh," she said, "tell me." + +"No--really?--shall I?" + +Whereupon there burst forth a history precisely similar it seemed to +some half dozen others she had already heard from the same lips. A +pretty girl--or rather "an exquisite creature!" met at the house of some +relation in Scotland, met again at the "Boats" at Oxford, and yet again +at Commemoration balls, Nuneham picnics, and the rest; adored and +adorable; yet, of course, a sphinx born for the torment of men, taking +her haughty way over a prostrate sex, kind to-day, cruel to-morrow; not +to be won by money, yet, naturally, not to be won without it; possessed +like Rose Aylmer of "every virtue, every grace," whether of form or +family; yet making nothing but a devastating and death-dealing use of +them--how familiar it all was!--and how many more of them there seemed +to be in the world, on a man's reckoning, than on a woman's! + +"And you know," said the lad, eagerly, "though she's so _frightfully_ +pretty--well, frightfully fetching, rather--and well dressed and all the +rest of it, she isn't a bit silly, not one of your empty-headed +girls--not she. She's read a _lot_ of things--a lot! I'm sure, Miss +Boyce"--he looked at her confidently,--"if _you_ were to see her you'd +think her awfully clever. And yet she's so little--and so dainty--and +she dances--my goodness! you should see her dance, skirt-dance I +mean--Letty Lind isn't in it! She's good too, awfully good. I think her +mother's a most dreadful old bore--well, no, I didn't mean that--of +course I didn't mean that!--but she's fussy, you know, and invalidy, and +has to be wrapped up in shawls, and dragged about in bath chairs, and +Betty's an angel to her--she is really--though her mother's always +snapping her head off. And as to the _poor_--" + +Something in his tone, in the way he had of fishing for her approval, +sent Marcella into a sudden fit of laughter. Then she put out a hand to +restrain this plunging lover. + +"Look here--do come to the point--have you proposed to her?" + +"I should rather think I have!" said the boy, fervently. "About once a +week since Christmas. Of course she's played with me--that sort always +does--but I think I might really have a chance with her, if it weren't +for her mother--horrible old--no, of _course_ I don't mean that! But +now it comes in--what I oughtn't to tell you--I _know_ I oughtn't to +tell you! I'm always making a beastly mess of it. It's because I can't +help talking of it!" + +And shaking his curly head in despair, he once more plunged his red +cheeks into his hands and fell abruptly silent. + +Marcella coloured for sympathy. "I really wish you wouldn't talk in +riddles," she said. "What is the matter with you?--of course you must +tell me." + +"Well, I know you won't mind!" cried the lad, emerging. "As if you could +mind! But it sounds like my impudence to be talking to you +about--about--You see," he blurted out, "she's going to Italy with the +Raeburns. She's a connection of theirs, somehow, and Miss Raeburn's +taken a fancy to her lately--and her mother's treated me like dirt ever +since they asked her to go to Italy--and naturally a fellow sees what +_that_ means--and what her mother's after. I don't believe Betty +_would_; he's too old for her, isn't he? Oh, my goodness!"--this time he +smote his knee in real desperation--"now I _have_ done it. I'm simply +_bursting_ always with the thing I'd rather cut my head off than say. +Why they make 'em like me I don't know!" + +"You mean," said Marcella, with impatience--"that her mother wants her +to marry Mr. Raeburn?" + +He looked round at his companion. She was lying back in a deep chair, +her hands lightly clasped on her knee. Something in her attitude, in the +pose of the tragic head, in the expression of the face stamped to-night +with a fatigue which was also a dignity, struck a real compunction into +his mood of vanity and excitement. He had simply not been able to resist +the temptation to talk to her. She reminded him of the Raeburns, and the +Raeburns were in his mind at the present moment by day and by night. He +knew that he was probably doing an indelicate and indiscreet thing, but +all the same his boyish egotism would not be restrained from the +headlong pursuit of his own emotions. There was in him too such a +burning curiosity as to how she would take it--what she would say. + +Now however he felt a genuine shrinking. His look changed. Drawing his +chair close up to her he began a series of penitent and +self-contradictory excuses which Marcella soon broke in upon. + +"I don't know why you talk like that," she said, looking at him +steadily. "Do you suppose I can go on all my life without hearing Mr. +Raeburn's name mentioned? And don't apologise so much! It really doesn't +matter what I suppose--that _you_ think--about my present state of mind. +It is very simple. I ought never to have accepted Mr. Raeburn. I behaved +badly. I know it--and everybody knows it. Still one has to go on living +one's life somehow. The point is that I am rather the wrong person for +you to come to just now, for if there is one thing I ardently wish about +Mr. Raeburn, it is that he should get himself married." + +Frank Leven looked at her in bewildered dismay. + +"I never thought of that," he said. + +"Well, you might, mightn't you?" + +For another short space there was silence between them, while the rush +of talk in the centre of the room was still loud and unspent. + +Then she rated herself for want of sympathy. Frank sat beside her shy +and uncomfortable, his confidence chilled away. + +"So you think Miss Raeburn has views?" she asked him, smiling, and in +her most ordinary voice. + +The boy's eye brightened again with the implied permission to go on +chattering. + +"I know she has! Betty's brother as good as told me that she and Mrs. +Macdonald--that's Betty's mother--she hasn't got a father--had talked it +over. And now Betty's going with them to Italy, and Aldous is going too +for ten days--and when I go to the Macdonalds Mrs. Macdonald treats me +as if I were a little chap in jackets, and Betty worries me to death. +It's sickening!" + +"And how about Mr. Raeburn?" + +"Oh, Aldous seems to like her very much," he said despondently. "She's +always teasing and amusing him. When she's there she never lets him +alone. She harries him out. She makes him read to her and ride with her. +She makes him discuss all sorts of things with her you'd _never_ think +Aldous would discuss--her lovers and her love affairs, and being in +love!--it's extraordinary the way she drives him round. At Easter she +and her mother were staying at the Court, and one night Betty told me +she was bored to death. It was a very smart party, but everything was so +flat and everybody was so dull. So she suddenly got up and ran across to +Aldous. 'Now look here, Mr. Aldous,' she said; 'this'll never do! you've +got to come and dance with me, and _push_ those chairs and tables +aside'--I can fancy the little stamp she'd give--'and make those other +people dance too.' And she made him--she positively made him. Aldous +declared he didn't dance, and she wouldn't have a word of it. And +presently she got to all her tricks, skirt-dancing and the rest of +it--and of course the evening went like smoke." + +Marcella's eyes, unusually wide open, were somewhat intently fixed on +the speaker. + +"And Mr. Raeburn liked it?" she asked in a tone that sounded +incredulous. + +"Didn't he just? She told me they got regular close friends after that, +and he told her everything--oh, well," said the lad, embarrassed, and +clutching at his usual formula--"of course, I didn't mean that. And +she's fearfully flattered, you can see she is, and she tells me that she +adores him--that he's the only great man she's ever known--that I'm not +fit to black his boots, and ought to be grateful whenever he speaks to +me--and all that sort of rot. And now she's going off with them. I shall +have to shoot myself--I declare I shall!" + +"Well, not yet," said Marcella, in a soothing voice; "the case isn't +clear enough. Wait till they come back. Shall we move? I'm going over +there to listen to that talk. But--first--come and see me whenever you +like--3 to 4.30, Brown's Buildings, Maine Street--and tell me how this +goes on?" + +She spoke with a careless lightness, laughing at him with a half +sisterly freedom. She had risen from her seat, and he, whose thoughts +had been wrapped up for months in one of the smallest of the sex, was +suddenly struck with her height and stately gesture as she moved away +from him. + +"By Jove! Why didn't she stick to Aldous," he said to himself +discontentedly as his eyes followed her. "It was only her cranks, and of +course she'll get rid of _them_. Just like my luck!" + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Marcella took a seat next to Miss Hallin, who looked up from +her knitting to smile at her. The girl fell into the attitude of +listening; but for some minutes she was not listening at all. She was +reflecting how little men knew of each other!--even the most intimate +friends--and trying to imagine what Aldous Raeburn would be like, +married to such a charmer as Frank had sketched. His friendship for her +meant, of course, the attraction of contraries--one of the most +promising of all possible beginnings. On the whole, she thought Frank's +chances were poor. + +Then, unexpectedly, her ear was caught by Wharton's name, and she +discovered that what was going on beside her was a passionate discussion +of his present position and prospects in the Labour party--a discussion, +however, mainly confined to Wilkins and the two workmen. Bennett had the +air of the shrewd and kindly spectator who has his own reasons for +treating a situation with reserve; and Hallin was lying back in his +chair flushed and worn out. The previous debate, which had now merged in +these questions of men and personalities, had made him miserable; he had +no heart for anything more. Miss Hallin observed him anxiously, and +made restless movements now and then, as though she had it in her mind +to send all her guests away. + +The two Socialist workmen were talking strongly in favour of an +organised and distinct Labour party, and of Wharton's leadership. They +referred constantly to Parnell, and what he had clone for "those Irish +fellows." The only way to make Labour formidable in the House was to +learn the lesson of Unionism and of Parnellism, to act together and +strike together, to make of the party a "two-handed engine," ready to +smite Tory and Liberal impartially. To this end a separate organisation, +separate place in the House, separate Whips--they were ready, nay +clamorous, for them all. And they were equally determined on Harry +Wharton as a leader. They spoke of the _Clarion_ with enthusiasm, and +declared that its owner was already an independent power, and was, +moreover, as "straight" as he was sharp. + +The contention and the praise lashed Wilkins into fury. After making one +or two visible efforts at a sarcastic self-control which came to +nothing, he broke out into a flood of invective which left the rest of +the room staring. Marcella found herself indignantly wondering who this +big man, with his fierce eyes, long, puffy cheeks, coarse black hair, +and North-country accent, might be. Why did he talk in this way, with +these epithets, this venom? It was intolerable! + +Hallin roused himself from his fatigue to play the peace-maker. But some +of the things Wilkins had been saying had put up the backs of the two +workmen, and the talk flamed up unmanageably--Wilkins's dialect getting +more pronounced with each step of the argument. + +"Well, if I'd ever ha' thowt that I war coomin' to Lunnon to put myself +and my party oonder the heel o' Muster Harry Wharton, I'd ha' stayed at +_home_, I tell tha," cried Wilkins, slapping his knee. "If it's to be +the People's party, why, in the name o' God, must yo put a yoong +ripstitch like yon at the head of it? a man who'll just mak _use_ of us +all, you an' me, and ivery man Jack of us, for his own advancement, an' +ull kick us down when he's done with us! Why shouldn't he? What is he? +Is he a man of _us_--bone of our bone? He's a _landlord_, and an +aristocrat, I tell tha! What have the likes of him ever been but thorns +in our side? When have the landlords ever gone with the people? Have +they not been the blight and the curse of the country for hun'erds of +years? And you're goin' to tell me that a man bred out o' _them_--living +on his rent and interest--grinding the faces of the poor, I'll be bound +if the truth were known, as all the rest of them do--is goin' to lead +_me_, an' those as'll act with me to the pullin' down of the landlords! +Why are we to go lickspittlin' to any man of his sort to do our work for +us? Let him go to his own class--I'm told Mr. Wharton is mighty fond of +countesses, and they of him!--or let him set up as the friend of the +working man just as he likes--I'm quite agreeable!--I shan't make any +bones about takin' his _vote_; but I'm not goin' to make him master over +me, and give him the right to speak for my mates in the House of +Commons. I'd cut my hand off fust!" + +Leven grinned in the background. Bennett lay back in his chair with a +worried look. Wilkins's crudities were very distasteful to him both in +and out of the House. The younger of the Socialist workmen, a mason, +with a strong square face, incongruously lit somehow with the eyes of +the religious dreamer, looked at Wilkins contemptuously. + +"There's none of you in the House will take orders," he said quickly, +"and that's the ruin of us. We all know that. Where do you think we'd +have been in the struggle with the employers, if we'd gone about our +business as you're going about yours in the House of Commons?" + +"I'm not saying we shouldn't _organise_," said Wilkins, fiercely. "What +I'm sayin' is, get a man of the working class--a man who has the _wants_ +of the working class--a man whom the working class can get a hold on--to +do your business for you, and not any bloodsucking landlord or +capitalist. It's a slap i' the face to ivery honest working man i' the +coontry, to mak' a Labour party and put Harry Wharton at t' head of it!" + +The young Socialist looked at him askance. "Of course you'd like it +yourself!" was what he was thinking. "But they'll take a man as can hold +his own with the swells--and quite right too!" + +"And if Mr. Wharton _is_ a landlord he's a good sort!" exclaimed the +shoemaker--a tall, lean man in a well-brushed frock coat. "There's many +on us knows as have been to hear him speak, what he's tried to do about +the land, and the co-operative farming. E's _straight_ is Mr. Wharton. +We 'aven't got Socialism yet--an' it isn't 'is fault bein' a landlord. +Ee was born it." + +"I tell tha he's playin' for his own hand!" said Wilkins, doggedly, the +red spot deepening on his swarthy cheek--"he's runnin' that paper for +his own hand--Haven't I had experience of him? I know it--And I'll prove +it some day! He's one for featherin' his own nest is Mr. Wharton--and +when he's doon it by makkin' fools of us, he'll leave us to whistle for +any good we're iver likely to get out o' _him. He_ go agen the landlords +when it coom to the real toossle,--I know 'em--I tell tha--I know 'em!" + +A woman's voice, clear and scornful, broke into the talk. + +"It's a little strange to think, isn't it, that while we in London go on +groaning and moaning about insanitary houses, and making our small +attempts here and there, half of the country poor of England have been +re-housed in our generation by these same landlords--no fuss about +it--and rents for five-roomed cottages, somewhere about one and +fourpence a week!" + +Hallin swung his chair round and looked at the speaker--amazed! + +Wilkins also stared at her under his eyebrows. He did not like +women--least of all, ladies. + +He gruffly replied that if they had done anything like as much as she +said--which, he begged her pardon, but he didn't believe--it was done +for the landlords' own purposes, either to buy off public opinion, or +just for show and aggrandisement. People who had prize pigs and prize +cattle must have prize cottages of course--"with a race of slaves +inside 'em!" + +Marcella, bright-eyed, erect, her thin right hand hanging over her knee, +went avengingly into facts--the difference between landlords' villages +and "open" villages; the agrarian experiments made by different great +landlords; the advantage to the community, even from the Socialist point +of view of a system which had preserved the land in great blocks, for +the ultimate use of the State, as compared with a system like the +French, which had for ever made Socialism impossible. + +Hallin's astonishment almost swept away his weariness. + +"Where in the world did she get it all from, and is she standing on her +head or am I?" + +After an animated little debate, in which Bennett and the two workmen +joined, while Wilkins sat for the most part in moody, contemptuous +silence, and Marcella, her obstinacy roused, carried through her defence +of the landlords with all a woman's love of emphasis and paradox, +everybody rose simultaneously to say good-night. + +"You ought to come and lead a debate down at our Limehouse club," said +Bennett pleasantly to Marcella, as she held out her hand to him; "you'd +take a lot of beating." + +"Yet I'm a Venturist, you know," she said, laughing; "I _am_." + +He shook his head, laughed too, and departed. + +When the four had gone, Marcella turned upon Hallin. + +"Are there many of these Labour members like _that_?" + +Her tone was still vibrating and sarcastic. + +"He's not much of a talker, our Nehemiah," said Hallin, smiling; "but he +has the most extraordinary power as a speaker over a large popular +audience that I have ever seen. The man's honesty is amazing,--it's his +tempers and his jealousies get in his way. You astonished him; but, for +the matter of that, you astonished Frank and me still more!" + +And as he fell back into his chair, Marcella caught a flash of +expression, a tone that somehow put her on her defence. + +"I was not going to listen to such unjust stuff without a word. Politics +is one thing--slanderous abuse is another!" she said, throwing back her +head with a gesture which instantly brought back to Hallin the scene in +the Mellor drawing-room, when she had denounced the game-laws and +Wharton had scored his first point. + +He was silent, feeling a certain inner exasperation with women and their +ways. + +"'She only did it to annoy,'" cried Frank Leven; "'because she knows it +teases.' _We_ know very well what she thinks of us. But where did you +get it all from, Miss Boyce? I just wish you'd tell me. There's a horrid +Radical in the House I'm always having rows with--and upon my word I +didn't know there was half so much to be said for us!" + +Marcella flushed. + +"Never mind where I got it!" she said. + +In reality, of course, it was from those Agricultural Reports she had +worked through the year before under Wharton's teaching, with so much +angry zest, and to such different purpose. + + * * * * * + +When the door closed upon her and upon Frank Leven, who was to escort +her home, Hallin walked quickly over to the table, and stood looking for +a moment in a sort of bitter reverie at Raeburn's photograph. + +His sister followed him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. + +"Do go to bed, Edward! I am afraid that talk has tired you dreadfully." + +"It would be no good going to bed, dear," he said, with a sigh of +exhaustion. "I will sit and read a bit, and see if I can get myself into +sleeping trim. But you go, Alice--good-night." + +When she had gone he threw himself into his chair again with the +thought--"She must contradict here as she contradicted there! _She_--and +justice! If she could have been just to a landlord for one hour last +year--" + +He spent himself for a while in endless chains of recollection, +oppressed by the clearness of his own brain, and thirsting for sleep. +Then from the affairs of Raeburn and Marcella, he passed with a fresh +sense of strain and effort to his own. That discussion with those four +men which had filled the first part of the evening weighed upon him in +his weakness of nerve, so that suddenly in the phantom silence of the +night, all life became an oppression and a terror, and rest, either +to-night or in the future, a thing never to be his. + +He had come to the moment of difficulty, of tragedy, in a career which +so far, in spite of all drawbacks of physical health and cramped +activities, had been one of singular happiness and success. Ever since +he had discovered his own gifts as a lecturer to working men, content, +cheerfulness, nay, a passionate interest in every hour, had been quite +compatible for him with all the permanent limitations of his lot. The +study of economical and historical questions; the expression through +them of such a hunger for the building of a "city of God" among men, as +few are capable of; the evidence not to be ignored even by his modesty, +and perpetually forthcoming over a long period of time, that he had the +power to be loved, the power to lead, among those toilers of the world +on whom all his thoughts centred--these things had been his joy, and had +led him easily through much self-denial to the careful husbanding of +every hour of strength and time in the service of his ideal end. + +And now he had come upon opposition--the first cooling of friendships, +the first distrust of friends that he had ever known. + +Early in the spring of this year a book called _To-morrow and the Land_ +had appeared in London, written by a young London economist of great +ability, and dealing with the nationalisation of the land. It did not +offer much discussion of the general question, but it took up the +question as it affected England specially and London in particular. It +showed--or tried to show--in picturesque detail what might be the +consequences for English rural or municipal life of throwing all land +into a common or national stock, of expropriating the landlords, and +transferring all rent to the people, to the effacement of taxation and +the indefinite enrichment of the common lot. The book differed from +_Progress and Poverty_, which also powerfully and directly affected the +English working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of great +apparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of the +landlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the average +working man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style, +and--by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directly +from the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially of +London--treated with abundant humour. + +The thing had an enormous success--in popular phrase, "caught on." Soon +Hallin found, that all the more active and intelligent spirits in the +working-class centres where he was in vogue as a lecturer were +touched--nay, possessed--by it. The crowd of more or less socialistic +newspapers which had lately sprung up in London were full of it; the +working men's clubs rang with it. It seemed to him a madness--an +infection; and it spread like one. The book had soon reached an immense +sale, and was in every one's hands. + +To Hallin, a popular teacher, interested above all in the mingled +problems of ethics and economics, such an incident was naturally of +extreme importance. But he was himself opposed by deepest conviction, +intellectual and moral, to the book and its conclusions. The more its +success grew, the more eager and passionate became his own desire to +battle with it. His platform, of course, was secured to him; his +openings many. Hundreds and thousands of men all over England were keen +to know what he had to say about the new phenomenon. + +And he had been saying his say--throwing into it all his energies, all +his finest work. With the result that--for the first time in eleven +years--he felt his position in the working-class movement giving beneath +his feet, and his influence beginning to drop from his hand. Coldness in +place of enthusiasm; critical aloofness in place of affection; readiness +to forget and omit him in matters where he had always hitherto belonged +to the inner circle and the trusted few--these bitter ghosts, with their +hard, unfamiliar looks, had risen of late in his world of idealist +effort and joy, and had brought with them darkness and chill. He could +not give way, for he had a singular unity of soul--it had been the +source of his power--and every economical or social conviction was in +some way bound up with the moral and religious passion which was his +being--his inmost nature. And his sensitive state of nerve and brain, +his anchorite's way of life, did not allow him the distractions of other +men. The spread of these and other similar ideas seemed to him a +question of the future of England; and he had already begun to throw +himself into the unequal struggle with a martyr's tenacity, and with +some prescience of the martyr's fate. + +Even Bennett! As he sat there alone in the dim lamp-light, his head bent +over his knees, his hands hanging loosely before him, he thought +bitterly of the defection of that old friend who had stood by him +through so many lesser contests. It was _impossible_ that Bennett +should think the schemes of that book feasible! Yet he was one of the +honestest of men, and, within a certain range, one of the most +clear-headed. As for the others, they had been all against him. +Intellectually, their opinion did not matter to him; but morally it was +so strange to him to find himself on the side of doubt and dissent, +while all his friends were talking language which was almost the +language of a new faith! + +He had various lecturing engagements ahead, connected with this great +debate which was now surging throughout the Labour world of London. He +had accepted them with eagerness; in these weary night hours he looked +forward to them with terror, seeing before him perpetually thousands of +hostile faces, living in a nightmare of lost sympathies and broken +friendships. Oh, for _sleep_--for the power to rest--to escape this +corrosion of an ever active thought, which settled and reconciled +nothing! + +"_The tragedy of life lies in the conflict between the creative will of +man and the hidden wisdom of the world, which seems to thwart it_." +These words, written by one whose thought had penetrated deep into his +own, rang in his ears as he sat brooding there. Not the hidden fate, or +the hidden evil, but the hidden _wisdom_. Could one die and still +believe it? Yet what else was the task of faith? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"So I understand you wish me to go down at once?" said Louis Craven. +"This is Friday--say Monday?" + +Wharton nodded. He and Craven were sitting in Marcella's little +sitting-room. Their hostess and Edith Craven had escaped through the +door in the back kitchen communicating with the Hurds' tenement, so that +the two men might be left alone a while. The interview between them had +gone smoothly, and Louis Craven had accepted immediate employment on the +_Labour Clarion_, as the paper's correspondent in the Midlands, with +special reference to the important strike just pending. Wharton, whose +tendency in matters of business was always to go rather further than he +had meant to go, for the sake generally of making an impression on the +man with whom he was dealing, had spoken of a two years' engagement, and +had offered two hundred a year. So far as that went, Craven was +abundantly satisfied. + +"And I understand from you," he said, "that the paper _goes in_ for the +strike, that you will fight it through?" + +He fixed his penetrating greenish eyes on his companion. Louis Craven +was now a tall man with narrow shoulders, a fine oval head and face, +delicate features, and a nervous look of short sight, producing in +appearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of a +courtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm. Wharton had +never felt himself personally at ease with him, either now, or in the +old days of Venturist debates. + +"Certainly, we shall fight it through," Wharton replied, with +emphasis--"I have gone through the secretary's statement, which I now +hand over to you, and I never saw a clearer case. The poor wretches have +been skinned too long; it is high time the public backed them up. There +are two of the masters in the House. Denny, I should say, belonged quite +to the worst type of employer going." + +He spoke with light venom, buttoning his coat as he spoke with the air +of the busy public man who must not linger over an appointment. + +"Oh! Denny!" said Craven, musing; "yes, Denny is a hard man, but a just +one according to his lights. There are plenty worse than he." + +Wharton was disagreeably reminded of the Venturist habit of never +accepting anything that was said quite as it stood--of not, even in +small things, "swearing to the words" of anybody. He was conscious of +the quick passing feeling that his judgment, with regard to Denny, ought +to have been enough for Craven. + +"One thing more," said Craven suddenly, as Wharton looked for his +stick--"you see there is talk of arbitration." + +"Oh yes, I know!" said Wharton impatiently; "a mere blind. The men have +been done by it twice before. They get some big-wig from the +neighbourhood--not in the trade, indeed, but next door to it--and, of +course, the award goes against the men." + +"Then the paper will not back arbitration?" + +Craven took out a note-book. + +"No!--The quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff. The men are asking +for a mere pittance, and must get it if they are to live. It's like all +these home industries, abominably ground down. We must go for them! I +mean to go for them hot and strong. Poor devils! did you read the +evidence in that Bluebook last year? Arbitration? no, indeed! let them +live first!" + +Craven looked up absently. + +"And I think," he said, "you gave me Mr. Thorpe's address?" Mr. Thorpe +was the secretary. + +Again Wharton gulped down his annoyance. If he chose to be expansive, it +was not for Craven to take no notice. + +Craven, however, except in print, where he could be as vehement as +anybody else, never spoke but in the driest way of those workman's +grievances, which in reality burnt at the man's heart. A deep +disdain for what had always seemed to him the cheapest form of +self-advertisement, held him back. It was this dryness, combined with an +amazing disinterestedness, which had so far stood in his way. + +Wharton repeated the address, following it up by some rather curt +directions as to the length and date of articles, to which Craven gave +the minutest attention. + +"May we come in?" said Marcella's voice. + +"By all means," said Wharton, with a complete change of tone. "Business +is up and I am off!" + +He took up his hat as he spoke. + +"Not at all! Tea is just coming, without which no guest departs," said +Marcella, taking as she spoke a little tray from the red-haired Daisy +who followed her, and motioning to the child to bring the tea-table. + +Wharton looked at her irresolute. He had spent half an hour with her +_tęte-ŕ-tęte_ before Louis Craven arrived, and he was really due at the +House. But now that she was on the scene again, he did not find it so +easy to go away. How astonishingly beautiful she was, even in this +disguise! She wore her nurse's dress; for her second daily round began +at half-past four, and her cloak, bonnet, and bag were lying ready on a +chair beside her. The dress was plain brown holland, with collar and +armlets of white linen; but, to Wharton's eye, the dark Italian head, +and the long slenderness of form had never shown more finely. He +hesitated and stayed. + +"All well?" said Marcella, in a half whisper, as she passed Louis Craven +on her way to get some cake. + +He nodded and smiled, and she went back to the tea-table with an eye all +gaiety, pleased with herself and everybody else. + +The quarter of an hour that followed went agreeably enough. Wharton sat +among the little group, far too clever to patronise a cat, let alone a +Venturist, but none the less master and conscious master of the +occasion, because it suited him to take the airs of equality. Craven +said little, but as he lounged in Marcella's long cane chair with his +arms behind his head, his serene and hazy air showed him contented; and +Marcella talked and laughed with the animation that belongs to one whose +plots for improving the universe have at least temporarily succeeded. +Or did it betray, perhaps, a woman's secret consciousness of some +presence beside her, more troubling and magnetic to her than others? + +"Well then, Friday," said Wharton at last, when his time was more than +spent.--"You must be there early, for there will be a crush. Miss Craven +comes too? Excellent! I will tell the doorkeeper to look out for you. +Good-bye!--good-bye!" + +And with a hasty shake of the hand to the Cravens, and one more keen +glance, first at Marcella and then round the little workman's room in +which they had been sitting, he went. + +He had hardly departed before Anthony Craven, the lame elder brother, +who must have passed him on the stairs, appeared. + +"Well--any news?" he said, as Marcella found him a chair. + +"All right!" said Louis, whose manner had entirely changed since Wharton +had left the room. "I am to go down on Monday to report the Damesley +strike that is to be. A month's trial, and then a salary--two hundred a +year. Oh! it'll do." + +He fidgeted and looked away from his brother, as though trying to hide +his pleasure. But in spite of him it transformed every line of the +pinched and worn face. + +"And you and Anna will walk to the Registry Office next week?" said +Anthony, sourly, as he took his tea. + +"It can't be next week," said Edith Craven's quiet voice, interposing. +"Anna's got to work out her shirt-making time. She only left the +tailoresses and began this new business ten days ago. And she was to +have a month at each." + +Marcella's lifted eyebrows asked for explanations. She had not yet seen +Louis's betrothed, but she was understood to be a character, and a +better authority on many Labour questions than he. + +Louis explained that Anna was exploring various sweated trades for the +benefit of an East End newspaper. She had earned fourteen shillings her +last week at tailoring, but the feat had exhausted her so much that he +had been obliged to insist on two or three days respite before moving on +to shirts. Shirts were now brisk, and the hours appallingly long in this +heat. + +"It was on shirts they made acquaintance," said Edith pensively. "Louis +was lodging on the second floor, she in the third floor back, and they +used to pass on the stairs. One day she heard him imploring the little +slavey to put some buttons on his shirts. The slavey tossed her head, +and said she'd see about it. When he'd gone out, Anna came downstairs, +calmly demanded his shirts, and, having the slavey under her thumb, got +them, walked off with them, and mended them all. When Louis came home he +discovered a neat heap reposing on his table. Of course he +wept--whatever he may say. But next morning Miss Anna found her shoes +outside her door, blacked as they had never been blacked before, with a +note inside one of them. Affecting! wasn't it? Thenceforward, as long as +they remained in those lodgings, Anna mended and Louis blacked. +Naturally, Anthony and I drew our conclusions." + +Marcella laughed. + +"You must bring her to see me," she said to Louis. + +"I will," said Louis, with some perplexity; "if I can get hold of her. +But when she isn't stitching she's writing, or trying to set up Unions. +She does the work of six. She'll earn nearly as much as I do when we're +married. Oh! we shall swim!" + +Anthony surveyed his radiant aspect--so unlike the gentle or satirical +detachment which made his ordinary manner--with a darkening eye, as +though annoyed by his effusion. + +"Two hundred a year?" he said slowly; "about what Mr. Harry Wharton +spends on his clothes, I should think. The Labour men tell me he is +superb in that line. And for the same sum that he spends on his clothes, +he is able to buy _you_, Louis, body and soul, and you seem inclined to +be grateful." + +"Never mind," said Louis recklessly. "He didn't buy some one else--and I +_am_ grateful!" + +"No; by Heaven, you shan't be!" said Anthony, with a fierce change of +tone. "_You_ the dependent of that charlatan! I don't know how I'm to +put up with it. You know very well what I think of him, and of your +becoming dependent on him." + +Marcella gave an angry start. Louis protested. + +"Nonsense!" said Anthony doggedly; "you'll have to bear it from me, I +tell you--unless you muzzle me too with an Anna." + +"But I don't see why _I_ should bear it," said Marcella, turning upon +him. "I think you know that I owe Mr. Wharton a debt. Please remember +it!" + +Anthony looked at her an instant in silence. A question crossed his +mind concerning her. Then he made her a little clumsy bow. + +"I am dumb," he said. "My manners, you perceive, are what they always +were." + +"What do you mean by such a remark," cried Marcella, fuming. "How can a +man who has reached the position he has in so short a time--in so many +different worlds--be disposed of by calling him an ugly name? It is more +than unjust--it is absurd! Besides, what can you know of him?" + +"You forget," said Anthony, as he calmly helped himself to more bread +and butter, "that it is some three years since Master Harry Wharton +joined the Venturists and began to be heard of at all. I watched his +beginnings, and if I didn't know him well, my friends and Louis's did. +And most of them--as he knows!--have pretty strong opinions by now about +the man." + +"Come, come, Anthony!" said Louis, "nobody expects a man of that type to +be the pure-eyed patriot. But neither you nor I can deny that he has +done some good service. Am I asked to take him to my bosom? Not at all! +He proposes a job to me, and offers to pay me. I like the job, and mean +to use him and his paper, both to earn some money that I want, and do a +bit of decent work." + +"_You_--use Harry Wharton!" said the cripple, with a sarcasm that +brought the colour to Louis's thin cheek and made Marcella angrier than +before. She saw nothing in his attack on Wharton, except personal +prejudice and ill-will. It was natural enough, that a man of Anthony +Craven's type--poor, unsuccessful, and embittered--should dislike a +popular victorious personality. + +"Suppose we leave Mr. Wharton alone?" she said with emphasis, and +Anthony, making her a little proud gesture of submission, threw himself +back in his chair, and was silent. + +It had soon become evident to Marcella, upon the renewal of her +friendship with the Cravens, that Anthony's temper towards all men, +especially towards social reformers and politicians, had developed into +a mere impotent bitterness. While Louis had renounced his art, and +devoted himself to journalism, unpaid public work and starvation, that +he might so throw himself the more directly into the Socialist battle, +Anthony had remained an artist, mainly employed as before in decorative +design. Yet he was probably the more fierce Venturist and anticapitalist +of the two. Only what with Louis was an intoxication of hope, was on the +whole with Anthony a counsel of despair. He loathed wealth more +passionately than ever; but he believed less in the working man, less in +his kind. Rich men must cease to exist; but the world on any terms would +probably remain a sorry spot. + +In the few talks that he had had with Marcella since she left the +hospital, she had allowed him to gather more or less clearly--though +with hardly a mention of Aldous Raeburn's name--what had happened to her +at Mellor. Anthony Craven thought out the story for himself, finding it +a fit food for a caustic temper. Poor devil--the lover! To fall a victim +to enthusiasms so raw, so unprofitable from any point of view, was hard. +And as to this move to London, he thought he foresaw the certain end of +it. At any rate he believed in her no more than before. But her beauty +was more marked than ever, and would, of course, be the dominant factor +in her fate. He was thankful, at any rate, that Louis in this two years' +interval had finally transferred his heart elsewhere. + +After watching his three companions for a while, he broke in upon their +chat with an abrupt-- + +"What _is_ this job, Louis?" + +"I told you. I am to investigate, report, and back up the Damesley +strike, or rather the strike that begins at Damesley next week." + +"No chance!" said Anthony shortly, "the masters are too strong. I had a +talk with Denny yesterday." + +The Denny he meant, however, was not Wharton's colleague in the House, +but his son--a young man who, beginning life as the heir of one of the +most stiff-backed and autocratic of capitalists, had developed socialist +opinions, renounced his father's allowance, and was now a member of the +"intellectual proletariat," as they have been called, the free-lances of +the Collectivist movement. He had lately joined the Venturists. Anthony +had taken a fancy to him. Louis as yet knew little or nothing of him. + +"Ah, well!" he said, in reply to his brother, "I don't know. I think the +_Clarion can_ do something. The press grows more and more powerful in +these things." + +And he repeated some of the statements that Wharton had made--that +Wharton always did make, in talking of the _Clarion_--as to its growth +under his hands, and increasing influence in Labour disputes. + +"Bunkum!" interrupted Anthony drily; "pure bunkum! My own belief is +that the _Clarion_ is a rotten property, and that he knows it!" + +At this both Marcella and Louis laughed out. Extravagance after a +certain point becomes amusing. They dropped their vexation, and Anthony +for the next ten minutes had to submit to the part of the fractious +person whom one humours but does not argue with. He accepted the part, +saying little, his eager, feverish eyes, full of hostility, glancing +from one to the other. + +However, at the end, Marcella bade him a perfectly friendly farewell. It +was always in her mind that Anthony Craven was lame and solitary, and +her pity no less than her respect for him had long since yielded him the +right to be rude. + +"How are you getting on?" he said to her abruptly as he dropped her +hand. + +"Oh, very well! my superintendent leaves me almost alone now, which is a +compliment. There is a parish doctor who calls me 'my good woman,' and a +sanitary inspector who tells me to go to him whenever I want advice. +Those are my chief grievances, I think." + +"And you are as much in love with the poor as ever?" + +She stiffened at the note of sarcasm, and a retaliatory impulse made her +say:-- + +"I see a great deal more happiness than I expected." + +He laughed. + +"How like a woman! A few ill-housed villagers made you a democrat. A few +well-paid London artisans will carry you safely back to your class. Your +people were wise to let you take this work." + +"Do you suppose I nurse none but well-paid artisans?" she asked him, +mocking. "And I didn't say 'money' or 'comfort,' did I? but 'happiness.' +As for my 'democracy,' you are not perhaps the best judge." + +She stood resting both hands on a little table behind her, in an +attitude touched with the wild freedom which best became her, a gleam of +storm in her great eyes. + +"Why are you still a Venturist?" he asked her abruptly. + +"Because I have every right to be! I joined a society, pledged to work +'for a better future.' According to my lights, I do what poor work I can +in that spirit." + +"_You_ are not a Socialist. Half the things you say, or imply, show it. +And we _are_ Socialists." + +She hesitated, looking at him steadily. + +"No!--so far as Socialism means a political system--the trampling out of +private enterprise and competition, and all the rest of it--I find +myself slipping away from it more and more. No!--as I go about among +these wage-earners, the emphasis--do what I will--comes to lie less and +less on possession--more and more on character. I go to two tenements in +the same building. One is Hell--the other Heaven. Why? Both belong to +well-paid artisans with equal opportunities. Both, so far as I can see, +might have a decent and pleasant life of it. But one is a man--the +other, with all his belongings, will soon be a vagabond. That is not +all, I know--oh! don't trouble to tell me so!--but it is more than I +thought. No!--my sympathies in this district where I work are not so +much with the Socialists that I know here--saving your presence! +but--with the people, for instance, that slave at Charity Organisation! +and get all the abuse from all sides." + +Anthony laughed scornfully. + +"It is always the way with a woman," he said; "she invariably prefers +the tinkers to the reformers." + +"And as to your Socialism," she went on, unheeding, the thought of many +days finding defiant expression--"it seems to me like all other +interesting and important things--destined to help something else! +Christianity begins with the poor and division of goods--it becomes the +great bulwark of property and the feudal state. The Crusades--they set +out to recover the tomb of the Lord!--what they did was to increase +trade and knowledge. And so with Socialism. It talks of a new +order--what it _will_ do is to help to make the old sound!" + +Anthony clapped her ironically. + +"Excellent! When the Liberty and Property Defence people have got hold +of you--ask me to come and hear!" + +Meanwhile, Louis stood behind, with his hands on his sides, a smile in +his blinking eyes. He really had a contempt for what a handsome +half-taught girl of twenty-three might think. Anthony only pretended or +desired to have it. + +Nevertheless, Louis said good-bye to his hostess with real, and, for +him, rare effusion. Two years before, for the space of some months, he +had been in love with her. That she had never responded with anything +warmer than liking and comradeship he knew; and his Anna now possessed +him wholly. But there was a deep and gentle chivalry at the bottom of +all his stern social faiths; and the woman towards whom he had once felt +as he had towards Marcella Boyce could never lose the glamour lent her +by that moment of passionate youth. And now, so kindly, so eagerly!--she +had given him his Anna. + +When they were all gone Marcella threw herself into her chair a moment +to think. Her wrath with Anthony was soon dismissed. But Louis's thanks +had filled her with delicious pleasure. Her cheek, her eye had a child's +brightness. The old passion for ruling and influencing was all alive and +happy. + +"I will see it is all right," she was saying to herself. "I will look +after them." + +What she meant was, "I will see that Mr. Wharton looks after them!" and +through the link of thought, memory flew quickly back to that +_tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with him which had preceded the Cravens' arrival. + +How changed he was, yet how much the same! He had not sat beside her for +ten minutes before each was once more vividly, specially conscious of +the other. She felt in him the old life and daring, the old imperious +claim to confidence, to intimacy--on the other hand a new atmosphere, a +new gravity, which suggested growing responsibilities, the difficulties +of power, a great position--everything fitted to touch such an +imagination as Marcella's, which, whatever its faults, was noble, both +in quality and range. The brow beneath the bright chestnut curls had +gained lines that pleased her--lines that a woman marks, because she +thinks they mean experience an I mastery. + +Altogether, to have met him again was pleasure; to think of him was +pleasure; to look forward to hearing him speak in Parliament was +pleasure; so too was his new connection with her old friends. And a +pleasure which took nothing from self-respect; which was open, +honourable, eager. As for that ugly folly of the past, she frowned at +the thought of it, only to thrust the remembrance passionately away. +That _he_ should remember or allude to it, would put an end to +friendship. Otherwise friends they would and should be; and the personal +interest in his public career should lift her out of the cramping +influences that flow from the perpetual commerce of poverty and +suffering. Why not? Such equal friendships between men and women grow +more possible every day. While, as for Hallin's distrust, and Anthony +Craven's jealous hostility, why should a third person be bound by either +of them? Could any one suppose that such a temperament as Wharton's +would be congenial to Hallin or to Craven--or--to yet another person, of +whom she did not want to think? Besides, who wished to make a hero of +him? It was the very complexity and puzzle of the character that made +its force. + + * * * * * + +So with a reddened cheek, she lost herself a few minutes in this +pleasant sense of a new wealth in life; and was only roused from the +dreamy running to and fro of thought by the appearance of Minta, who +came to clear away the tea. + +"Why, it is close on the half-hour!" cried Marcella, springing up. +"Where are my things?" + +She looked down the notes of her cases, satisfied herself that her bag +contained all she wanted, and then hastily tied on her bonnet and cloak. + +Suddenly--the room was empty, for Minta had just gone away with the +tea--by a kind of subtle reaction, the face in that photograph on +Hallin's table flashed into her mind--its look--the grizzled hair. With +an uncontrollable pang of pain she dropped her hands from the fastenings +of her cloak, and wrung them together in front of her--a dumb gesture of +contrition and of grief. + +She!--she talk of social reform and "character," she give her opinion, +as of right, on points of speculation and of ethics, she, whose main +achievement so far had been to make a good man suffer! Something +belittling and withering swept over all her estimate of herself, all her +pleasant self-conceit. Quietly, with downcast eyes, she went her way. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Her first case was in Brown's Buildings itself--a woman suffering from +bronchitis and heart complaint, and tormented besides by an ulcerated +foot which Marcella had now dressed daily for some weeks. She lived on +the top floor of one of the easterly blocks, with two daughters and a +son of eighteen. + +When Marcella entered the little room it was as usual spotlessly clean +and smelt of flowers. The windows were open, and a young woman was busy +shirt-ironing on a table in the centre of the room. Both she and her +mother looked up with smiles as Marcella entered. Then, they introduced +her with some ceremony to a "lady," who was sitting beside the patient, +a long-faced melancholy woman employed at the moment in marking linen +handkerchiefs, which she did with extraordinary fineness and delicacy. +The patient and her daughter spoke of Marcella to their friend as "the +young person," but all with a natural courtesy and charm that could not +have been surpassed. + +Marcella knelt to undo the wrappings of the foot. The woman, a pale +transparent creature, winced painfully as the dressing was drawn off; +but between each half stifled moan of pain she said something eager and +grateful to her nurse. "I never knew any one, Nurse, do it as gentle as +you--" or--"I _do_ take it kind of you, Nurse, to do it so _slow_--oh! +there were a young person before you--" or "hasn't she got nice hands, +Mrs. Burton? they don't never seem to _jar_ yer." + +"Poor foot! but I think it is looking better," said Marcella, getting up +at last from her work, when all was clean and comfortable and she had +replaced the foot on the upturned wooden box that supported it--for its +owner was not in bed, but sitting propped up in an old armchair. "And +how is your cough, Mrs. Jervis?" + +"Oh! it's very bad, nights," said Mrs. Jervis, mildly--"disturbs Emily +dreadful. But I always pray every night, when she lifts me into bed, as +I may be took before the morning, an' God ull do it soon." + +"Mother!" cried Emily, pausing in her ironing, "you know you oughtn't to +say them things." + +Mrs. Jervis looked at her with a sly cheerfulness. Her emaciated face +was paler than usual because of the pain of the dressing, but from the +frail form there breathed an indomitable air of _life_, a gay courage +indeed which had already struck Marcella with wonder. + +"Well, yer not to take 'em to heart, Em'ly. It ull be when it will +be--for the Lord likes us to pray, but He'll take his own time--an' +she's got troubles enough of her own, Nurse. D'yer see as she's leff off +her ring?" + +Marcella looked at Emily's left hand, while the girl flushed all over, +and ironed with a more fiery energy than before. + +"I've 'eerd such things of 'im, Nurse, this last two days," she said +with low vehemence--"as I'm _never_ goin' to wear it again. It 'ud burn +me!" + +Emily was past twenty. Some eighteen months before this date she had +married a young painter. After nearly a year of incredible misery her +baby was born. It died, and she very nearly died also, owing to the +brutal ill-treatment of her husband. As soon as she could get on her +feet again, she tottered home to her widowed mother, broken for the time +in mind and body, and filled with loathing of her tyrant. He made no +effort to recover her, and her family set to work to mend if they could +what he had done. The younger sister of fourteen was earning seven +shillings a week at paper-bag making; the brother, a lad of eighteen, +had been apprenticed by his mother, at the cost of heroic efforts some +six years before, to the leather-currying trade, in a highly skilled +branch of it, and was now taking sixteen shillings a week with the +prospect of far better things in the future. He at once put aside from +his earnings enough to teach Emily "the shirt-ironing," denying himself +every indulgence till her training was over. + +Then they had their reward. Emily's colour and spirits came back; her +earnings made all the difference to the family between penury and ease; +while she and her little sister kept the three tiny rooms in which they +lived, and waited on their invalid mother, with exquisite cleanliness +and care. + +Marcella stood by the ironing-table a moment after the girl's speech. + +"Poor Emily!" she said softly, laying her hand on the ringless one that +held down the shirt on the board. + +Emily looked up at her in silence. But the girl's eyes glowed with +things unsaid and inexpressible--the "eternal passion, eternal pain," +which in half the human race have no voice. + +"He was a very rough man was Em'ly's husband," said Mrs. Jervis, in her +delicate thoughtful voice--"a very uncultivated man." + +Marcella turned round to her, startled and amused by the adjective. But +the other two listeners took it quite quietly. It seemed to them +apparently to express what had to be said. + +"It's a sad thing is want of edication," Mrs. Jervis went on in the same +tone. "Now there's that lady there"--with a little courtly wave of her +hand towards Mrs. Burton--"she can't read yer know, Nurse, and I'm that +sorry for her! But I've been reading to her, an' Emily--just while my +cough's quiet--one of my ole tracks." + +She held up a little paper-covered tract worn with use. It was called "A +Pennorth of Grace, or a Pound of Works?" Marcella looked at it in +respectful silence as she put on her cloak. Such things were not in her +line. + +"I do _love_ a track!" said Mrs. Jervis, pensively. "That's why I don't +like these buildings so well as them others, Em'ly. Here you never get +no tracks; and there, what with one person and another, there was a new +one most weeks. But"--her voice dropped, and she looked timidly first at +her friend, and then at Marcella--"she isn't a Christian, Nurse. Isn't +it sad?" + +Mrs. Burton, a woman of a rich mahogany complexion, with a black +"front," and a mouth which turned down decisively at the corners, +looked up from her embroidery with severe composure. + +"No, Nurse, I'm not a Christian," she said in the tone of one stating a +disagreeable fact for which they are noways responsible. "My brother +is--and my sisters--real good Christian people. One of my sisters +married a gentleman up in Wales. She 'as two servants, an' fam'ly +prayers reg'lar. But I've never felt no 'call,' and I tell 'em I can't +purtend. An' Mrs. Jervis here, she don't seem to make me see it no +different." + +She held her head erect, however, as though the unusually high sense of +probity involved, was, after all, some consolation. Mrs. Jervis looked +at her with pathetic eyes. But Emily coloured hotly. Emily was a +churchwoman. + +"Of course you're a Christian, Mrs. Burton," she said indignantly. "What +she means, Nurse, is she isn't a 'member' of any chapel, like mother. +But she's been baptised and confirmed, for I asked her. And of course +she's a Christian." + +"Em'ly!" said Mrs. Jervis, with energy. + +Emily looked round trembling. The delicate invalid was sitting bolt +upright, her eyes sparkling, a spot of red on either hollow cheek. The +glances of the two women crossed; there seemed to be a mute struggle +between them. Then Emily laid down her iron, stepped quickly across to +her mother, and kneeling beside her, threw her arms around her. + +"Have it your own way, mother," she said, while her lip quivered; "I +wasn't a-goin' to cross you." + +Mrs. Jervis laid her waxen cheek against her daughter's tangle of brown +hair with a faint smile, while her breathing, which had grown quick and +panting, gradually subsided. Emily looked up at Marcella with a +terrified self-reproach. They all knew that any sudden excitement might +kill out the struggling flame of life. + +"You ought to rest a little, Mrs. Jervis," said Marcella, with gentle +authority. "You know the dressing must tire you, though you won't +confess it. Let me put you comfortable. There; aren't the pillows easier +so? Now rest--and good-bye." + +But Mrs. Jervis held her, while Emily slipped away. + +"I shall rest soon," she said significantly. "An' it hurts me when Emily +talks like that. It's the only thing that ever comes atween us. She +thinks o' forms an' ceremonies; an' _I_ think o' _grace_." + +Her old woman's eyes, so clear and vivid under the blanched brow, +searched Marcella's face for sympathy. But Marcella stood, shy and +wondering in the presence of words and emotions she understood so +little. So narrow a life, in these poor rooms, under these crippling +conditions of disease!--and all this preoccupation with, this passion +over, the things not of the flesh, the thwarted, cabined flesh, but of +the spirit--wonderful! + + * * * * * + +On coming out from Brown's Buildings, she turned her steps reluctantly +towards a street some distance from her own immediate neighbourhood, +where she had a visit to pay which filled her with repulsion and an +unusual sense of helplessness. A clergyman who often availed himself of +the help of the St. Martin's nurses had asked the superintendent to +undertake for him "a difficult case." Would one of their nurses go +regularly to visit a certain house, ostensibly for the sake of a little +boy of five just come back from the hospital, who required care at home +for a while, _really_ for the sake of his young mother, who had suddenly +developed drinking habits and was on the road to ruin? + +Marcella happened to be in the office when the letter arrived. She +somewhat unwillingly accepted the task, and she had now paid two or +three visits, always dressing the child's sore leg, and endeavouring to +make acquaintance with the mother. But in this last attempt she had not +had much success. Mrs. Vincent was young and pretty, with a flighty, +restless manner. She was always perfectly civil to Marcella, and +grateful to her apparently for the ease she gave the boy. But she +offered no confidences; the rooms she and her husband occupied showed +them to be well-to-do; Marcella had so far found them well-kept; and +though the evil she was sent to investigate was said to be notorious, +she had as yet discovered nothing of it for herself. It seemed to her +that she must be either stupid, or that there must be something about +her which made Mrs. Vincent more secretive with her than with others; +and neither alternative pleased her. + +To-day, however, as she stopped at the Vincents' door, she noticed that +the doorstep, which was as a rule shining white, was muddy and +neglected. Then nobody came to open, though she knocked and rang +repeatedly. At last a neighbour, who had been watching the strange +nurse through her own parlour window, came out to the street. + +"I think, miss," she said, with an air of polite mystery, "as you'd +better walk in. Mrs. Vincent 'asn't been enjyin' very good 'ealth this +last few days." + +Marcella turned the handle, found it yielded, and went in. It was after +six o'clock, and the evening sun streamed in through a door at the back +of the house. But in the Vincents' front parlour the blinds were all +pulled down, and the only sound to be heard was the fretful wailing of a +child. Marcella timidly opened the sitting-room door. + +The room at first seemed to her dark. Then she perceived Mrs. Vincent +sitting by the grate, and the two children on the floor beside her. The +elder, the little invalid, was simply staring at his mother in a +wretched silence; but the younger, the baby of three, was restlessly +throwing himself hither and thither, now pulling at the woman's skirts, +now crying lustily, now whining in a hungry voice, for "Máma! din-din! +Máma! din-din!" + +Mrs. Vincent neither moved nor spoke, even when Marcella came in. She +sat with her hands hanging over her lap in a desolation incapable of +words. She was dirty and unkempt; the room was covered with litter; the +breakfast things were still on the table; and the children were +evidently starving. + +Marcella, seized with pity, and divining what had happened, tried to +rouse and comfort her. But she got no answer. Then she asked for +matches. Mrs. Vincent made a mechanical effort to find them, but +subsided helpless with a shake of the head. At last Marcella found them +herself, lit a tire of some sticks she discovered in a cupboard, and put +on the kettle. Then she cut a slice of bread and dripping for each of +the children--the only eatables she could find--and after she had +dressed Bertie's leg she began to wash up the tea things and tidy the +room, not knowing very well what to be at, but hoping minute by minute +to get Mrs. Vincent to speak to her. + +In the midst of her labours, an elderly woman cautiously opened the door +and beckoned to her. + +Marcella went out into the passage. + +"I'm her mother, miss! I 'eered you were 'ere, an' I follered yer. Oh! +such a business as we 'ad, 'er 'usband an' me, a gettin' of 'er 'ome +last night. There's a neighbour come to me, an' she says: 'Mrs. Lucas, +there's your daughter a drinkin' in that public 'ouse, an' if I was you +I'd go and fetch her out; for she's got a lot o' money, an' she's +treatin' everybody all round.' An' Charlie--that's 'er 'usband--ee come +along too, an' between us we got holt on her. An' iver sence we brought +her 'ome last night, she set there in that cheer, an' niver a word to +nobody! Not to me 't any rate, nor the chillen. I believe 'er 'usband +an' 'er 'ad words this mornin'. But she won't tell me nothin'. She sits +there--just heart-broke"--the woman put up her apron to her eyes and +began crying. "She ain't eatin' nothink all day, an' I dursen't leave +the 'ouse out o' me sight--I lives close by, miss--for fear of 'er doing +'erself a mischief." + +"How long has she been like this?" said Marcella, drawing the door +cautiously to behind her. + +"About fourteen month," said the woman, hopelessly. "An' none of us +knows why. She was such a neat, pretty girl when she married 'im--an' ee +such a steady fellow. An' I've done _my_ best. I've talked to 'er, an' +I've 'id 'er 'at an' her walking things, an' taken 'er money out of 'er +pockets. An', bless yer, she's been all right now for seven weeks--till +last night. Oh, deary, deary, me! whatever 'ull become o' them--'er, an' +'im, an' the children!" + +The tears coursed down the mother's wrinkled face. + +"Leave her to me a little longer," said Marcella, softly; "but come back +to me in about half an hour, and don't let her be alone." + +The woman nodded, and went away. + +Mrs. Vincent turned quickly round as Marcella came back again, and spoke +for the first time: + +"That was my mother you were talkin' to?" + +"Yes," said Marcella, quietly, as she took the kettle off the fire. "Now +I do want you to have a cup of tea, Mrs. Vincent. Will you, if I make +it?" + +The poor creature did not speak, but she followed Marcella's movements +with her weary eyes. At last when Marcella knelt down beside her holding +out a cup of tea and some bread and butter, she gave a sudden cry. +Marcella hastily put down what she carried, lest it should be knocked +out of her hand. + +"He struck me this morning!--Charlie did--the first time in seven years. +Look here!" + +She pulled up her sleeve, and on her white, delicate arm she showed a +large bruise. As she pointed to it her eyes filled with miserable tears; +her lips quivered; anguish breathed in every feature. Yet even in this +abasement Marcella was struck once more with her slim prettiness, her +refined air. This woman drinking and treating in a low public-house at +midnight!--rescued thence by a decent husband! + +She soothed her as best she could, but when she had succeeded in making +the wretched soul take food, and so in putting some physical life into +her, she found herself the recipient of an outburst of agony before +which she quailed. The woman clung to her, moaning about her husband, +about the demon instinct that had got hold of her, she hardly knew +how--by means it seemed originally of a few weeks of low health and +small self-indulgences--and she felt herself powerless to fight; about +the wreck she had brought upon her home, the shame upon her husband, who +was the respected, well-paid foreman of one of the large shops of the +neighbourhood. All through it came back to him. + +"We had words, Nurse, this morning, when he went out to his work. He +said he'd nearly died of shame last night; that he couldn't bear it no +more; that he'd take the children from me. And I was all queer in the +head still, and I sauced him--and then--he looked like a devil--and he +took me by the arm--and _threw_ me down--as if I'd been a sack. An' he +never, _never,_--touched me--before--in all his life. An' he's never +come in all day. An' perhaps I shan't ever see him again. An' last +time--but it wasn't so bad as this--he said he'd try an' love me again +if I'd behave. An' he did try--and I tried too. But now it's no good, +an' perhaps he'll not come back. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do!" +she flung her arms above her head. "Won't _anybody_ find him? won't +_anybody_ help me?" + +She dropped a hand upon Marcella's arm, clutching it, her wild eyes +seeking her companion's. + +But at the same moment, with the very extremity of her own emotion, a +cloud of impotence fell upon Marcella. She suddenly felt that she could +do nothing--that there was nothing in her adequate to such an +appeal--nothing strong enough to lift the weight of a human life thus +flung upon her. + +She was struck with a dryness, a numbness, that appalled her. She tried +still to soothe and comfort, but nothing that she said went home--took +hold. Between the feeling in her heart which might have reached and +touched this despair, and the woman before her, there seemed to be a +barrier she could not break. Or was it that she was really barren and +poor in soul, and had never realised it before? A strange misery rose in +her too, as she still knelt, tending and consoling, but with no +efficacy--no power. + +At last Mrs. Vincent sank into miserable quiet again. The mother came +in, and silently began to put the children to bed. Marcella pressed the +wife's cold hand, and went out hanging her head. She had just reached +the door when it opened, and a man entered. A thrill passed through her +at the sight of his honest, haggard face, and this time she found what +to say. + +"I have been sitting by your wife, Mr. Vincent. She is very ill and +miserable, and very penitent. You will be kind to her?" + +The husband looked at her, and then turned away. + +"God help us!" he said; and Marcella went without another word, and +with that same wild, unaccustomed impulse of prayer rilling her being +which had first stirred in her at Mellor at the awful moment of Hurd's +death. + + * * * * * + +She was very silent and distracted at tea, and afterwards--saying that +she must write some letters and reports--she shut herself up, and bade +good-night to Minta and the children. + +But she did not write or read. She hung at the window a long time, +watching the stars come out, as the summer light died from the sky, and +even the walls and roofs and chimneys of this interminable London spread +out before her took a certain dim beauty. And then, slipping down on the +floor, with her head against a chair--an attitude of her stormy +childhood--she wept with an abandonment and a passion she had not known +for years. She thought of Mrs. Jervis--the saint--so near to death, so +satisfied with "grace," so steeped in the heavenly life; then of the +poor sinner she had just left and of the agony she had no power to stay. +Both experiences had this in common--that each had had some part in +plunging her deeper into this darkness of self-contempt. + +What had come to her? Daring the past weeks there had been something +wrestling in her--some new birth--some "conviction of sin," as Mrs. +Jervis would have said. As she looked back over all her strenuous youth +she hated it. What was wrong with her? Her own word to Anthony Craven +returned upon her, mocked her--made now a scourge for her own pride, not +a mere, measure of blame for others. Aldous Raeburn, her father and +mother, her poor--one and all rose against her--plucked at +her--reproached her. "Aye! what, indeed, are wealth and poverty?" cried +a voice, which was the voice of them all; "what are opinions--what is +influence, beauty, cleverness?--what is anything worth but +_character_--but _soul?_" + +And character--soul--can only be got by self-surrender; and +self-surrender comes not of knowledge but of love. + +A number of thoughts and phrases, hitherto of little meaning to her, +floated into her mind--sank and pressed there. That strange word "grace" +for instance! + +A year ago it would not have smitten or troubled her. After her first +inevitable reaction against the evangelical training of her school +years, the rebellious cleverness of youth had easily decided that +religion was played out, that Socialism and Science were enough for +mankind. + +But nobody could live in hospital--nobody could go among the +poor--nobody could share the thoughts and hopes of people like Edward +Hallin and his sister, without understanding that it is still here in +the world--this "grace" that "sustaineth"--however variously +interpreted, still living and working, as it worked of old, among the +little Galilean towns, in Jerusalem, in Corinth. To Edward Hallin it did +not mean the same, perhaps, as it meant to the hard-worked clergymen she +knew, or to Mrs. Jervis. But to all it meant the motive power of +life--something subduing, transforming, delivering--something that +to-night she envied with a passion and a yearning that amazed herself. + +How many things she craved, as an eager child craves them! First some +moral change, she knew not what--then Aldous Raeburn's pardon and +friendship--then and above all, the power to lose herself--the power to +_love_. + +Dangerous significant moment in a woman's life--moment at once of +despair and of illusion! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Wharton was sitting in a secluded corner of the library of the House of +Commons. He had a number of loose sheets of paper on a chair beside him, +and others in his hand and on his knee. It was Friday afternoon; +questions were going on in the House; and he was running rapidly for the +last time through the notes of his speech, pencilling here and there, +and every now and then taking up a volume of Hansard that lay near that +he might verify a quotation. + +An old county member, with a rugged face and eye-glasses, who had been +in Parliament for a generation, came to the same corner to look up a +speech. He glanced curiously at Wharton, with whom he had a familiar +House-of-Commons acquaintance. + +"Nervous, eh?" he said, as he put on his eye-glasses to inspect first +Wharton, then the dates on the backs of the Reports. + +Wharton put his papers finally together, and gave a long stretch. + +"Not particularly." + +"Well, it's a beastly audience!" said the other, carrying off his book. + +Wharton, lost apparently in contemplation of the ceiling, fell into a +dreamy attitude. But his eye saw nothing of the ceiling, and was not at +all dreamy. He was not thinking of his speech, nor of the other man's +remark. He was thinking of Marcella Boyce. + +When he left her the other day he had been conscious, only more vividly +and intensely, more possessively as it were, than she, of the same +general impression that had been left upon her. A new opening for +pleasure--their meeting presented itself to him, too, in the same way. +What had he been about all this time? _Forget_?--such a creature? Why, +it was the merest wantonness! As if such women--with such a brow, such +vitality, such a gait--passed in every street! + +What possessed him now was an imperious eagerness to push the matter, to +recover the old intimacy--and as to what might come out of it, let the +gods decide! He could have had but a very raw appreciation of her at +Mellor. It seemed to him that she had never forced him to think of her +then in absence, as he had thought of her since the last meeting. + +As for the nursing business, and the settlement in Brown's Buildings, it +was, of course, mere play-acting. No doubt when she emerged she would be +all the more of a personage for having done it. But she must emerge +soon. To rule and shine was as much her _métier_ as it was the _métier_ +of a bricklayer's labourer to carry hods. By George! what would not Lady +Selina give for beauty of such degree and kind as that! They must be +brought together. He already foresaw that the man who should launch +Marcella Boyce in London would play a stroke for himself as well as for +her. And she must be launched in London. Let other people nurse, and +pitch their tents in little workmen's flats, and _live_ democracy +instead of preaching it. Her fate was fixed for her by her physique. _Il +ne faut pas sortir de son caractčre_. + +The sight of Bennett approaching distracted him. + +Bennett's good face showed obvious vexation. + +"He sticks to it," he said, as Wharton jumped up to meet him. "Talks of +his conscience--and a lot of windy stuff. He seems to have arranged it +with the Whips. I dare say he won't do much harm." + +"Except to himself," said Wharton, with dry bitterness. "Goodness! let's +leave him alone!" + +He and Bennett lingered a few minutes discussing points of tactics. +Wilkins had, of course, once more declared himself the _enfant terrible_ +of a party which, though still undefined, was drawing nearer day by day +to organised existence and separate leadership. The effect of to-night's +debate might be of far-reaching importance. Wharton's Resolution, +pledging the House to a Legal Eight Hours' Day for all trades, came at +the end of a long and varied agitation, was at the moment in clear +practical relation to labour movements all over the country, and had in +fact gained greatly in significance and interest since it was first +heard of in public, owing to events of current history. Workable +proposals--a moderate tone--and the appearance, at any rate, of harmony +and a united front among the representatives of labour--if so much at +least could be attained to-night, both Wharton and Bennett believed that +not only the cause itself, but the importance of the Labour party in the +House would be found to have gained enormously. + +"I hope I shall get my turn before dinner," said Bennett, as he was +going; "I want badly to get off for an hour or so. The division won't be +till half-past ten at earliest." + +Wharton stood for a moment in a brown study, with his hands in his +pockets, after Bennett left him. It was by no means wholly clear to him +what line Bennett would take--with regard to one or two points. After a +long acquaintance with the little man, Wharton was not always, nor +indeed generally, at his ease with him. Bennett had curious reserves. As +to his hour off, Wharton felt tolerably certain that he meant to go and +hear a famous Revivalist preacher hold forth at a public hall not far +from the House. The streets were full of placards. + +Well!--to every man his own excitements! What time? He looked first at +his watch, then at the marked question paper Bennett had left behind +him. The next minute he was hurrying along passages and stairs, with his +springing, boyish step, to the Ladies' Gallery. + +The magnificent doorkeeper saluted him with particular deference. +Wharton was in general a favourite with officials. + +"The two ladies are come, sir. You'll find them in the front--oh! not +very full yet, sir--will be directly." + +Wharton drew aside the curtain of the Gallery, and looked in. +Yes!--there was the dark head bent forward, pressed indeed against the +grating which closes the front of the den into which the House of +Commons puts its ladies--as though its owner were already absorbed in +what was passing before her. + +She looked up with an eager start, as she heard his voice in her ear. + +"Oh! now, come and tell us everything--and who everybody is. Why don't +we see the Speaker?--and which is the Government side?--oh, yes, I see. +And who's this speaking now?" + +"Why, I thought you knew everything," said Wharton as, with a greeting +to Miss Craven, he slipped in beside them and took a still vacant chair +for an instant. "How shall I instruct a Speaker's great-niece?" + +"Why, of course I feel as if the place belonged to me!" said Marcella, +impatiently; "but that somehow doesn't seem to help me to people's +names. Where's Mr. Gladstone? Oh, I see. Look, look, Edith!--he's just +come in!--oh, don't be so superior, though you _have_ been here +before--you couldn't tell me heaps of people!" + +Her voice had a note of joyous excitement like a child's. + +"That's because I'm short-sighted," said Edith Craven, calmly; "but it's +no reason why you should show me Mr. Gladstone." + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!--do be quiet! Now, Mr. Wharton, where are the +Irishmen? Oh! I wish we could have an Irish row! And where do you +sit?--I see--and there's Mr. Bennett--and that black-faced man, Mr. +Wilkins, I met at the Hallins--you don't like him, do you?" she said, +drawing back and looking at him sharply. + +"Who? Wilkins? Perhaps you'd better ask me that question later on!" said +Wharton, with a twist of the lip; "he's going to do his best to make a +fool of himself and us to-night--we shall see! It's kind of you to wish +us an Irish row!--considering that if I miss my chance to-night I shall +never get another!" + +"Then for heaven's sake don't let's wish it!" she said decidedly. "Oh, +that's the Irish Secretary answering now, is it?"--a pause--"Dear me, +how civil everybody is. I don't think this is a good place for a +Democrat, Mr. Wharton--I find myself terribly in love with the +Government. But who's that?" + +She craned her neck. Wharton was silent. The next instant she drew +hurriedly back. + +"I didn't see," she murmured; "it's so confusing." + +A tall man had risen from the end of the Government bench, and was +giving an answer connected with the Home Secretary's department. For the +first time since their parting in the Mellor drawing-room Marcella saw +Aldous Raeburn. + +She fell very silent, and leant back in her chair. Yet Wharton's quick +glance perceived that she both looked and listened intently, so long as +the somewhat high-pitched voice was speaking. + +"He does those things very well," he said carelessly, judging it best to +take the bull by the horns. "Never a word too much--they don't get any +change out of him. Do you see that old fellow in the white beard under +the gallery? He is one of the chartered bores. When he gets up to-night +the House will dine. I shall come up and look for you, and hand you over +to a friend if I may--a Staffordshire member, who has his wife +here--Mrs. Lane. I have engaged a table, and I can start with you. +Unfortunately I mustn't be long out of the House, as it's my motion; +but they will look after you." + +The girls glanced a little shyly at each other. Nothing had been said +about dining; but Wharton took it for granted; and they yielded. It was +Marcella's "day off," and she was a free woman. + +"Good-bye, then," he said, getting up. "I shall be on in about twenty +minutes. Wish me well through!" + +Marcella looked round and smiled. But her vivacity had been quenched for +the moment; and Wharton departed not quite so well heartened for the +fray as he could have wished to be. It was hard luck that the Raeburn +ghost should walk this particular evening. + +Marcella bent forward again when he had gone, and remained for long +silent, looking down into the rapidly filling House. Aldous Raeburn was +lying back on the Treasury bench, his face upturned. She knew very well +that it was impossible he should see her; yet every now and then she +shrank a little away as though he must. The face looked to her older and +singularly blanched; but she supposed that must be the effect of the +light; for she noticed the same pallor in many others. + +"_All that my life can do to pour good measure_--_down_--_running +over_--_into yours, I vowed you then!_" + +The words stole into her memory, throbbing there like points of pain. +Was it indeed this man under her eyes--so listless, so unconscious--who +had said them to her with a passion of devotion it shamed her to think +of. + +And now--never so much as an ordinary word of friendship between them +again? "On the broad seas of life enisled"--separate, estranged, for +ever? It was like the touch of death--the experience brought with it +such a chill--such a sense of irreparable fact, of limitations never to +be broken through. + +Then she braced herself. The "things that are behind" must be left. To +have married him after all would have been the greatest wrong. Nor, in +one sense, was what she had done irreparable. She chose to believe Frank +Leven, rather than Edward Hallin. Of course he must and should marry! It +was absurd to suppose that he should not. No one had a stronger sense of +family than he. And as for the girl--the little dancing, flirting +girl!--why the thing happened every day. _His_ wife should not be too +strenuous, taken up with problems and questions of her own. She should +cheer, amuse, distract him. Marcella endeavoured to think of it all with +the dry common-sense her mother would have applied to it. One thing at +least was clear to her--the curious recognition that never before had +she considered Aldous Raeburn, _in and for himself_, as an independent +human being. + +"He was just a piece of furniture in my play last year," she said to +herself with a pang of frank remorse. "He was well quit of me!" + +But she was beginning to recover her spirits, and when at last Raeburn, +after a few words with a minister who had just arrived, disappeared +suddenly behind the Speaker's chair, the spectacle below her seized her +with the same fascination as before. + +The House was filling rapidly. Questions were nearly over, and the +speech of the evening, on which considerable public expectation both +inside and outside Parliament had been for some time concentrated, was +fast approaching. Peers were straggling into the gallery; the reporters +were changing just below her: and some "crack hands" among them, who had +been lounging till now, were beginning to pay attention and put their +paper in order. The Irish benches, the Opposition, the Government--all +were full, and there was a large group of members round the door. + +"There he is!" cried Marcella, involuntarily, with a pulse of +excitement, as Wharton's light young figure made its way through the +crowd. He sat down on a corner seat below the gangway and put on his +hat. + +In five minutes more he was on his feet, speaking to an attentive and +crowded House in a voice--clear, a little hard, but capable of the most +accomplished and subtle variety--which for the first moment sent a +shudder of memory through Marcella. + +Then she found herself listening with as much trepidation and anxiety as +though some personal interest and reputation depended for her, too, on +the success of the speech. Her mind was first invaded by a strong, an +_irritable_ sense of the difficulty of the audience. How was it possible +for any one, unless he had been trained to it for years, to make any +effect upon such a crowd!--so irresponsive, individualist, unfused--so +lacking, as it seemed to the raw spectator, in the qualities and +excitements that properly belong to multitude! Half the men down below, +under their hats, seemed to her asleep; the rest indifferent. And were +those languid, indistinguishable murmurs what the newspapers call +"_cheers_"? + +But the voice below flowed on; point after point came briskly out; the +atmosphere warmed; and presently this first impression passed into one +wholly different--nay, at the opposite pole. Gradually the girl's ardent +sense--informed, perhaps, more richly than most women's with the +memories of history and literature, for in her impatient way she had +been at all times a quick, omnivorous reader--awoke to the peculiar +conditions, the special thrill, attaching to the place and its +performers. The philosopher derides it; the man of letters out of the +House talks of it with a smile as a "Ship of Fools"; both, when occasion +offers, passionately desire a seat in it; each would give his right hand +to succeed in it. + +Why? Because here after all is power--here is the central machine. Here +are the men who, both by their qualities and their defects, are to have +for their span of life the leading--or the wrecking?--of this great +fate-bearing force, this "weary Titan" we call our country. Here things +are not only debated, but done--lamely or badly, perhaps, but still +_done_--which will affect our children's children; which link us to the +Past; which carry us on safely or dangerously to a Future only the gods +know. And in this passage, this chequered, doubtful passage from +thinking to doing, an infinite savour and passion of life is somehow +disengaged. It penetrates through the boredom, through all the failure, +public and personal; it enwraps the spectacle and the actors; it carries +and supports patriot and adventurer alike. + +Ideas, perceptions of this kind--the first chill over--stole upon and +conquered Marcella. Presently it was as though she had passed into +Wharton's place, was seeing with his eyes, feeling with his nerves. It +would be a success this speech--it was a success! The House was gained, +was attentive. A case long familiar to it in portions and fragments, +which had been spoilt by violence and discredited by ignorance, was +being presented to it with all the resources of a great talent--with +brilliancy, moderation, practical detail--moderation above all! From the +slight historical sketch, with which the speech opened, of the English +"working day," the causes and the results of the Factory Acts--through +the general description of the present situation, of the workman's +present hours, opportunities and demands, the growth of the desire for +State control, the machinery by which it was to be enforced, and the +effects it might be expected to have on the workman himself, on the +great army of the "unemployed," on wages, on production, and on the +economic future of England--the speaker carried his thread of luminous +speech, without ever losing his audience for an instant. At every point +he addressed himself to the smoothing of difficulties, to the +propitiation of fears; and when, after the long and masterly handling of +detail, he came to his peroration, to the bantering of capitalist +terrors, to the vindication of the workman's claim to fix the conditions +of his labour, and to the vision lightly and simply touched of the +regenerate working home of the future, inhabited by free men, dedicated +to something beyond the first brutal necessities of the bodily life, +possessed indeed of its proper share of the human inheritance of +leisure, knowledge, and delight--the crowded benches before and behind +him grudged him none of it. The House of Commons is not tolerant of +"flights," except from its chartered masters. But this young man had +earned his flight; and they heard him patiently. For the rest, the +Government had been most attractively wooed; and the Liberal party in +the midst of much plain speaking had been treated on the whole with a +deference and a forbearance that had long been conspicuously lacking in +the utterances of the Labour men. + +"'The mildest mannered man' _et cetera!_" said a smiling member of the +late Government to a companion on the front Opposition bench, as Wharton +sat down amid the general stir and movement which betoken the break-up +of a crowded House, and the end of a successful speech which people are +eager to discuss in the lobbies. "A fine performance, eh? Great advance +on anything last year." + +"Bears about as much relation to facts as I do to the angels!" growled +the man addressed. + +"What! as bad as that?" said the other, laughing. "Look! they have put +up old Denny. I think I shall stay and hear him." And he laid down his +hat again which he had taken up. + +Meanwhile Marcella in the Ladies' Gallery had thrown herself back in her +chair with a long breath. + +"How can one listen to anything else!" she said; and for a long time she +sat staring at the House without hearing a word of what the very +competent, caustic, and well-informed manufacturer on the Government +side was saying. Every dramatic and aesthetic instinct she +possessed--and she was full of them--had been stirred and satisfied by +the speech and the speaker. + +But more than that. He had spoken for the toiler and the poor; his +peroration above all had contained tones and accents which were in fact +the products of something perfectly sincere in the speaker's motley +personality; and this girl, who in her wild way had given herself to the +poor, had followed him with all her passionate heart. Yet, at the same +time, with an amount of intellectual dissent every now and then as to +measures and methods, a scepticism of detail which astonished herself! A +year before she had been as a babe beside him, whether in matters of +pure mind or of worldly experience. Now she was for the first time +conscious of a curious growth--independence. + +But the intellectual revolt, such as it was, was lost again, as soon as +it arose, in the general impression which the speech had left upon +her--in this warm quickening of the pulses, this romantic interest in +the figure, the scene, the young emerging personality. + +Edith Craven looked at her with wondering amusement. She and her +brothers were typical Venturists--a little cynical, therefore, towards +all the world, friend or foe. A Venturist is a Socialist minus cant, and +a cause which cannot exist at all without a passion of sentiment lays it +down--through him--as a first law, that sentiment in public is the +abominable thing. Edith Craven thought that after all Marcella was +little less raw and simple now than she had been in the old days. + +"There!" said Marcella, with relief, "that's done. Now, who's this? That +man _Wilkins_!" + +Her tone showed her disgust. Wilkins had sprung up the instant Wharton's +Conservative opponent had given the first decisive sign of sitting +down. Another man on the same side was also up, but Wilkins, black and +frowning, held his own stubbornly, and his rival subsided. + +With the first sentences of the new speech the House knew that it was to +have an emotion, and men came trooping in again. And certainly the short +stormy utterance was dramatic enough. Dissent on the part of an +important north-country Union from some of the most vital machinery of +the bill which had been sketched by Wharton--personal jealousy and +distrust of the mover of the resolution--denial of his representative +place, and sneers at his kid-gloved attempts to help a class with which +he had nothing to do--the most violent protest against the servility +with which he had truckled to the now effete party of free contract and +political enfranchisement--and the most passionate assertion that +between any Labour party, worthy of the name, and either of the great +parties of the past there lay and must lie a gulf of hatred, +unfathomable and unquenchable, till Labour had got its rights, and +landlord, employer, and dividend-hunter were trampled beneath its +heel--all these ugly or lurid things emerged with surprising clearness +from the torrent of north-country speech. For twenty minutes Nehemiah +Wilkins rioted in one of the best "times" of his life. That he was an +orator thousands of working men had borne him witness again and again; +and in his own opinion he had never spoken better. + +The House at first enjoyed its sensation. Then, as the hard words +rattled on, it passed easily into the stage of amusement. Lady +Cradock's burly husband bent forward from the front Opposition bench, +caught Wharton's eye, and smiled, as though to say: "What!--you haven't +even been able to keep up appearances so far!" And Wilkins's final +attack upon the Liberals--who, after ruining their own chances and the +chances of the country, were now come cap in hand to the working man +whining for his support as their only hope of recovery--was delivered to +a mocking chorus of laughter and cheers, in the midst of which, with an +angry shake of his great shoulders, he flung himself down on his seat. + +Meanwhile Wharton, who had spent the first part of Wilkins's speech in a +state of restless fidget, his hat over his eyes, was alternately sitting +erect with radiant looks, or talking rapidly to Bennett, who had come to +sit beside him. The Home Secretary got up after Wilkins had sat down, +and spent a genial forty minutes in delivering the Government _non +possumus_, couched, of course, in the tone of deference to King Labour +which the modern statesman learns at his mother's knee, but enlivened +with a good deal of ironical and effective perplexity as to which hand +to shake and whose voice to follow, and winding up with a tribute of +compliment to Wharton, mixed with some neat mock condolence with the +Opposition under the ferocities of some others of its nominal friends. + +Altogether, the finished performance of the old stager, the _habitué_. +While it was going on, Marcella noticed that Aldous Raeburn had come +back again to his seat next to the Speaker, who was his official chief. +Every now and then the Minister turned to him, and Raeburn handed him a +volume of Hansard or the copy of some Parliamentary Return whence the +great man was to quote. Marcella watched every movement; then from the +Government bench her eye sped across the House to Wharton sitting once +more buried in his hat, his arms folded in front of him. A little shiver +of excitement ran through her. The two men upon whom her life had so far +turned were once more in presence of, pitted against, each other--and +she, once more, looking on! + +When the Home Secretary sat down, the House was growing restive with +thoughts of dinner, and a general movement had begun--when it was seen +that Bennett was up. Again men who had gone out came back, and those who +were still there resigned themselves. Bennett was a force in the House, +a man always listened to and universally respected, and the curiosity +felt as to the relations between him and this new star and would-be +leader had been for some time considerable. + +When Bennett sat down, the importance of the member for West Brookshire, +both in the House and in the country, had risen a hundred per cent. A +man who over a great part of the north was in labour concerns the +unquestioned master of many legions, and whose political position had +hitherto been one of conspicuous moderation, even to his own hurt, had +given Wharton the warmest possible backing; had endorsed his proposals, +to their most contentious and doubtful details, and in a few generous +though still perhaps ambiguous words had let the House see what he +personally thought of the services rendered to labour as a whole during +the past five years, and to the weak and scattered group of Labour +members in particular, since his entrance into Parliament, by the young +and brilliant man beside him. + +Bennett was no orator. He was a plain man, ennobled by the training of +religious dissent, at the same time indifferently served often by an +imperfect education. But the very simplicity and homeliness of its +expression gave additional weight to this first avowal of a strong +conviction that the time had come when the Labour party _must_ have +separateness and a leader if it were to rise out of insignificance; to +this frank renunciation of whatever personal claims his own past might +have given him; and to the promise of unqualified support to the policy +of the younger man, in both its energetic and conciliatory aspects. He +threw out a little not unkindly indignation, if one may be allowed the +phrase, in the direction of Wilkins--who in the middle of the speech +abruptly walked out--and before he sat down, the close attention, the +looks, the cheers, the evident excitement of the men sitting about +him,--amongst whom were two-thirds of the whole Labour representation in +Parliament--made it clear to the House that the speech marked an epoch +not only in the career of Harry Wharton, but in the parliamentary +history of the great industrial movement. + +The white-bearded bore under the gallery, whom Wharton had pointed out +to Marcella, got up as Bennett subsided. The house streamed out like one +man. Bennett, exhausted by the heat and the effort, mopped his brow with +his red handkerchief, and, in the tension of fatigue, started as he felt +a touch upon his arm. Wharton was bending over to him--perfectly white, +with a lip he in vain tried to steady. + +"I can't thank you," he said; "I should make a fool of myself." + +Bennett nodded pleasantly, and presently both were pressing into the +out-going crowd, avoiding each other with the ineradicable instinct of +the Englishman. + +Wharton did not recover his self-control completely till, after an +ordeal of talk and handshaking in the lobby, he was on his way to the +Ladies' Gallery. Then in a flash he found himself filled with the +spirits, the exhilaration, of a schoolboy. This wonderful experience +behind him!--and upstairs, waiting for him, those eyes, that face! How +could he get her to himself somehow for a moment--and dispose of that +Craven girl? + +"Well!" he said to her joyously, as she turned round in the darkness of +the Gallery. + +But she was seized with sudden shyness, and he felt, rather than saw, +the glow of pleasure and excitement which possessed her. + +"Don't let's talk here," she said. "Can't we go out? I am melted!" + +"Yes, of course! Come on to the terrace. It's a divine evening, and we +shall find our party there. Well, Miss Craven, were you interested?" + +Edith smiled demurely. + +"I thought it a good debate," she said. + +"Confound these Venturist prigs!" was Wharton's inward remark as he led +the way. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"How enchanting!" cried Marcella, as they emerged on the terrace, and +river, shore, and sky opened upon them in all the thousand-tinted light +and shade of a still and perfect evening. "Oh, how hot we were--and how +badly you treat us in those dens!" + +Those confident eyes of Wharton's shone as they glanced at her. + +She wore a pretty white dress of some cotton stuff--it seemed to him he +remembered it of old--and on the waving masses of hair lay a little +bunch of black lace that called itself a bonnet, with black strings tied +demurely under the chin. The abundance of character and dignity in the +beauty which yet to-night was so young and glowing--the rich arresting +note of the voice--the inimitable carriage of the head--Wharton realised +them all at the moment with peculiar vividness, because he felt them in +some sort as additions to his own personal wealth. To-night she was in +his power, his possession. + +The terrace was full of people, and alive with a Babel of talk. Yet, as +he carried his companions forward in search of Mrs. Lane, he saw that +Marcella was instantly marked. Every one who passed them, or made way +for them, looked and looked again. + +The girl, absorbed in her pleasant or agitating impressions, knew +nothing of her own effect. She was drinking in the sunset light--the +poetic mystery of the river--the lovely line of the bridge--the +associations of the place where she stood, of this great building +overshadowing her. Every now and then she started in a kind of terror +lest some figure in the dusk should be Aldous Raeburn; then when a +stranger showed himself she gave herself up again to her young pleasure +in the crowd and the spectacle. But Wharton knew that she was observed; +Wharton caught the whisper that followed her. His vanity, already so +well-fed this evening, took the attention given to her as so much fresh +homage to itself; and she had more and more glamour for him in the +reflected light of this publicity, this common judgment. + +"Ah, here are the Lanes!" he said, detecting at last a short lady in +black amid a group of men. + +Marcella and Edith were introduced. Then Edith found a friend in a young +London member who was to be one of the party, and strolled off with him +till dinner should be announced. + +"I will just take Miss Boyce to the end of the terrace," said Wharton to +Mr. Lane; "we shan't get anything to eat yet awhile. What a crowd! The +Alresfords not come yet, I see." + +Lane shrugged his shoulders as he looked round. + +"Raeburn has a party to-night. And there are at least three or four +others besides ourselves. I should think food and service will be +equally scarce!" + +Wharton glanced quickly at Marcella. But she was talking to Mrs. Lane, +and had heard nothing. + +"Let me just show you the terrace," he said to her. "No chance of dinner +for another twenty minutes." + +They strolled away together. As they moved along, a number of men +waylaid the speaker of the night with talk and congratulations--glancing +the while at the lady on his left. But presently they were away from the +crowd which hung about the main entrance to the terrace, and had reached +the comparatively quiet western end, where were only a few pairs and +groups walking up and down. + +"Shall I see Mr. Bennett?" she asked him eagerly, as they paused by the +parapet, looking down upon the grey-brown water swishing under the fast +incoming tide. "I want to." + +"I asked him to dine, but he wouldn't. He has gone to a +prayer-meeting--at least I guess so. There is a famous American +evangelist speaking in Westminster to-night--I am as certain as I ever +am of anything that Bennett is there--dining on Moody and Sankey. Men +are a medley, don't you think?--So you liked his speech?" + +"How coolly you ask!" she said, laughing. "Did _you_?" + +He was silent a moment, his smiling gaze fixed on the water. Then he +turned to her. + +"How much gratitude do you think I owe him?" + +"As much as you can pay," she said with emphasis. "I never heard +anything more complete, more generous." + +"So you were carried away?" + +She looked at him with a curious, sudden gravity--a touch of defiance. + +"No!--neither by him, nor by you. I don't believe in your Bill--and I am +_sure_ you will never carry it!" + +Wharton lifted his eyebrows. + +"Perhaps you'll tell me where you are," he said, "that I may know how to +talk? When we last discussed these things at Mellor, I _think_--you were +a Socialist?" + +"What does it matter what I was last year?" she asked him gaily, yet +with a final inflection of the voice which was not gay; "I was a baby! +_Now_ perhaps I have earned a few poor, little opinions--but they are a +ragged bundle--and I have never any time to sort them." + +"Have you left the Venturists?" + +"No!--but I am full of perplexities; and the Cravens, I see, will soon +be for turning me out. You understand--I _know_ some working folk now!" + +"So you did last year." + +"No!"--she insisted, shaking her head--"that was all different. But now +I am _in_ their world--I live with them--and they talk to me. One +evening in the week I am 'at home' for all the people I know in our +Buildings--men and women. Mrs. Hurd--you know who I mean?"--her brow +contracted a moment--"she comes with her sewing to keep me company; so +does Edith Craven; and sometimes the little room is packed. The men +smoke--when we can have the windows open!--and I believe I shall soon +smoke too--it makes them talk better. We get all sorts--Socialists, +Conservatives, Radicals--" + +"--And you don't think much of the Socialists?" + +"Well! they are the interesting, dreamy fellows," she said, laughing, +"who don't save, and muddle their lives. And as for argument, the +Socialist workman doesn't care twopence for facts--that don't suit him. +It's superb the way he treats them!" + +"I should like to know who does care!" said Wharton, with a shrug. Then +he turned with his back to the parapet, the better to command her. He +had taken off his hat for coolness, and the wind played with the crisp +curls of hair. "But tell me"--he went on--"who has been tampering with +you? Is it Hallin? You told me you saw him often." + +"Perhaps. But what if it's everything?--_living?_--saving your presence! +A year ago at any rate the world was all black--_or_ white--to me. Now I +lie awake at night, puzzling my head about the shades between--which +makes the difference. A compulsory Eight Hours' Day for all men in all +trades!" Her note of scorn startled him. "You _know_ you won't get it! +And all the other big exasperating things you talk about--public +organisation of labour, and the rest--you won't get them till all the +world is a New Jerusalem--and when the world is a New Jerusalem nobody +will want them!" + +Wharton made her an ironical bow. + +"Nicely said!--though we have heard it before. Upon my word, you have +marched!--or Edward Hallin has carried you. So now you think the poor +are as well off as possible, in the best of all possible worlds--is that +the result of your nursing? You agree with Denny, in fact? the man who +got up after me?" + +His tone annoyed her. Then suddenly the name suggested to her a +recollection that brought a frown. + +"That was the man, then, you attacked in the _Clarion_ this morning!" + +"Ah! you read me!" said Wharton, with sudden pleasure. "Yes--that opened +the campaign. As you know, of course, Craven has gone down, and the +strike begins next week. Soon we shall bring two batteries to bear, he +letting fly as correspondent, and I from the office. I enjoyed writing +that article." + +"So I should think," she said drily; "all I know is, it made _one_ +reader passionately certain that there was another side to the matter! +There may not be. I dare say there isn't; but on me at least that was +the effect. Why is it"--she broke out with vehemence--"that not a single +Labour paper is ever capable of the simplest justice to an opponent?" + +"You think any other sort of paper is any better?" he asked her +scornfully. + +"I dare say not. But that doesn't matter to me! it is _we_ who talk of +justice, of respect, and sympathy from man to man, and then we go and +blacken the men who don't agree with us--whole classes, that is to say, +of our fellow-countrymen, not in the old honest slashing style, +Tartuffes that we are!--but with all the delicate methods of a new art +of slander, pursued almost for its own sake. We know so much +better--always--than our opponents, we hardly condescend even to be +angry. One is only 'sorry'--'obliged to punish'--like the priggish +governess of one's childhood!" + +In spite of himself, Wharton flushed. + +"My best thanks!" he said. "Anything more? I prefer to take my drubbing +all at once." + +She looked at him steadily. + +"Why did you write, or allow that article on the West Brookshire +landlords two days ago?" + +Wharton started. + +"Well! wasn't it true?" + +"No!" she said with a curling lip; "and I think you know it wasn't +true." + +"What! as to the Raeburns? Upon my word, I should have imagined," he +said slowly, "that it represented your views at one time with tolerable +accuracy." + +Her nerve suddenly deserted her. She bent over the parapet, and, taking +up a tiny stone that lay near, she threw it unsteadily into the river. +He saw the hand shake. + +"Look here," he said, turning round so that he too leant over the river, +his arms on the parapet, his voice close to her ear. "Are you always +going to quarrel with me like this? Don't you know that there is no one +in the world I would sooner please if I could?" + +She did not speak. + +"In the first place," he said, laughing, "as to my speech, do you +suppose that I believe in that Bill which I described just now?" + +"I don't know," she said indignantly, once more playing with the stones +on the wall. "It sounded like it." + +"That is my gift--my little _carillon_, as Renan would say. But do you +imagine I want you or any one else to tell me that we shan't get such a +Bill for generations? Of course we shan't!" + +"Then why do you make farcical speeches, bamboozling your friends and +misleading the House of Commons?" + +He saw the old storm-signs with glee--the lightning in the eye, the rose +on the cheek. She was never so beautiful as when she was angry. + +"Because, my dear lady--_we must generate our force_. Steam must be got +up--I am engaged in doing it. We shan't get a compulsory eight hours' +day for all trades--but in the course of the agitation for that precious +illusion, and by the help of a great deal of beating of tom-toms, and +gathering of clans, we shall get a great many other things by the way +that we _do_ want. Hearten your friends, and frighten your +enemies--there is no other way of scoring in politics--and the +particular score doesn't matter. Now don't look at me as if you would +like to impeach me!--or I shall turn the tables. _I_ am still fighting +for my illusions in my own way--_you_, it seems, have given up yours!" + +But for once he had underrated her sense of humour. She broke into a low +merry laugh which a little disconcerted him. + +"You mock me?" he said quickly--"think me insincere, +unscrupulous?--Well, I dare say! But you have no right to mock me. Last +year, again and again, you promised me guerdon. Now it has come to +paying--and I claim!" + +His low distinct voice in her ear had a magnetising effect upon her. She +slowly turned her face to him, overcome by--yet fighting +against--memory. If she had seen in him the smallest sign of reference +to that scene she hated to think of, he would have probably lost this +hold upon her on the spot. But his tact was perfect. She saw nothing but +a look of dignity and friendship, which brought upon her with a rush all +those tragic things they had shared and fought through, purifying things +of pity and fear, which had so often seemed to her the atonement for, +the washing away of that old baseness. + +He saw her face tremble a little. Then she said proudly-- + +"I promised to be grateful. So I am." + +"No, no!" he said, still in the same low tone. "You promised me a +friend. Where is she?" + +She made no answer. Her hands were hanging loosely over the water, and +her eyes were fixed on the haze opposite, whence emerged the blocks of +the great hospital and the twinkling points of innumerable lamps. But +his gaze compelled her at last, and she turned back to him. He saw an +expression half hostile, half moved, and pressed on before she could +speak. + +"Why do you bury yourself in that nursing life?" he said drily. "It is +not the life for you; it does not fit you in the least." + +"You test your friends!" she cried, her cheek flaming again at the +provocative change of voice. "What possible right have you to that +remark?" + +"I know you, and I know the causes you want to serve. You can't serve +them where you are. Nursing is not for you; you are wanted among your +own class--among your equals--among the people who are changing and +shaping England. It is absurd. You are masquerading." + +She gave him a little sarcastic nod. + +"Thank you. I am doing a little honest work for the first time in my +life." + +He laughed. It was impossible to tell whether he was serious or posing. + +"You are just what you were in one respect--terribly in the right! Be a +little humble to-night for a change. Come, condescend to the classes! Do +you see Mr. Lane calling us?" + +And, in fact, Mr. Lane, with his arm in the air, was eagerly beckoning +to them from the distance. + +"Do you know Lady Selina Farrell?" he asked her, as they walked quickly +back to the dispersing crowd. + +"No; who is she?" + +Wharton laughed. + +"Providence should contrive to let Lady Selina overhear that question +once a week--in your tone! Well, she is a personage--Lord Alresford's +daughter--unmarried, rich, has a _salon_, or thinks she has--manipulates +a great many people's fortunes and lives, or thinks she does, which, +after all, is what matters--to Lady Selina. She wants to know you, +badly. Do you think you can be kind to her? There she is--you will let +me introduce you? She dines with us." + +In another moment Marcella had been introduced to a tall, fair lady in a +very fashionable black and pink bonnet, who held out a gracious hand. + +"I have heard so much of you!" said Lady Selina, as they walked along +the passage to the dining-room together. "It must be so wonderful, your +nursing!" + +Marcella laughed rather restively. + +"No, I don't think it is," she said; "there are so many of us." + +"Oh, but the things you do--Mr. Wharton told me--so interesting!" + +Marcella said nothing, and as to her looks the passage was dark. Lady +Selina thought her a very handsome but very _gauche_ young woman. Still, +_gauche_ or no, she had thrown over Aldous Raeburn and thirty thousand a +year; an act which, as Lady Selina admitted, put you out of the common +run. + +"Do you know most of the people dining?" she enquired in her blandest +voice. "But no doubt you do. You are a great friend of Mr. Wharton's, I +think?" + +"He stayed at our house last year," said Marcella, abruptly. "No, I +don't know anybody." + +"Then shall I tell you? It makes it more interesting, doesn't it? It +ought to be a pleasant little party." + +And the great lady lightly ran over the names. It seemed to Marcella +that most of them were very "smart" or very important. Some of the smart +names were vaguely known to her from Miss Raeburn's talk of last year; +and, besides, there were a couple of Tory Cabinet ministers and two or +three prominent members. It was all rather surprising. + +At dinner she found herself between one of the Cabinet ministers and the +young and good-looking private secretary of the other. Both men were +agreeable, and very willing, besides, to take trouble with this unknown +beauty. The minister, who knew the Raeburns very well, was discussing +with himself all the time whether this was indeed the Miss Boyce of that +story. His suspicion and curiosity were at any rate sufficiently strong +to make him give himself much pains to draw her out. + +Her own conversation, however, was much distracted by the attention she +could not help giving to her host and his surroundings. Wharton had Lady +Selina on his right, and the young and distinguished wife of Marcella's +minister on his left. At the other end of the table sat Mrs. Lane, doing +her duty spasmodically to Lord Alresford, who still, in a blind old age, +gave himself all the airs of the current statesman and possible premier. +But the talk, on the whole, was general--a gay and careless +give-and-take of parliamentary, social, and racing gossip, the ball +flying from one accustomed hand to another. + +And Marcella could not get over the astonishment of Wharton's part in +it. She shut her eyes sometimes for an instant and tried to see him as +her girl's fancy had seen him at Mellor--the solitary, eccentric figure +pursued by the hatreds of a renounced Patricianate--bringing the enmity +of his own order as a pledge and offering to the Plebs he asked to lead. +Where even was the speaker of an hour ago? Chat of Ascot and of +Newmarket; discussion with Lady Selina or with his left-hand neighbour +of country-house "sets," with a patter of names which sounded in her +scornful ear like a paragraph from the _World_; above all, a general air +of easy comradeship, which no one at this table, at any rate, seemed +inclined to dispute, with every exclusiveness and every amusement of the +"idle rich," whereof--in the popular idea--he was held to be one of the +very particular foes!-- + +No doubt, as the dinner moved on, this first impression changed +somewhat. She began to distinguish notes that had at first been lost +upon her. She caught the mocking, ambiguous tone under which she herself +had so often fumed; she watched the occasional recoil of the women about +him, as though they had been playing with some soft-pawed animal, and +had been suddenly startled by the gleam of its claws. These things +puzzled, partly propitiated her. But on the whole she was restless and +hostile. How was it possible--from such personal temporising--such a +frittering of the forces and sympathies--to win the single-mindedness +and the power without which no great career is built? She wanted to talk +with him--reproach him! + +"Well--I must go--worse luck," said Wharton at last, laying down his +napkin and rising. "Lane, will you take charge? I will join you outside +later." + +"If he ever finds us!" said her neighbour to Marcella. "I never saw the +place so crowded. It is odd how people enjoy these scrambling meals in +these very ugly rooms." + +Marcella, smiling, looked down with him over the bare coffee-tavern +place, in which their party occupied a sort of high table across the +end, while two other small gatherings were accommodated in the space +below. + +"Are there any other rooms than this?" she asked idly. + +"One more," said a young man across the table, who had been introduced +to her in the dusk outside, and had not yet succeeded in getting her to +look at him, as he desired. "But there is another big party there +to-night--Raeburn--you know," he went on innocently, addressing the +minister; "he has got the Winterbournes and the Macdonalds--quite a +gathering--rather an unusual thing for him." + +The minister glanced quickly at his companion. But she had turned to +answer a question from Lady Selina, and thenceforward, till the party +rose, she gave him little opportunity of observing her. + +As the outward-moving stream of guests was once more in the corridor +leading to the terrace, Marcella hurriedly made her way to Mrs. Lane. + +"I think," she said--"I am afraid--we ought to be going--my friend and +I. Perhaps Mr. Lane--perhaps he would just show us the way out; we can +easily find a cab." + +There was an imploring, urgent look in her face which struck Mrs. Lane. +But Mr. Lane's loud friendly voice broke in from behind. + +"My dear Miss Boyce!--we can't possibly allow it--no! no--just half an +hour--while they bring us our coffee--to do your homage, you know, to +the terrace--and the river--and the moon!--And then--if you don't want +to go back to the House for the division, we will see you safely into +your cab. Look at the moon!--and the tide"--they had come to the wide +door opening on the terrace--"aren't they doing their very best for +you?" + +Marcella looked behind her in despair. _Where_ was Edith? Far in the +rear!--and fully occupied apparently with two or three pleasant +companions. She could not help herself. She was carried on, with Mr. +Lane chatting beside her--though the sight of the shining terrace, with +its moonlit crowd of figures, breathed into her a terror and pain she +could hardly control. + +"Come and look at the water," she said to Mr. Lane; "I would rather not +walk up and down if you don't mind." + +He thought she was tired, and politely led her through the sitting or +promenading groups till once more she was leaning over the parapet, now +trying to talk, now to absorb herself in the magic of bridge, river, and +sky, but in reality listening all the time with a shrinking heart for +the voices and the footfalls that she dreaded. Lady Winterbourne, above +all! How unlucky! It was only that morning that she had received a +forwarded letter from that old friend, asking urgently for news and her +address. + +"Well, how did you like the speech to-night--_the_ speech?" said Mr. +Lane, a genial Gladstonian member, more heavily weighted with estates +than with ideas. "It was splendid, wasn't it?--in the way of speaking. +Speeches like that are a safety-valve--that's my view of it. Have 'em +out--all these ideas--get 'em discussed!"--with a good-humoured shake of +the head for emphasis. "Does nobody any harm and may do good. I can tell +you, Miss Boyce, the House of Commons is a capital place for taming +these clever young men!--you must give them their head--and they make +excellent fellows after a bit. Why--who's this?--My dear Lady +Winterbourne!--this _is_ a sight for sair een!" + +And the portly member with great effusion grasped the hand of a stately +lady in black, whose abundant white hair caught the moonlight. + +"_Marcella_!" cried a woman's voice. + +Yes--there he was!--close behind Lady Winterbourne. In the soft darkness +he and his party had run upon the two persons talking over the wall +without an idea--a suspicion. + +She hurriedly withdrew herself from Lady Winterbourne, hesitated a +second, then held out her hand to him. The light was behind him. She +could not see his face in the darkness; but she was suddenly and +strangely conscious of the whole scene--of the great dark building with +its lines of fairy-lit gothic windows--the blue gulf of the river +crossed by lines of wavering light--the swift passage of a steamer with +its illuminated saloon and crowded deck--of the wonderful mixture of +moonlight and sunset in the air and sky--of this dark figure in front of +her. + +Their hands touched. Was there a murmured word from him? She did not +know; she was too agitated, too unhappy to hear it if there was. She +threw herself upon Lady Winterbourne, in whom she divined at once a +tremor almost equal to her own. + +"Oh! do come with me--come away!--I want to talk to you!" she said +incoherently under her breath, drawing Lady Winterbourne with a strong +hand. + +Lady Winterbourne yielded, bewildered, and they moved along the terrace. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried the elder lady--"to think of finding _you_ +here! How astonishing--how--how dreadful! No!--I don't mean that. Of +course you and he must meet--but it was only yesterday he told me he +had never seen you again--since--and it gave me a turn. I was very +foolish just now. There now--stay here a moment--and tell me about +yourself." + +And again they paused by the river, the girl glancing nervously behind +her as though she were in a company of ghosts. Lady Winterbourne +recovered herself, and Marcella, looking at her, saw the old tragic +severity of feature and mien blurred with the same softness, the same +delicate tremor. Marcella clung to her with almost a daughter's feeling. +She took up the white wrinkled hand as it lay on the parapet, and kissed +it in the dark so that no one saw. + +"I _am_ glad to see you again," she said passionately, "so glad!" + +Lady Winterbourne was surprised and moved. + +"But you have never written all these months, you unkind child! And I +have heard so little of you--your mother never seemed to know. When will +you come and see me--or shall I come to you? I can't stay now, for we +were just going; my daughter, Ermyntrude Welwyn, has to take some one to +a ball. How _strange_"--she broke off--"how very strange that you and he +should have met to-night! He goes off to Italy to-morrow, you know, with +Lord Maxwell." + +"Yes, I had heard," said Marcella, more steadily. "Will you come to tea +with me next week?--Oh, I will write.--And we must go too--where _can_ +my friend be?" + +She looked round in dismay, and up and down the terrace for Edith. + +"I will take you back to the Lanes, anyway," said Lady Winterbourne; +"or shall we look after you?" + +"No! no! Take me back to the Lanes." + +"Mamma, are you coming?" said a voice like a softened version of Lady +Winterbourne's. Then something small and thin ran forward, and a girl's +voice said piteously: + +"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne, my frock and my hair take so long to do! _I_ +shall be cross with my maid, and look like a fiend. Ermyntrude will be +sorry she ever knew me. _Do_ come!" + +"Don't cry, Betty. I certainly shan't take you if you do!" said Lady +Ermyntrude, laughing. "Mamma, is this Miss Boyce--_your_ Miss Boyce?" + +She and Marcella shook hands, and they talked a little, Lady Ermyntrude +under cover of the darkness looking hard and curiously at the tall +stranger whom, as it happened, she had never seen before. Marcella had +little notion of what she was saying. She was far more conscious of the +girlish form hanging on Lady Winterbourne's arm than she was of her own +words, of "Betty's" beautiful soft eyes--also shyly and gravely fixed +upon herself--under that marvellous cloud of fair hair; the long, +pointed chin; the whimsical little face. + +"Well, none of _you_ are any good!" said Betty at last, in a tragic +voice. "I shall have to walk home my own poor little self, and 'ask a +p'leeceman.' Mr. Raeburn!" + +He disengaged himself from a group behind and came--with no alacrity. +Betty ran up to him. + +"Mr. Raeburn! Ermyntrude and Lady Winterbourne are going to sleep here, +if you don't mind making arrangements. But _I_ want a hansom." + +At that very moment Marcella caught sight of Edith strolling along +towards her with a couple of members, and chatting as though the world +had never rolled more evenly. + +"Oh! there she is--there is my friend!" cried Marcella to Lady +Winterbourne. "Good-night--good-night!" + +She was hurrying off when she saw Aldous Raeburn was standing alone a +moment. The exasperated Betty had made a dart from his side to "collect" +another straying member of the party. + +An impulse she could not master scattered her wretched discomfort--even +her chafing sense of being the observed of many eyes. She walked up to +him. + +"Will you tell me about Lord Maxwell?" she said in a tremulous hurry. "I +am so sorry he is ill--I hadn't heard--I--" + +She dared not look up. Was that _his_ voice answering? + +"Thank you. We have been very anxious about him; but the doctors to-day +give a rather better report. We take him abroad to-morrow." + +"Marcella! at last!" cried Edith Craven, catching hold of her friend; +"you lost me? Oh, nonsense; it was all the other way. But look, there is +Mr. Wharton coming out. I must go--come and say good-night--everybody is +departing." + +Aldous Raeburn lifted his hat. Marcella felt a sudden rush of +humiliation--pain--sore resentment. That cold, strange tone--those +unwilling words!--She had gone up to him--as undisciplined in her +repentance as she had been in aggression--full of a passionate yearning +to make friends--somehow to convey to him that she "was sorry," in the +old child's phrase which her self-willed childhood had used so little. +There could be no misunderstanding possible! He of all men knew best how +irrevocable it all was. But why, when life has brought reflection, and +you realise at last that you have vitally hurt, perhaps maimed, another +human being, should it not be possible to fling conventions aside, and +go to that human being with the frank confession which by all the +promises of ethics and religion _ought_ to bring peace--peace and a +soothed conscience? + +But she had been repulsed--put aside, so she took it--and by one of the +kindest and most generous of men! She moved along the terrace in a maze, +seeing nothing, biting her lip to keep back the angry tears. All that +obscure need, that new stirring of moral life within her--which had +found issue in this little futile advance towards a man who had once +loved her and could now, it seemed, only despise and dislike, her--was +beating and swelling stormlike within her. She had taken being loved so +easily, so much as a matter of course! How was it that it hurt her now +so much to have lost love, and power, and consideration? She had never +felt any passion for Aldous Raeburn--had taken him lightly and shaken +him off with a minimum of remorse. Yet to-night a few cold words from +him--the proud manner of a moment--had inflicted a smart upon her she +could hardly bear. They had made her feel herself so alone, unhappy, +uncared for! + +But, on the contrary, she _must_ be happy!--_must_ be loved! To this, +and this only, had she been brought by the hard experience of this +strenuous year. + + * * * * * + +"Oh, Mrs. Lane, _be_ an angel!" exclaimed Wharton's voice. "Just one +turn--five minutes! The division will be called directly, and then we +will all thank our stars and go to bed!" + +In another instant he was at Marcella's side, bare-headed, radiant, +reckless even, as he was wont to be in moments of excitement. He had +seen her speak to Raeburn as he came out on the terrace, but his mind +was too full for any perception of other people's situations--even hers. +He was absorbed with himself, and with her, as she fitted his present +need. The smile of satisfied vanity, of stimulated ambition, was on his +lips; and his good-humour inclined him more than ever to Marcella, and +the pleasure of a woman's company. He passed with ease from triumph to +homage; his talk now audacious, now confiding, offered her a deference, +a flattery, to which, as he was fully conscious, the events of the +evening had lent a new prestige. + +She, too, in his eyes, had triumphed--had made her mark. His ears were +full of the comments made upon her to-night by the little world on the +terrace. If it were not for money--_hateful_ money!--what more brilliant +wife could be desired for any rising man? + +So the five minutes lengthened into ten, and by the time the division +was called, and Wharton hurried off, Marcella, soothed, taken out of +herself, rescued from the emptiness and forlornness of a tragic moment, +had given him more conscious cause than she had ever given him yet to +think her kind and fair. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +"My dear Ned, do be reasonable! Your sister is in despair, and so am I. +Why do you torment us by staying on here in the heat, and taking all +these engagements, which you know you are no more fit for than--" + +"A sick grasshopper," laughed Hallin. "Healthy wretch! Did Heaven give +you that sun-burn only that you might come home from Italy and twit us +weaklings? Do you think I _want_ to look as rombustious as you? 'Nothing +too much,' my good friend!" + +Aldous looked down upon the speaker with an anxiety quite untouched by +Hallin's "chaff." + +"Miss Hallin tells me," he persisted, "that you are wearing yourself out +with this lecturing campaign, that you don't sleep, and that she is more +unhappy about you than she has been for months. Why not give it up now, +rest, and begin again in the winter?" + +Hallin smiled a little as he sat with the tips of his fingers lightly +joined in front of him. + +"I doubt whether I shall live through the winter," he said quietly. + +Raeburn started. Hallin in general spoke of his health, when he allowed +it to be mentioned at all, in the most cheerful terms. + +"Why you should behave as though you _wished_ to make such a prophecy +true I can't conceive!" he said in impatient pain. + +Hallin offered no immediate answer, and Raeburn, who was standing in +front of him, leaning against the wood-work of the open window, looked +unhappily at the face and form of his friend. In youth that face had +possessed a Greek serenity and blitheness, dependent perhaps on its +clear aquiline feature, the steady transparent eyes--_coeli lucida +templa_--the fresh fairness of the complexion, and the boyish brow under +its arch of pale brown hair. And to stronger men there had always been +something peculiarly winning in the fragile grace of figure and +movements, suggesting, as they did, sad and perpetual compromise between +the spirit's eagerness and the body's weakness. + +"Don't make yourself unhappy, my dear boy," said Hallin at last, putting +up a thin hand and touching his friend--"I _shall_ give up soon. +Moreover, it will give me up. Workmen want to do something else with +their evenings in July than spend them in listening to stuffy lectures. +I shall go to the Lakes. But there are a few engagements still ahead, +and--I confess I am more restless than I used to be. The night cometh +when no man can work." + +They fell into a certain amount of discursive talk--of the political +situation, working-class opinion, and the rest. Raeburn had been alive +now for some time to a curious change of balance in his friend's mind. +Hallin's buoyant youth had concerned itself almost entirely with +positive crusades and enthusiasms. Of late he seemed rather to have +passed into a period of negations, of strong opposition to certain +current _isms_ and faiths; and the happy boyish tone of earlier years +had become the "stormy note of men contention-tost," which belongs, +indeed, as truly to such a character as the joy of young ideals. + +He had always been to some extent divided from Raeburn and others of his +early friends by his passionate democracy--his belief in, and trust of, +the multitude. For Hallin, the divine originating life was realised and +manifested through the common humanity and its struggle, as a whole; for +Raeburn, only in the best of it, morally or intellectually; the rest +remaining an inscrutable problem, which did not, indeed, prevent faith, +but hung upon it like a dead weight. Such divisions, however, are among +the common divisions of thinking men, and had never interfered with the +friendship of these two in the least. + +But the developing alienation between Hallin and hundreds of his +working-men friends was of an infinitely keener and sorer kind. Since he +had begun his lecturing and propagandist life, Socialist ideas of all +kinds had made great way in England. And, on the whole, as the +prevailing type of them grew stronger, Hallin's sympathy with them had +grown weaker and weaker. Property to him meant "self-realisation"; and +the abuse of property was no more just ground for a crusade which +logically aimed at doing away with it, than the abuse of other human +powers or instincts would make it reasonable to try and do away +with--say love, or religion. To give property, and therewith the fuller +human opportunity, to those that have none, was the inmost desire of his +life. And not merely common property--though like all true soldiers of +the human cause he believed that common property will be in the future +enormously extended--but in the first place, and above all, to +distribute the discipline and the trust of personal and private +possession among an infinitely greater number of hands than possess them +already. And that not for wealth's sake--though a more equal +distribution of property, and therewith of capacity, must inevitably +tend to wealth--but for the soul's sake, and for the sake of that +continuous appropriation by the race of its moral and spiritual +heritage. + +How is it to be done? Hallin, like many others, would have +answered--"For England--mainly by a fresh distribution of the land." +Not, of course, by violence--which only means the worst form of waste +known to history--but by the continuous pressure of an emancipating +legislation, relieving land from shackles long since struck off other +kinds of property--by the assertion, within a certain limited range, of +communal initiative and control--and above all by the continuous private +effort in all sorts of ways and spheres of "men of good will." For all +sweeping uniform schemes he had the natural contempt of the student--or +the moralist. To imagine that by nationalising sixty annual millions of +rent for instance you could make England a city of God, was not only a +vain dream, but a belittling of England's history and England's task. A +nation is not saved so cheaply!--and to see those energies turned to +land nationalisation or the scheming of a Collectivist millennium, which +might have gone to the housing, educating, and refining of English men, +women, and children of to-day, to moralising the employer's view of his +profit, and the landlord's conception of his estate--filled him with a +growing despair. + +The relation of such a habit of life and mind to the Collectivist and +Socialist ideas now coming to the front in England, as in every other +European country, is obvious enough. To Hallin the social life, the +community, was everything--yet to be a "Socialist" seemed to him more +and more to be a traitor! He would have built his state on the purified +will of the individual man, and could conceive no other foundation for a +state worth having. But for purification there must be effort, and for +effort there must be freedom. Socialism, as he read it, despised and +decried freedom, and placed the good of man wholly in certain external +conditions. It was aiming at a state of things under which the joys and +pains, the teaching and the risks of true possession, were to be for +ever shut off from the poor human will, which yet, according to him, +could never do without them, if man was to be man. + +So that he saw it all _sub specie aeternitatis_, as a matter not of +economic theory, but rather of religion. Raeburn, as they talked, shrank +in dismay from the burning intensity of mood underlying his controlled +speech. He spoke, for instance, of Bennett's conversion to Harry +Wharton's proposed bill, or of the land nationalising scheme he was +spending all his slender stores of breath and strength in attacking, not +with anger or contempt, but with, a passionate sorrow which seemed to +Raeburn preposterous! intolerable!--to be exhausting in him the very +springs and sources of a too precarious life. There rose in Aldous at +last an indignant protest which yet could hardly find itself words. What +help to have softened the edge and fury of religious war, only to +discover new antagonisms of opinion as capable of devastating heart and +affections as any _homoousion_ of old? Had they not already cost him +love? Were they also, in another fashion, to cost him his friend? + + * * * * * + +"Ah, dear old fellow--enough!" said Hallin at last--"take me back to +Italy! You have told me so little--such a niggardly little!" + +"I told you that we went and I came back in a water-spout," said Aldous; +"the first rain in Northern Italy for four months--worse luck! 'Rain at +Reggio, rain at Parma.--At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain!'--that might about +stand for my diary, except for one radiant day when my aunt, Betty +Macdonald, and I descended on Milan, and climbed the Duomo." + +"Did Miss Betty amuse you?" + +Aldous laughed. + +"Well, at least she varied the programme. The greater part of our day in +Milan Aunt Neta and I spent in rushing after her like its tail after a +kite. First of all, she left us in the Duomo Square, running like a +deer, and presently, to Aunt Neta's horror, we discovered that she was +pursuing a young Italian officer in a blue cloak. When we came up with +the pair she was inquiring, in her best Italian, where the 'Signor' got +his cloak, because positively she must have one like it, and he, cap in +hand, was explaining to the Signorina that if she would but follow him +round the corner to his military tailor's, she could be supplied on the +spot. So there we all went, Miss Betty insisting. You can imagine Aunt +Neta. She bought a small shipload of stuff--and then positively skipped +for joy in the street outside--the amazed officer looking on. And as for +her career over the roof of the Duomo--the agitation of it nearly +brought my aunt to destruction--and even I heaved a sigh of relief when +I got them both down safe." + +"Is the creature all tricks?" said Hallin, with a smile. "As you talk of +her to me I get the notion of a little monkey just cut loose from a +barrel organ." + +"Oh! but the monkey has so much heart," said Aldous, laughing again, as +every one was apt to laugh who talked about Betty Macdonald, "and it +makes friends with every sick and sorry creature it comes across, +especially with old maids! It amounts to genius, Betty's way with old +maids. You should see her in the middle of them in the hotel _salon_ at +night--a perfect ring of them--and the men outside, totally neglected, +and out of temper. I have never seen Betty yet in a room with somebody +she thought ill at ease, or put in the shade--a governess, or a +schoolgirl, or a lumpish boy--that she did not devote herself to that +somebody. It is a pretty instinct; I have often wondered whether it is +nature or art." + +He fell silent, still smiling. Hallin watched him closely. Perhaps the +thought which had risen in his mind revealed itself by some subtle sign +or other to Aldous. For suddenly Raeburn's expression changed; the +over-strenuous, harassed look, which of late had somewhat taken the +place of his old philosopher's quiet, reappeared. + +"I did not tell you, Hallin," he began, in a low voice, raising his eyes +to his friend, "that I had seen her again." + +Hallin paused a moment. Then he said: + +"No. I knew she went to the House to hear Wharton's speech, and that she +dined there. I supposed she might just have come across you--but she +said nothing." + +"Of course, I had no idea," said Aldous; "suddenly Lady Winterbourne and +I came across her on the terrace. Then I saw she was with that man's +party. She spoke to me afterwards--I believe now--she meant to be +kind"--his voice showed the difficulty he had in speaking at all--"but I +saw him coming up to talk to her. I am ashamed to think of my own +manner, but I could not help myself." + +His face and eye took, as he spoke, a peculiar vividness and glow. +Raeburn had not for months mentioned to him the name of Marcella Boyce, +but Hallin had all along held two faiths about the matter: first, that +Aldous was still possessed by a passion which had become part of his +life; secondly, that the events of the preceding year had produced in +him an exceedingly bitter sense of ill-usage, of a type which Hallin had +not perhaps expected. + +"Did you see anything to make you suppose," he asked quietly, after a +pause, "that she is going to marry him?" + +"No--no," Aldous repeated slowly; "but she is clearly on friendly, +perhaps intimate, terms with him. And just now, of course, she is more +likely to be influenced by him than ever. He made a great success--of a +kind--in the House a fortnight ago. People seem to think he may come +rapidly to the front." + +"So I understand. I don't believe it. The jealousies that divide that +group are too unmanageable. If he _were_ a Parnell! But he lacks just +the qualities that matter--the reticence, the power of holding +himself aloof from irrelevant things and interests, the hard +self-concentration." + +Aldous raised his shoulders. + +"I don't imagine there is any lack of that! But certainly he holds +himself aloof from nothing and nobody! I hear of him everywhere." + +"What!--among the smart people?" + +Aldous nodded. + +"A change of policy by all accounts," said Hallin, musing. "He must do +it with intention. He is not the man to let himself be be-Capua-ed all +at once." + +"Oh dear, no!" said Aldous, drily. "He does it with intention. Nobody +supposes him to be the mere toady. All the same I think he may very well +overrate the importance of the class he is trying to make use of, and +its influence. Have you been following the strike 'leaders' in the +_Clarion?_" + +"No!" cried Hallin, flushing. "I would not read them for the world! I +might not be able to go on giving to the strike." + +Aldous fell silent, and Hallin presently saw that his mind had harked +back to the one subject that really held the depths of it. The truest +friendship, Hallin believed, would be never to speak to him of Marcella +Boyce--never to encourage him to dwell upon her, or upon anything +connected with her. But his yearning, sympathetic instinct would not let +him follow his own conviction. + +"Miss Boyce, you know, has been here two or three times while you have +been away," he said quickly, as he got up to post a letter. + +Aldous hesitated; then he said-- + +"Do you gather that her nursing life satisfies her?" + +Hallin made a little face. + +"Since when has she become a person likely to be 'satisfied' with +anything? She devotes to it a splendid and wonderful energy. When she +comes here I admire her with all my heart, and pity her so much that I +could cry over her!" + +Aldous started. + +"I don't know what you mean," he said, as he too rose and laid his hand +on Hallin's for a moment. "But don't tell me! It's best for me not to +talk of her. If she were associated in my mind with any other man than +Wharton, I think somehow I could throw the whole thing off. But +this--this--" He broke off; then resumed, while he pretended to look for +a parcel he had brought with him, by way of covering an agitation he +could not suppress. "A person you and I know said to me the other day, +'It may sound unromantic, but I could never think of a woman who had +thrown me over except _with ill-will._' The word astonished me, but +sometimes I understand it. I find myself full of _anger_ to the most +futile, the most ridiculous degree!" + +He drew himself up nervously, already scorning his own absurdity, his +own breach of reticence. Hallin laid his hands on the taller man's +shoulders, and there was a short pause. + +"Never mind, old fellow," said Hallin, simply, at last, as his hands +dropped; "let's go and do our work. What is it you're after?--I forget." + +Aldous found his packet and his hat, explaining himself again, +meanwhile, in his usual voice. He had dropped in on Hallin for a morning +visit, meaning to spend some hours before the House met in the +investigation of some small workshops in the neighbourhood of Drury +Lane. The Home Office had been called upon for increased inspection and +regulation; there had been a great conflict of evidence, and Aldous had +finally resolved in his student's way to see for himself the state of +things in two or three selected streets. + +It was a matter on which Hallin was also well-informed, and felt +strongly. They stayed talking about it a few minutes, Hallin eagerly +directing Raeburn's attention to the two or three points where he +thought the Government could really do good. + +Then Raeburn turned to go. + +"I shall come and drag you out to-morrow afternoon," he said, as he +opened the door. + +"You needn't," said Hallin, with a smile; "in fact, don't; I shall have +my jaunt." + +Whereby Aldous understood that he would be engaged in his common +Saturday practice of taking out a batch of elder boys or girls from one +or other of the schools of which he was manager, for a walk or to see +some sight. + +"If it's your boys," he said, protesting, "you're not fit for it. Hand +them over to me." + +"Nothing of the sort," said Hallin, gaily, and turned him out of the +room. + + * * * * * + +Raeburn found the walk from Hallin's Bloomsbury quarters to Drury Lane +hot and airless. The planes were already drooping and yellowing in the +squares, the streets were at their closest and dirtiest, and the traffic +of Holborn and its approaches had never seemed to him more bewildering +in its roar and volume. July was in, and all freshness had already +disappeared from the too short London summer. + +For Raeburn on this particular afternoon there was a curious forlornness +in the dry and tainted air. His slack mood found no bracing in the sun +or the breeze. Everything was or seemed distasteful to a mind out of +tune--whether this work he was upon, which only yesterday had interested +him considerably, or his Parliamentary occupations, or some tiresome +estate business which would have to be looked into when he got home. He +was oppressed, too, by the last news of his grandfather. The certainty +that this dear and honoured life, with which his own had been so closely +intertwined since his boyhood, was drawing to its close weighed upon him +now heavily and constantly. The loss itself would take from him an +object on which affection--checked and thwarted elsewhere--was still +free to spend itself in ways peculiarly noble and tender; and as for +those other changes to which the first great change must lead--his +transference to the Upper House, and the extension for himself of all +the ceremonial side of life--he looked forward to them with an intense +and resentful repugnance, as to aggravations, perversely thrust on him +from without, of a great and necessary grief. Few men believed less +happily in democracy than Aldous Raeburn; on the other hand, few men +felt a more steady distaste for certain kinds of inequality. + +He was to meet a young inspector at the corner of Little Queen Street, +and they were to visit together a series of small brush-drawing and +box-making workshops in the Drury Lane district, to which the attention +of the Department had lately been specially drawn. Aldous had no sooner +crossed Holborn than he saw his man waiting for him, a tall strip of a +fellow, with a dark bearded face, and a manner which shyness had made a +trifle morose. Aldous, however, knew him to be not only a capital +worker, but a man of parts, and had got much information and some ideas +out of him already. Mr. Peabody gave the under-secretary a slight +preoccupied smile in return for his friendly greeting, and the two +walked on together talking. + +The inspector announced that he proposed to take his companion first of +all to a street behind Drury Lane, of which many of the houses were +already marked for demolition--a "black street," bearing a peculiarly +vile reputation in the neighbourhood. It contained on the whole the +worst of the small workshops which he desired to bring to Raeburn's +notice, besides a variety of other horrors, social and sanitary. + +After ten minutes' walking they turned into the street. With its +condemned houses, many of them shored up and windowless, its narrow +roadway strewn with costers' refuse--it was largely inhabited by +costers frequenting Covent Garden Market--its filthy gutters and broken +pavements, it touched, indeed, a depth of sinister squalor beyond most +of its fellows. The air was heavy with odours which, in this July heat, +seemed to bear with them the inmost essences of things sickening and +decaying; and the children, squatting or playing amid the garbage of the +street, were further than most of their kind from any tolerable human +type. + +A policeman was stationed near the entrance of the street. After they +had passed him, Mr. Peabody ran back and said a word in his ear. + +"I gave him your name," he said briefly, in answer to Raeburn's +interrogative look, when he returned, "and told him what we were after. +The street is not quite as bad as it was; and there are little oases of +respectability in it you would never expect. But there is plenty of the +worst thieving and brutality left in it still. Of course, now you see it +at its dull moment. To-night the place will swarm with barrows and +stalls, all the people will be in the street, and after dark it will be +as near pandemonium as may be. I happen to know the School Board visitor +of these parts; and a City Missionary, too, who is afraid of nothing." + +And standing still a moment, pointing imperceptibly to right and left, +he began in his shy, monotonous voice to run through the inhabitants of +some of the houses and a few typical histories. This group was mainly +peopled by women of the very lowest class and their "bullies"--that is +to say, the men who aided them in plundering, sometimes in murdering, +the stranger who fell into their claws; in that house a woman had been +slowly done to death by her husband and his brutal brothers under every +circumstance of tragic horror; in the next a case of flagrant and +revolting cruelty to a pair of infant children had just been brought to +light. In addition to its vice and its thievery, the wretched place was, +of course, steeped in drink. There were gin-palaces at all the corners; +the women drank, in proportion to their resources, as badly as the men, +and the children were fed with the stuff in infancy, and began for +themselves as early as they could beg or steal a copper of their own. + +When the dismal catalogue was done, they moved on towards the further +end of the street, and a house on the right hand side. Behind the veil +of his official manner Aldous's shrinking sense took all it saw and +heard as fresh food for a darkness and despondency of soul already great +enough. But his companion--a young enthusiast, secretly very critical of +"big-wigs"--was conscious only of the trained man of affairs, +courteous, methodical, and well-informed, putting a series of +preliminary questions with unusual point and rapidity. + +Suddenly, under the influence of a common impression, both men stood +still and looked about them. There was a stir in the street. Windows had +been thrown open, and scores of heads were looking out. People emerged +from all quarters, seemed to spring from the ground or drop from the +skies, and in a few seconds, as it were, the street, so dead-alive +before, was full of a running and shouting crowd. + +"It's a fight!" said Peabody, as the crowd came up with them. "Listen!" + +Shrieks--of the most ghastly and piercing note, rang through the air. +The men and women who rushed past the two strangers--hustling them, yet +too excited to notice them--were all making for a house some ten or +twelve yards in front of them, to their left. Aldous had turned white. + +"It is a woman!" he said, after an instant's listening, "and it sounds +like murder. You go back for that policeman!" + +And without another word he threw himself on the crowd, forcing his way +through it by the help of arms and shoulders which, in years gone by, +had done good service for the Trinity Eight. Drink-sodden men and +screaming women gave way before him. He found himself at the door of the +house, hammering upon it with two or three other men who were there +before him. The noise from within was appalling--cries, groans, +uproar--all the sounds of a deadly struggle proceeding apparently on the +second floor of the house. Then came a heavy fall--then the sound of a +voice, different in quality and accent from any that had gone before, +crying piteously and as though in exhaustion--"Help!" + +Almost at the same moment the door which Aldous and his companions were +trying to force was burst open from within, and three men seemed to be +shot out from the dark passage inside--two wrestling with the third, a +wild beast in human shape, maddened apparently with drink, and splashed +with blood. + +"Ee's done for her!" shouted one of the captors; "an' for the Sister +too!" + +"The Sister!" shrieked a woman behind Aldous--it's the nuss he means! I +sor her go in when I wor at my window half an hour ago. Oh! yer +_blackguard_, you!"--and she would have fallen upon the wretch, in a +frenzy, had not the bystanders caught hold of her. + +"Stand back!" cried a policeman. Three of them had come up at Peabody's +call. The man was instantly secured, and the crowd pushed back. + +Aldous was already upstairs. + +"Which room?" he asked of a group of women crying and cowering on the +first landing--for all sounds from above had ceased. + +"Third floor front," cried one of them. "We all of us _begged_ and +_implored_ of that young person, sir, not to go a-near him! Didn't we, +Betsy?--didn't we, Doll?" + +Aldous ran up. + +On the third floor, the door of the front room was open. A woman lay on +the ground, apparently beaten to death. + +By her side, torn, dishevelled, and gasping, knelt Marcella Boyce. Two +or three other women were standing by in helpless terror and curiosity. +Marcella was bending over the bleeding victim before her. Her own left +arm hung as though disabled by her side; but with the right hand she was +doing her best to staunch some of the bleeding from the head. Her bag +stood open beside her, and one of the chattering women was handing her +what she asked for. The sight stamped itself in lines of horror on +Raeburn's heart. + +In such an exaltation of nerve _she_ could be surprised at nothing. +When she saw Raeburn enter the room, she did not even start. + +"I think," she said, as he stooped down to her--speaking with pauses, as +though to get her breath--"he has--killed her. But there--is a chance. +Are the--police there--and a stretcher?" + +Two constables entered as she spoke, and the first of them instantly +sent his companion back for a stretcher. Then, noticing Marcella's +nursing dress and cloak, he came up to her respectfully. + +"Did you see it, miss?" + +"I--I tried to separate them," she replied, still speaking with the same +difficulty, while she silently motioned to Aldous, who was on the other +side of the unconscious and apparently dying woman, to help her with the +bandage she was applying. "But he was--such a great--powerful brute." + +Aldous, hating the clumsiness of his man's fingers, knelt down and tried +to help her. Her trembling hand touched, mingled with his. + +"I was downstairs," she went on, while the constable took out his +note-book, "attending a child--that's ill--when I heard the screams. +They were on the landing; he had turned her out of the room--then rushed +after her--I _think_--to throw her downstairs--I stopped that. Then he +took up something--oh! there it is!" She shuddered, pointing to a broken +piece of a chair which lay on the floor. "He was quite mad with drink--I +couldn't--do much." + +Her voice slipped into a weak, piteous note. + +"Isn't your arm hurt?" said Aldous, pointing to it. + +"It's not broken--it's wrenched; I can't use it. There--that's all we +can do--till she gets--to hospital." + +Then she stood up, pale and staggering, and asked the policeman if he +could put on a bandage. The man had got his ambulance certificate, and +was proud to say that he could. She took a roll out of her bag, and +quietly pointed to her arm. He did his best, not without skill, and the +deep line of pain furrowing the centre of the brow relaxed a little. +Then she sank down on the floor again beside her patient, gazing +at the woman's marred face--indescribably patient in its deep +unconsciousness--at the gnarled and bloodstained hands, with their +wedding-ring; at the thin locks of torn grey hair--with tears that ran +unheeded down her cheeks, in a passion of anguished pity, which touched +a chord of memory in Raeburn's mind. He had seen her look so once +before--beside Minta Hurd, on the day of Hurd's capture. + +At the same moment he saw that they were alone. The policeman had +cleared the room, and was spending the few minutes that must elapse +before his companion returned with the stretcher, in taking the names +and evidence of some of the inmates of the house, on the stairs outside. + +"You can't do anything more," said Aldous, gently, bending over her. +"Won't you let me take you home?--you want it sorely. The police are +trained to these things, and I have a friend here who will help. They +will remove her with every care--he will see to it." + +Then for the first time her absorption gave way. She remembered who he +was--where they were--how they had last met. And with the remembrance +came an extraordinary leap of joy, flashing through pain and faintness. +She had the childish feeling that he could not look unkindly at her +anymore--after this! When at the White House she had got herself into +disgrace, and could not bring her pride to ask pardon, she would +silently set up a headache or a cut finger that she might be pitied, and +so, perforce, forgiven. The same tacit thought was in her mind now. +No!--after this he _must_ be friends with her. + +"I will just help to get her downstairs," she said, but with a +quivering, appealing accent--and so they fell silent. + +Aldous looked round the room--at the miserable filthy garret with its +begrimed and peeling wall-paper, its two or three broken chairs, its +heap of rags across two boxes that served for a bed; its empty +gin-bottles here and there--all the familiar, one might almost say +conventionalised, signs of human ruin and damnation--then at this +breathing death between himself and her. Perhaps his strongest feeling +was one of fierce and natural protest against circumstance--against her +mother!--against a reckless philanthropy that could thus throw the +finest and fragilest things of a poorly-furnished world into such a +hopeless struggle with devildom. + +"I have been here several times before," she said presently, in a faint +voice, "and there has never been any trouble. By day the street is not +much worse than others--though, of course, it has a bad name. There is a +little boy on the next floor very ill with typhoid. Many of the women in +the house are very good to him and his mother. This poor thing--used to +come in and out--when I was nursing him--Oh, I wish--I _wish_ they would +come!" she broke off in impatience, looking at the deathly form--"every +moment is of importance!" + +As Aldous went to the door to see if the stretcher was in sight, it +opened, and the police came in. Marcella, herself helpless, directed the +lifting of the bloodstained head; the police obeyed her with care and +skill. Then Raeburn assisted in the carrying downstairs, and presently +the police with their burden, and accompanied apparently by the whole +street, were on their way to the nearest hospital. + +Then Aldous, to his despair and wrath, saw that an inspector of police, +who had just come up, was talking to Marcella, no doubt instructing her +as to how and where she was to give her evidence. She was leaning +against the passage wall, supporting her injured arm with her hand, and +seemed to him on the point of fainting. + +"Get a cab at once, will you!" he said peremptorily to Peabody; then +going up to the inspector he drew him forward. They exchanged a few +words, the inspector lifted his cap, and Aldous went back to Marcella. + +"There is a cab here," he said to her. "Come, please, directly. They +will not trouble you any more for the present." + +He led her out through the still lingering crowd and put her into the +cab. As they drove along, he felt every jolt and roughness of the street +as though he were himself in anguish. She was some time before she +recovered the jar of pain caused her by the act of getting into the cab. +Her breath came fast, and he could see that she was trying hard to +control herself and not to faint. + +He, too, restrained himself so far as not to talk to her. But the +exasperation, the revolt within, was in truth growing unmanageably. Was +this what her new career--her enthusiasms--meant, or might mean! +Twenty-three!--in the prime of youth, of charm! Horrible, unpardonable +waste! He could not bear it, could not submit himself to it. + +Oh! let her marry Wharton, or any one else, so long as it were made +impossible for her to bruise and exhaust her young bloom amid such +scenes--such gross physical abominations. Amazing!--how meanly, +passionately timorous the man of Raeburn's type can be for the woman! He +himself may be morally "ever a fighter," and feel the glow, the stern +joy of the fight. But she!--let her leave the human brute and his +unsavoury struggle alone! It cannot be borne--it was never meant--that +she should dip her delicate wings, of her own free will at least, in +such a mire of blood and tears. It was the feeling that had possessed +him when Mrs. Boyce told him of the visit to the prison, the night in +the cottage. + +In her whirl of feverish thought, she divined him very closely. +Presently, as he watched her--hating the man for driving and the cab for +shaking--he saw her white lips suddenly smile. + +"I know," she said, rousing herself to look at him; "you think nursing +is all like that!" + +"I hope not!" he said, with effort, trying to smile too. + +"I never saw a fight before," she said, shutting her eyes again. +"Nobody is ever rude to us--I often pine for experiences!" + +How like her old, wild tone! His rigid look softened involuntarily. + +"Well, you have got one now," he said, bending over to her. "Does your +arm hurt you much?" + +"Yes,--but I can bear it. What vexes me is that I shall have to give up +work for a bit.--Mr. Raeburn!" + +"Yes." His heart beat. + +"We may meet often--mayn't we?--at Lady Winterbourne's--or in the +country? Couldn't we be friends? You don't know how often--" She turned +away her weary head a moment--gathered strength to begin again--"--how +often I have regretted--last year. I see now--that I behaved--more +unkindly"--her voice was almost a whisper--"than I thought then. But it +is all done with--couldn't we just be good friends--understand each +other, perhaps, better than we ever did?" + +She kept her eyes closed, shaken with alternate shame and daring. + +As for him, he was seized with overpowering dumbness and chill. What was +really in his mind was the Terrace--was Wharton's advancing figure. But +her state--the moment--coerced him. + +"We could not be anything but friends," he said gently, but with +astonishing difficulty; and then could find nothing more to say. She +knew his reserve, however, and would not this time be repelled. + +She put out her hand. + +"No!" she said, looking at it and withdrawing it with a shudder; "oh +no!" + +Then suddenly a passion of tears and trembling overcame her. She leant +against the side of the cab, struggling in vain to regain her +self-control, gasping incoherent things about the woman she had not been +able to save. He tried to soothe and calm her, his own heart wrung. But +she hardly heard him. + +At last they turned into Maine Street, and she saw the gateway of +Brown's Buildings. + +"Here we are," she said faintly, summoning all her will; "do you know +you will have to help me across that court, and upstairs--then I shan't +be any more trouble." + +So, leaning on Raeburn's arm, Marcella made her slow progress across the +court of Brown's Buildings and through the gaping groups of children. +Then at the top of her flight of steps she withdrew herself from him +with a wan smile. + +"Now I am home," she said. "Good-bye!" + +Aldous looked round him well at Brown's Buildings as he departed. Then +he got into a hansom, and drove to Lady Winterbourne's house, and +implored her to fetch and nurse Marcella Boyce, using her best +cleverness to hide all motion of his in the matter. + +After which he spent--poor Aldous!--one of the most restless and +miserable nights of his life. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Marcella was sitting in a deep and comfortable chair at the open window +of Lady Winterbourne's drawing-room. The house--in James Street, +Buckingham Gate--looked out over the exercising ground of the great +barracks in front, and commanded the greenery of St. James's Park to the +left. The planes lining the barrack railings were poor, wilted things, +and London was as hot as ever. Still the charm of these open spaces of +sky and park, after the high walls and innumerable windows of Brown's +Buildings, was very great; Marcella wanted nothing more but to lie +still, to dally with a book, to dream as she pleased, and to be let +alone. + +Lady Winterbourne and her married daughter, Lady Ermyntrude, were still +out, engaged in the innumerable nothings of the fashionable afternoon. +Marcella had her thoughts to herself. + +But they were not of a kind that any one need have wished to share. In +the first place, she was tired of idleness. In the early days after Lady +Winterbourne had carried her off, the soft beds and sofas, the trained +service and delicate food of this small but luxurious house had been so +pleasant to her that she had scorned herself for a greedy Sybaritic +temper, delighted by any means to escape from plain living. But she had +been here a fortnight, and was now pining to go back to work. Her mood +was too restless and transitional to leave her long in love with comfort +and folded hands. She told herself that she had no longer any place +among the rich and important people of this world; far away beyond these +parks and palaces, in the little network of dark streets she knew, lay +the problems and the cares that were really hers, through which her +heart was somehow wrestling--must somehow wrestle--its passionate way. +But her wrenched arm was still in a sling, and was, moreover, +under-going treatment at the hands of a clever specialist; and she could +neither go home, as her mother had wished her to do, nor return to her +nursing--a state of affairs which of late had made her a little silent +and moody. + +On the whole she found her chief pleasure in the two weekly visits she +paid to the woman whose life, it now appeared, she _had_ saved--probably +at some risk of her own. The poor victim would go scarred and maimed +through what remained to her of existence. But she lived; and--as +Marcella and Lady Winterbourne and Raeburn had abundantly made up their +minds--would be permanently cared for and comforted in the future. + +Alas! there were many things that stood between Marcella and true rest. +She had been woefully disappointed, nay wounded, as to the results of +that tragic half-hour which for the moment had seemed to throw a bridge +of friendship over those painful, estranging memories lying between her +and Aldous Raeburn. He had called two or three times since she had been +with Lady Winterbourne; he had done his best to make her inevitable +appearance as a witness in the police-court, as easy to her as possible; +the man who had stood by her through such a scene could do no less, in +common politeness and humanity. But each time they met his manner had +been formal and constrained; there had been little conversation; and she +had been left to the bitterness of feeling that she had made a strange +if not unseemly advance, of which he must think unkindly, since he had +let it count with him so little. + +Childishly, angrily--_she wanted him to be friends!_ Why shouldn't he? +He would certainly marry Betty Macdonald in time, whatever Mr. Hallin +might say. Then why not put his pride away and be generous? Their future +lives must of necessity touch each other, for they were bound to the +same neighbourhood, the same spot of earth. She knew herself to be her +father's heiress. Mellor must be hers some day; and before that day, +whenever her father's illness, of which she now understood the incurable +though probably tedious nature, should reach a certain stage, she must +go home and take up her life there again. Why embitter such a +situation?--make it more difficult for everybody concerned? Why not +simply bury the past and begin again? In her restlessness she was +inclined to think herself much wiser and more magnanimous than he. + +Meanwhile in the Winterbourne household she was living among people to +whom Aldous Raeburn was a dear and familiar companion, who admired him +with all their hearts, and felt a sympathetic interest alike in his +private life and his public career. Their circle, too, was his circle; +and by means of it she now saw Aldous in his relations to his equals and +colleagues, whether in the Ministry or the House. The result was a +number of new impressions which she half resented, as we may resent the +information that some stranger will give us upon a subject we imagined +ourselves better acquainted with than anybody else. The promise of +Raeburn's political position struck her quick mind with a curious +surprise. She could not explain it as she had so often tacitly explained +his place in Brookshire--by the mere accidents of birth. After all, +aristocratic as we still are, no party can now afford to choose its men +by any other criterion than personal profitableness. And a man nowadays +is in the long run personally profitable, far more by what he is than by +what he has--so far at least has "progress" brought us. + +She saw then that this quiet, strong man, with his obvious defects of +temperament and manner, had already gained a remarkable degree of +"consideration," using the word in its French sense, among his political +contemporaries. He was beginning to be reckoned upon as a man of the +future by an inner circle of persons whose word counted and carried; +while yet his name was comparatively little known to the public. +Marcella, indeed, had gathered her impression from the most slight and +various sources--mostly from the phrases, the hints, the manner of men +already themselves charged with the most difficult and responsible work +of England. Above all things did she love and admire power--the power of +personal capacity. It had been the secret, it was still half the +secret, of Wharton's influence with her. She saw it here under wholly +different conditions and accessories. She gave it recognition with a +kind of unwillingness. All the same, Raeburn took a new place in her +imagination. + +Then--apart from the political world and its judgments--the intimacy +between him and the Winterbourne family showed her to him in many new +aspects. To Lady Winterbourne, his mother's dear and close friend, he +was almost a son; and nothing could be more charming than the +affectionate and playful tolerance with which he treated her little +oddities and weaknesses. And to all her children he was bound by the +memories and kindnesses of many years. He was the godfather of Lady +Ermyntrude's child; the hero and counsellor of the two sons, who were +both in Parliament, and took his lead in many things; while there was no +one with whom Lord Winterbourne could more comfortably discuss county or +agricultural affairs. In the old days Marcella had somehow tended to +regard him as a man of few friends. And in a sense it was so. He did not +easily yield himself; and was often thought dull and apathetic by +strangers. But here, amid these old companions, his delicacy and +sweetness of disposition had full play; and although, now that Marcella +was in their house, he came less often, and was less free with them than +usual, she saw enough to make her wonder a little that they were all so +kind and indulgent to _her_, seeing that they cared so much for him and +all that affected him. + +Well! she was often judged, humbled, reproached. Yet there was a certain +irritation in it. Was it all her own fault that in her brief engagement +she had realised him so little? Her heart was sometimes oddly sore; her +conscience full of smart; but there were moments when she was as +combative as ever. + +Nor had certain other experiences of this past fortnight been any more +soothing to this sore craving sense of hers. It appeared very soon that +nothing would have been easier for her had she chosen than to become the +lion of the later season. The story of the Batton Street tragedy had, of +course, got into the papers, and had been treated there with the usual +adornments of the "New Journalism." + +The world which knew the Raeburns or knew of them--comparatively a large +world--fell with avidity on the romantic juxtaposition of names. To lose +your betrothed as Aldous Raeburn had lost his, and then to come across +her again in this manner and in these circumstances--there was a +dramatic neatness about it to which the careless Fate that governs us +too seldom attains. London discussed the story a good deal; and would +have liked dearly to see and to exhibit the heroine. Mrs. Lane in +particular, the hostess of the House of Commons dinner, felt that she +had claims, and was one of the first to call at Lady Winterbourne's and +see her guest. She soon discovered that Marcella had no intention +whatever of playing the lion; and must, in fact, avoid excitement and +fatigue. But she had succeeded in getting the girl to come to her once +or twice of an afternoon to meet two or three people. It was better for +the wounded arm that its owner should walk than drive; and Mrs. Lane +lived at a convenient distance, at a house in Piccadilly, just across +the Green Park. + +Here then, as in James Street, Marcella had met in discreet succession +a few admiring and curious persons, and had tasted some of the smaller +sweets of fame. But the magnet that drew her to the Lanes' house had +been no craving for notoriety; at the present moment she was totally +indifferent to what perhaps constitutionally she might have liked; the +attraction had been simply the occasional presence there of Harry +Wharton. He excited, puzzled, angered, and commanded her more than ever. +She could not keep herself away from the chance of meeting him. And Lady +Winterbourne neither knew him, nor apparently wished to know him--a fact +which probably tended to make Marcella obstinate. + +Yet what pleasure had there been after all in these meetings! Again and +again she had seen him surrounded there by pretty and fashionable women, +with some of whom he was on amazingly easy terms, while with all of them +he talked their language, and so far as she could see to a great extent +lived their life. The contradiction of the House of Commons evening +returned upon her perpetually. She thought she saw in many of his new +friends a certain malicious triumph in the readiness with which the +young demagogue had yielded to their baits. No doubt they were at least +as much duped as he. Like Hallin, she did not believe, that at bottom he +was the man to let himself be held by silken bonds if it should be to +his interest to break them. But, meanwhile, his bearing among these +people--the claims they and their amusement made upon his time and his +mind--seemed to this girl, who watched them, with her dark, astonished +eyes, a kind of treachery to his place and his cause. It was something +she had never dreamed of; and it roused her contempt and irritation. + +Then as to herself. He had been all eagerness in his enquiries after her +from Mrs. Lane; and he never saw her in the Piccadilly drawing-room that +he did not pay her homage, often with a certain extravagance, a kind of +appropriation, which Mrs. Lane secretly thought in bad taste, and +Marcella sometimes resented. On the other hand, things jarred between +them frequently. From day to day he varied. She had dreamt of a great +friendship; but instead, it was hardly possible to carry on the thread +of their relation from meeting to meeting with simplicity and trust. On +the Terrace he had behaved, or would have behaved, if she had allowed +him, as a lover. When they met again at Mrs. Lane's he would be +sometimes devoted in his old paradoxical, flattering vein; sometimes, +she thought, even cool. Nay, once or twice he was guilty of curious +little neglects towards her, generally in the presence of some great +lady or other. On one of these occasions she suddenly felt herself +flushing from brow to chin at the thought--"He does not want any one to +suppose for a moment that he wishes to marry me!" + +It had taken Wharton some difficult hours to subdue in her the effects +of that one moment's fancy. Till then it is the simple truth to say that +she had never seriously considered the possibility of marrying him. When +it _did_ enter her mind, she saw that it had already entered his--and +that he was full of doubts! The perception had given to her manner an +increasing aloofness and pride which had of late piqued Wharton into +efforts from which vanity, and, indeed, something else, could not +refrain, if he was to preserve his power. + +So she was sitting by the window this afternoon, in a mood which had in +it neither simplicity nor joy. She was conscious of a certain dull and +baffled feeling--a sense of humiliation--which hurt. Moreover, the scene +of sordid horror she had gone through haunted her imagination +perpetually. She was unstrung, and the world weighed upon her--the pity, +the ugliness, the confusion of it. + + * * * * * + +The muslin curtain beside her suddenly swelled out in a draught of air, +and she put out her hand quickly to catch the French window lest it +should swing to. Some one had opened the door of the room. + +"_Did_ I blow you out of window?" said a girl's voice; and there behind +her, in a half-timid attitude, stood Betty Macdonald, a vision of white +muslin, its frills and capes a little tossed by the wind, the pointed +face and golden hair showing small and elf-like under the big shady hat. + +"Oh, do come in!" said Marcella, shyly; "Lady Winterbourne will be in +directly." + +"So Panton told me," said Betty, sinking down on a high stool beside +Marcella's chair, and taking off her hat; "and Panton doesn't tell _me_ +any stories _now_--I've trained him. I wonder how many he tells in the +day? Don't you think there will be a special little corner of purgatory +for London butlers? I hope Panton will get off easy!" + +Then she laid her sharp chin on her tiny hand, and studied Marcella. +Miss Boyce was in the light black dress that Minta approved; her pale +face and delicate hands stood out from it with a sort of noble emphasis. +When Betty had first heard of Marcella Boyce as the heroine of a certain +story, she had thought of her as a girl one would like to meet, if only +to prick her somehow for breaking the heart of a good man. Now that she +saw her close she felt herself near to falling in love with her. +Moreover, the incident of the fight and of Miss Boyce's share in it had +thrilled a creature all susceptibility and curiosity; and the little +merry thing would sit hushed, looking at the heroine of it, awed by the +thought of what a girl only two years older than herself must have +already seen of sin and tragedy, envying her with all her heart, and by +contrast honesty despising--for the moment--that very happy and popular +person, Betty Macdonald! + +"Do you like being alone?" she asked Marcella, abruptly. + +Marcella coloured. + +"Well, I was just getting very tired of my own company," she said. "I +was very glad to see you come in." + +"Were you?" said Betty, joyously, with a little gleam in her pretty +eyes. Then suddenly the golden head bent forward. "May I kiss you?" she +said, in the wistfullest, eagerest voice. + +Marcella smiled, and, laying her hand on Betty's, shyly drew her. + +"That's better!" said Betty, with a long breath. "That's the second +milestone; the first was when I saw you on the Terrace. Couldn't you +mark all your friendships by little white stones? I could. But the +horrid thing is when you have to mark them back again! Nobody ever did +that with you!" + +"Because I have no friends," said Marcella, quickly; then, when Betty +clapped her hands in amazement at such a speech, she added quickly with +a smile, "except a few I make poultices for." + +"There!" said Betty, enviously, "to think of being really _wanted_--for +poultices--or, anything! I never was wanted in my life! When I die +they'll put on my poor little grave-- + + "She's buried here--that hizzie Betty; + She did na gude--so don't ee fret ye! + +"--oh, there they are!"--she ran to the window--"Lady Winterbourne and +Ermyntrude. Doesn't it make you laugh to see Lady Winterbourne doing her +duties? She gets into her carriage after lunch as one might mount a +tumbril. I expect to hear her tell the coachman to drive to the scaffold +at Hyde Park Corner.' She looks the unhappiest woman in England--and all +the time Ermyntrude declares she likes it, and wouldn't do without her +season for the world! She gives Ermyntrude a lot of trouble, but she +_is_ a dear--a naughty dear--and mothers are _such_ a chance! +Ermyntrude! _where_ did you get that bonnet? You got it without me--and +my feelings won't stand it!" + +Lady Ermyntrude and Betty threw themselves on a sofa together, +chattering and laughing. Lady Winterbourne came up to Marcella and +enquired after her. She was still slowly drawing off her gloves, when +the drawing-room door opened again. + +"Tea, Panton!" said Lady Winterbourne, without turning her head, and in +the tone of Lady Macbeth. But the magnificent butler took no notice. + +"Lady Selina Farrell!" he announced in a firm voice. + +Lady Winterbourne gave a nervous start; then, with the air of a person +cut out of wood, made a slight advance, and held out a limp hand to her +visitor. + +"Won't you sit down?" she said. + +Anybody who did not know her would have supposed that she had never seen +Lady Selina before. In reality she and the Alresfords were cousins. But +she did not like Lady Selina, and never took any pains to conceal it--a +fact which did not in the smallest degree interfere with the younger +lady's performance of her family duties. + +Lady Selina found a seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingers +to draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. She +enquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrude +how her husband and baby in the country were getting on without her. The +tone of this last question made the person addressed flush and draw +herself up. It was put as banter, but certainly conveyed that Lady +Ermyntrude was neglecting her family for the sake of dissipations. Betty +meanwhile curled herself up in a corner of the sofa, letting one pretty +foot swing over the other, and watching the new-comer with a malicious +eye, which instantly and gleefully perceived that Lady Selina thought +her attitude ungraceful. + +Marcella, of course, was greeted and condoled with--Lady Selina, +however, had seen her since the tragedy--and then Lady Winterbourne, +after every item of her family news, and every symptom of her own and +her husband's health had been rigorously enquired into, began to attempt +some feeble questions of her own--how, for instance, was Lord +Alresford's gout? + +Lady Selina replied that he was well, but much depressed by the +political situation. No doubt Ministers had done their best, but he +thought two or three foolish mistakes had been made during the session. +Certain blunders ought at all hazards to have been avoided. He feared +that the party and the country might have to pay dearly for them. But +_he_ had done his best. + +Lady Winterbourne, whose eldest son was a junior whip, had been the +recipient, since the advent of the new Cabinet, of so much rejoicing +over the final exclusion of "that vain old idiot, Alresford," from any +further chances of muddling a public department, that Lady Selina's talk +made her at once nervous and irritable. She was afraid of being +indiscreet; yet she longed to put her visitor down. In her odd +disjointed way, too, she took a real interest in politics. Her craving +idealist nature--mated with a cheery sportsman husband who laughed at +her, yet had made her happy--was always trying to reconcile the ends of +eternal justice with the measures of the Tory party. It was a task of +Sisyphus; but she would not let it alone. + +"I do not agree with you," she said with cold shyness in answer to Lady +Selina's concluding laments--"I am told--our people say--we are doing +very well--except that the session is likely to be dreadfully long." + +Lady Selina raised both her eyebrows and her shoulders. + +"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne! you really mean it?" she said with the +indulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded--"But just think! +The session will go on, every one says, till _quite_ the end of +September. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented? +_All_ our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believes +so _much_ of the friction might have been avoided. He is all in favour +of doing more for Labour. He thinks these Labour men might have been +easily propitiated without anything revolutionary. It's no good +supposing that these poor starving people will wait for ever!" + +"Oh!" said Lady Winterbourne, and sat staring at her visitor. To those +who knew its author well, the monosyllable could not have been more +expressive. Lady Winterbourne's sense of humour had no voice, but +inwardly it was busy with Lord Alresford as the "friend of the poor." +_Alresford_!--the narrowest and niggardliest tyrant alive, so far as his +own servants and estate were concerned. And as to Lady Selina, it was +well known to the Winterbourne cousinship that she could never get a +maid to stay with her six months. + +"What did _you_ think of Mr. Wharton's speech the other night?" said +Lady Selina, bending suavely across the tea-table to Marcella. + +"It was very interesting," said Marcella, stiffly--perfectly conscious +that the name had pricked the attention of everybody in the room, and +angry with her cheeks for reddening. + +"Wasn't it?" said Lady Selina, heartily. "You can't _do_ those things, +of course! But you should show every sympathy to the clever enthusiastic +young men--the men like that--shouldn't you? That's what my father says. +He says we've got to win them. We've got somehow to make them feel us +their friends--or we shall _all_ go to ruin! They have the voting +power--and we are the party of education, of refinement. If we can only +lead that kind of man to see the essential justice of our cause--and at +the same time give them our help--in reason--show them we want to be +their friends--wouldn't it be best? I don't know whether I put it +rightly--you know so much about these things! But we can't undo '67--can +we? We must get round it somehow--mustn't we? And my father thinks +Ministers so unwise! But perhaps"--and Lady Selina drew herself back +with a more gracious smile than ever--"I ought not to be saying these +things to you--of course I know you _used_ to think us Conservatives +very bad people--but Mr. Wharton tells me, perhaps you don't think +_quite_ so hardly of us as you used?" + +Lady Selina's head in its Paris bonnet fell to one side in a gentle +interrogative sort of way. + +Something roused in Marcella. + +"Our cause?" she repeated, while the dark eye dilated--"I wonder what +you mean?" + +"Well, I mean--" said Lady Selina, seeking for the harmless word, in +the face of this unknown explosive-looking girl--"I mean, of course, the +cause of the educated--of the people who have made the country." + +"I think," said Marcella, quietly, "you mean the cause of the rich, +don't you?" + +"Marcella!" cried Lady Winterbourne, catching at the tone rather than +words--"I thought you didn't feel like that any more--not about the +distance between the poor and the rich--and our tyranny--and its being +hopeless--and the poor always hating us--I thought you changed." + +And forgetting Lady Selina, remembering only the old talks at Mellor, +Lady Winterbourne bent forward and laid an appealing hand on Marcella's +arm. + +Marcella turned to her with an odd look. + +"If you only knew," she said, "how much more possible it is to think +well of the rich, when you are living amongst the poor!" + +"Ah! you must be at a distance from us to do us justice?" enquired Lady +Selina, settling her bracelets with a sarcastic lip. + +"_I_ must," said Marcella, looking, however, not at her, but at Lady +Winterbourne. "But then, you see,"--she caressed her friend's hand with +a smile--"it is so easy to throw some people into opposition!" + +"Dreadfully easy!" sighed Lady Winterbourne. + +The flush mounted again in the girl's cheek. She hesitated, then felt +driven to explanations. + +"You see--oddly enough"--she pointed away for an instant to the +north-east through the open window--"it's when I'm over there--among the +people who have nothing--that it does me good to remember that there +are persons who live in James Street, Buckingham Gate!" + +"My dear! I don't understand," said Lady Winterbourne, studying her with +her most perplexed and tragic air. + +"Well, isn't it simple?" said Marcella, still holding her hand and +looking up at her. "It comes, I suppose, of going about all day in those +streets and houses, among people who live in one room--with not a bit of +prettiness anywhere--and no place to be alone in, or to rest in. I come +home and _gloat_ over all the beautiful dresses and houses and gardens I +can think of!" + +"But don't you _hate_ the people that have them?" said Betty, again on +her stool, chin in hand. + +"No! it doesn't seem to matter to me then what kind of people they are. +And I don't so much want to take from them and give to the others. I +only want to be sure that the beauty, and the leisure, and the freshness +are _some_where--not lost out of the world." + +"How strange!--in a life like yours--that one should think so much of +the _ugliness_ of being poor--more than of suffering or pain," said +Betty, musing. + +"Well--in some moods--you do--_I_ do!" said Marcella; "and it is in +those moods that I feel least resentful of wealth. If I say to myself +that the people who have all the beauty and the leisure are often +selfish and cruel--after all they die out of their houses and their +parks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of its +shell. The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain. +And why should one be envious of _them_ personally? They have had the +best chances in the world and thrown them away--are but poor animals at +the end! At any rate I can't hate them--they seem to have a +function--when I am moving about Drury Lane!" she added with a smile. + +"But how can one help being ashamed?" said Lady Winterbourne, as her +eyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehow +into playing devil's advocate. + +"No! No!" said Marcella, eagerly, "don't be ashamed! As to the people +who make beauty more beautiful--who share it and give it--I often feel +as if I could say to them on my knees, Never, _never_ be ashamed merely +of being rich--of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoy +them! One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than a +cripple, or having two eyes rather than one!" + +"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered, +"when one has all the beauty and the freedom--and other people must +_die_ without any--" + +"Oh, I know, I _know_!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair; +"that's what makes the world the world. And one begins with thinking it +can be changed--that it _must_ and _shall_ be changed!--that everybody +could have wealth--could have beauty and rest, and time to think, that +is to say--if things were different--if one could get Socialism--if one +could beat down the capitalist--if one could level down, and level up, +till everybody had 200 _l._ a year. One turns and fingers the puzzle all +day long. It seems so _near_ coming right--one guesses a hundred ways in +which it might be done! Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt--one +begins to see that it never _will_, never _can_ come right--not in any +mechanical way of that sort--that _that_ isn't what was meant!" + +Her voice dropped drearily. Betty Macdonald gazed at her with a girl's +nascent adoration. Lady Winterbourne was looking puzzled and unhappy, +but absorbed like Betty in Marcella. Lady Selina, studying the three +with smiling composure, was putting on her veil, with the most careful +attention to fringe and hairpins. As for Ermyntrude, she was no longer +on the sofa; she had risen noiselessly, finger on lip, almost at the +beginning of Marcella's talk, to greet a visitor. She and he were +standing at the back of the room, in the opening of the conservatory, +unnoticed by any of the group in the bow window. + +"Don't you think," said Lady Selina, airily, her white fingers still +busy with her bonnet, "that it would be a very good thing to send all +the Radicals--the well-to-do Radicals I mean--to live among the poor? It +seems to teach people such extremely useful things!" + +Marcella straightened herself as though some one had touched her +impertinently. She looked round quickly. + +"I wonder what you suppose it teaches?" + +"Well," said Lady Selina, a little taken aback and hesitating; "well! I +suppose it teaches a person to be content--and not to cry for the moon!" + +"You _think_," said Marcella, slowly, "that to live among the poor can +teach any one--any one that's _human_--to be _content_!" + +Her manner had the unconscious intensity of emphasis, the dramatic force +that came to her from another blood than ours. Another woman could +hardly have fallen into such a tone without affectation--without pose. +At this moment certainly Betty, who was watching her, acquitted her of +either, and warmly thought her a magnificent creature. + +Lady Selina's feeling simply was that she had been roughly addressed by +her social inferior. She drew herself up. + +"As I understand you," she said stiffly, "you yourself confessed that to +live with poverty had led you to think more reasonably of wealth." + +Suddenly a movement of Lady Ermyntrude's made the speaker turn her head. +She saw the pair at the end of the room, looked astonished, then smiled. + +"Why, Mr. Raeburn! where have you been hiding yourself during this great +discussion? Most consoling, wasn't it--on the whole--to us West End +people?" + +She threw back a keen glance at Marcella. Lady Ermyntrude and Raeburn +came forward. + +"I made him be quiet," said Ermyntrude, not looking, however, quite at +her ease; "it would have been a shame to interrupt." + +"I think so, indeed!" said Lady Selina, with emphasis. "Good-bye, dear +Lady Winterbourne; good-bye, Miss Boyce! You have comforted me very +much! Of _course_ one is sorry for the poor; but it is a great thing to +hear from anybody who knows as much about it as _you_ do, that--after +all--it is no crime--to possess a little!" + +She stood smiling, looking from the girl to the man--then, escorted by +Raeburn in his very stiffest manner, she swept out of the room. + +When Aldous came back, with a somewhat slow and hesitating step, he +approached Marcella, who was standing silent by the window, and asked +after the lame arm. He was sorry, he said, to see that it was still in +its sling. His tone was a little abrupt. Only Lady Winterbourne saw the +quick nervousness of the eyes, + +"Oh! thank you," said Marcella, coldly, "I shall get back to work next +week." + +She stooped and took up her book. + +"I must please go and write some letters," she said, in answer to Lady +Winterbourne's flurried look. + +And she walked away. Betty and Lady Ermyntrude also went to take off +their things. + +"Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, holding out her hand to him. + +He took it, glanced unwillingly at her wistful, agitated face, pressed +the hand, and let it go. + +"Isn't it sad," said his old friend, unable to help herself, "to see her +battling like this with life--with thought--all alone? Isn't it sad, +Aldous?" + +"Yes," he said. Then, after a pause, "Why _doesn't_ she go home? My +patience gives out when I think of Mrs. Boyce." + +"Oh! it isn't Mrs. Boyce's fault," said Lady Winterbourne, hopelessly. +"And I don't know why one should be sorry for her particularly--why one +should want her to change her life again. She does it splendidly. Only +I never, _never_ feel that she is a bit happy in it." + +It was Hallin's cry over again. + +He said nothing for a moment; then he forced a smile. + +"Well! neither you nor I can help it, can we?" he said. The grey eyes +looked at her steadily--bitterly. Lady Winterbourne, with the sensation +of one who, looking for softness, has lit on granite, changed the +subject. + +Meanwhile, Marcella upstairs was walking restlessly up and down. She +could hardly keep herself from rushing off--back to Brown's Buildings at +once. _He_ in the room while she was saying those things! Lady Selina's +words burnt in her ears. Her morbid, irritable sense was all one +vibration of pride and revolt. Apology--appeal--under the neatest comedy +guise! Of course!--now that Lord-Maxwell was dying, and the ill-used +suitor was so much the nearer to his earldom. A foolish girl had +repented her of her folly--was anxious to make those concerned +understand--what more simple? + +Her nerves were strained and out of gear. Tears came in a proud, +passionate gush; and she must needs allow herself the relief of them. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, Lady Selina had gone home full of new and uncomfortable +feelings. She could not get Marcella Boyce out of her head--neither as +she had just seen her, under the wing of "that foolish woman, Madeleine +Winterbourne," nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with Harry +Wharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any way +eclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strange +and ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she lay +resting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that never +in all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into _her_ face +with the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she had +seen on Harry Wharton's, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terrace +together--nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonald +had put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine's feet. + +There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night. +Wharton was to be among the guests. He was fast becoming one of the +_habitues_ of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to Lady +Selina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozing +peacefully in a deep arm-chair. + +Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, which +worked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenial +to it, run over some possibilities of the future. + +She was interrupted by the entrance of her maid, who, with the quickened +breath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to her +formidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids was +very ill. Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who always +attended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness +_might_ turn to rheumatic fever. + +"Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!" said Lady Selina. "Let Mrs. +Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and make +arrangements. You understand?" + +The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she had +been crying. + +"If your ladyship would but let her stay," she said timidly, "we'd all +take our turns at nursing her. She comes from Ireland, perhaps you'll +remember, my lady. She's no friends in London, and she's frightened to +death of going to the hospital." + +"That's nonsense!" said Lady Selina, sternly. "Do you think I can have +all the work of the house put out because some one is ill? She might die +even--one never knows. Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her about +her wages, and to look out for somebody else at once." + +The girl's mouth set sullenly as she went about her work--put out the +shining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, the +various powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina's +toilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cry +of a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend: "O +Marie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay--I'll do everything the +doctor tells me--I'll make _haste_ and get well--I'll give no trouble. +And it's all along of the work--and the damp up in these rooms--the +doctor said so." + +An hour later Lady Selina was in the stately drawing-room of Alresford +House, receiving her guests. She was out of sorts and temper, and though +Wharton arrived in due time, and she had the prospect to enliven her +during dinner--when he was of necessity parted from her by people of +higher rank--of a _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with him before the evening was over, +the dinner went heavily. The Duke on her right hand, and the Dean on her +left, were equally distasteful to her. Neither food nor wine had savour; +and once, when in an interval of talk she caught sight of her father's +face and form at the further end, growing more vacant and decrepit week +by week, she was seized with a sudden angry pang of revolt and +repulsion. Her father wearied and disgusted her. Life was often triste +and dull in the great house. Yet, when the old man should have found his +grave, she would be a much smaller person than she was now, and the days +would be so much the more tedious. + +Wharton, too, showed less than his usual animation. She said to herself +at dinner that he had the face of a man in want of sleep. His young +brilliant look was somewhat tarnished, and there was worry in the +restless eye. And, indeed, she knew that things had not been going so +favourably for him in the House of late--that the stubborn opposition +of the little group of men led by Wilkins was still hindering that +concentration of the party and definition of his own foremost place in +it which had looked so close and probable a few weeks before. She +supposed he had been exhausting himself, too, over that shocking Midland +strike. The _Clarion_ had been throwing itself into the battle of the +men with a monstrous violence, for which she had several times +reproached him. + +When all the guests had gone but Wharton, and Lord Alresford, duly +placed for the sake of propriety in his accustomed chair, was safely +asleep, Lady Selina asked what was the matter. + +"Oh, the usual thing!" he said, as he leant against the mantelpiece +beside her. "The world's a poor place, and my doll's stuffed with +sawdust. Did you ever know any doll that wasn't?" + +She looked up at him a moment without speaking. + +"Which means," she said, "that you can't get your way in the House?" + +"No," said Wharton, meditatively, looking down at his boots. "No--not +yet." + +"You think you will get it some day?" + +He raised his eyes. + +"Oh yes!" he said; "oh dear, yes!--some day." + +She laughed. + +"You had better come over to us." + +"Well, there is always that to think of, isn't there? You can't deny you +want all the new blood you can get!" + +"If you only understood your moment and your chance," she said quickly, +"you would make the opportunity and do it at once." + +He looked at her aggressively. + +"How easy it comes to you Tories to rat!" he said. + +"Thank you! it only means that we are the party of common sense. Well, I +have been talking to your Miss Boyce." + +He started. + +"Where?" + +"At Lady Winterbourne's. Aldous Raeburn was there. Your beautiful +Socialist was very interesting--and rather surprising. She talked of the +advantages of wealth; said she had been converted--by living among the +poor--had changed her mind, in fact, on many things. We were all much +edified--including Mr. Raeburn. How long do you suppose that business +will remain 'off'? To my mind I never saw a young woman more eager to +undo a mistake." Then she added slowly, "The accounts of Lord Maxwell +get more and more unsatisfactory." + +Wharton stared at her with sparkling eyes. "How little you know her!" he +said, not without a tone of contempt. + +"Oh! very well," said Lady Selina, with the slightest shrug of her white +shoulders. + +He turned to the mantelpiece and began to play with some ornaments upon +it. + +"Tell me what she said," he enquired presently. + +Lady Selina gave her own account of the conversation. Wharton recovered +himself. + +"Dear me!" he said, when she stopped. "Yes--well--we may see another +act. Who knows? Well, good-night, Lady Selina." + +She gave him her hand with her usual aristocrat's passivity, and he +went. But it was late indeed that night before she ceased to speculate +on what the real effect of her words had been upon him. + +As for Wharton, on his walk home he thought of Marcella Boyce and of +Raeburn with a certain fever of jealous vanity which was coming, he told +himself, dangerously near to passion. He did not believe Lady Selina, +but nevertheless he felt that her news might drive him into rash steps +he could ill afford, and had indeed been doing his best to avoid. +Meanwhile it was clear to him that the mistress of Alresford House had +taken an envious dislike to Marcella. How plain she had looked to-night +in spite of her gorgeous dress! and how intolerable Lord Alresford grew! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +But what right had Wharton to be thinking of such irrelevant matters as +women and love-making at all? He had spoken of public worries to Lady +Selina. In reality his public prospects in themselves were, if anything, +improved. It was his private affairs that were rushing fast on +catastrophe, and threatening to drag the rest with them. + +He had never been so hard pressed for money in his life. In the first +place his gambling debts had mounted up prodigiously of late. His +friends were tolerant and easy-going. But the more tolerant they were +the more he was bound to frequent them. And his luck for some time had +been monotonously bad. Before long these debts must be paid, and some of +them--to a figure he shrank from dwelling upon--were already urgent. + +Then as to the _Clarion_, it became every week a heavier burden. The +expenses of it were enormous; the returns totally inadequate. +Advertisements were falling off steadily; and whether the working cost +were cut down, or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whose +letters from the strike district were being now universally read, were +put on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same. It was +becoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to be +met; so that Wharton's usual good temper now deserted him entirely as +soon as he had crossed the _Clarion_ threshold; bitterness had become +the portion of the staff, and even the office boys walked in gloom. + +Yet, at the same time, withdrawing from the business, was almost as +difficult as carrying it on. There were rumours in the air which had, +already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern. Wharton, +indeed, saw no prospect whatever of selling except at ruinous loss. +Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not only +precipitated a number of his financial obligations; it would have been +politically, a dangerous confession of failure made at a very critical +moment. For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the +_Clarion_ had never been so important politically, never so much read by +the persons on whom Wharton's parliamentary future depended, as it was +at this moment. The advocacy of the Damesley strike had been so far a +stroke of business for Wharton as a Labour Member. + +It was now the seventh week of the strike, and Wharton's "leaders," +Craven's letters from the seat of war, and the _Clarion_ strike fund, +which articles and letters had called into existence, were as vigorous +as ever. The struggle itself had fallen into two chapters. In the first +the metal-workers concerned, both men and women, had stood out for the +old wages unconditionally and had stoutly rejected all idea of +arbitration. At the end of three or four weeks, however, when grave +suffering had declared itself among an already half-starved population, +the workers had consented to take part in the appointment of a board of +conciliation. This board, including the workmen's delegates, overawed +by the facts of foreign competition as they were disclosed by the +masters, recommended terms which would have amounted to a victory for +the employers. + +The award was no sooner known in the district than the passionate +indignation of the great majority of the workers knew no bounds. +Meetings were held everywhere; the men's delegates at the board were +thrown over, and Craven, who with his new wife was travelling +incessantly over the whole strike area, wrote a letter to the _Clarion_ +on the award which stated the men's case with extreme ability, was +immediately backed up by Wharton in a tremendous "leader," and was +received among the strikers with tears almost of gratitude and +enthusiasm. + +Since then all negotiations had been broken off. The _Clarion_ had gone +steadily against the masters, against the award, against further +arbitration. The theory of the "living wage," of which more recent days +have heard so much, was preached in other terms, but with equal vigour; +and the columns of the _Clarion_ bore witness day by day in the long +lists of subscriptions to the strike fund, to the effects of its +eloquence on the hearts and pockets of Englishmen. + +Meanwhile there were strange rumours abroad. It was said that the trade +was really on the eve of a complete and striking revolution in its whole +conditions--could this labour war be only cleared out of the way. The +smaller employers had been for long on the verge of ruin; and the larger +men, so report had it, were scheming a syndicate on the American plan +to embrace the whole industry, cut down the costs of production, and +regulate the output. + +But for this large capital would be wanted. Could capital be got? The +state of things in the trade, according to the employers, had been +deplorable for years; a large part of the market had been definitely +forfeited, so they declared, for good, to Germany and Belgium. It would +take years before even a powerful syndicate could work itself into a +thoroughly sound condition. Let the men accept the award of the +conciliation board; let there be some stable and reasonable prospect of +peace between masters and men, say, for a couple of years; and a certain +group of bankers would come forward; and all would be well. The men +under the syndicate would in time get more than their old wage. _But the +award first_; otherwise the plan dropped, and the industry must go its +own way to perdition. + +"'Will you walk into my parlour?'" said Wharton, scornfully, to the +young Conservative member who, with a purpose, was explaining these +things to him in the library of the House of Commons, "the merest trap! +and, of course, the men will see it so. Who is to guarantee them even +the carrying through, much less the success, of your precious syndicate? +And, in return for your misty millennium two years hence, the men are to +join at once in putting the employers in a stronger position than ever? +Thank you! The 'rent of ability' in the present state of things is, no +doubt, large. But in this particular case the _Clarion_ will go on doing +its best--I promise you--to nibble some of it away!" + +The Conservative member rose in indignation. + +"I should be sorry to have as many starving people on my conscience as +you'll have before long!" he said as he took up his papers. + +At that moment Denny's rotund and square-headed figure passed along the +corridor, to which the library door stood open. + +"Well, if I thrive upon it as well as Denny does, I shall do!" returned +Wharton, with his usual caustic good-humour, as his companion departed. + +And it delighted him to think as he walked home that Denny, who had +again of late made himself particularly obnoxious in the House of +Commons, on two or three occasions, to the owner of the _Clarion_, had +probably instigated the quasi-overtures he had just rejected, and must +be by now aware of their result. + +Then he sent for Craven to come and confer with him. + +Craven accordingly came up from the Midlands, pale, thin, and exhausted, +with the exertions and emotions of seven weeks' incessant labour. Yet +personally Wharton found him, as before, dry and unsympathetic; and +disliked him, and his cool, ambiguous manner, more than ever. As to the +strike, however, they came to a complete understanding. The _Clarion_, +or rather the _Clarion_ fund, which was doing better and better, held +the key of the whole situation. If that fund could be maintained, the +men could hold out. In view of the possible formation of the syndicate, +Craven denounced the award with more fierceness than ever, maintaining +the redoubled importance of securing the men's terms before the +syndicate was launched. Wharton promised him with glee that he should be +supported to the bitter end. + +_If_, that is to say--a proviso he did not discuss with Craven--the +_Clarion_ itself could be kept going. In August a large sum, obtained +two years before on the security of new "plant," would fall due. The +time for repayment had already been extended; and Wharton had +ascertained that no further extension was possible. + +Well! bankruptcy would be a piquant interlude in his various social and +political enterprises! How was it to be avoided? He had by now plenty of +rich friends in the City or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, +likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of +money that he required was large--larger, indeed, than he cared to +verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost +nil. + +As to friends in the City, indeed, the only excursion of a business kind +that he had made into those regions since his election was now adding +seriously to his anxieties--might very well turn out, unless the matter +were skilfully managed, to be one of the blackest spots on his horizon. + +In the early days of his parliamentary life, when, again, mostly for the +_Clarion's_ sake, money happened to be much wanted, he had become +director of what promised to be an important company, through the +interest and good nature of a new and rich acquaintance, who had taken a +liking to the young member. The company had been largely "boomed," and +there had been some very profitable dealing in the original shares. +Wharton had made two or three thousand pounds, and contributed both +point and finish to some of the early prospectuses. + +Then, after six months, he had withdrawn from the Board, under +apprehensions that had been gradually realised with alarming accuracy. +Things, indeed, had been going very wrong indeed; there were a number of +small investors; and the annual meeting of the company, to be held now +in some ten days, promised a storm. Wharton discovered, partly to his +own amazement, for he was a man who quickly forgot, that during his +directorate he had devised or sanctioned matters that were not at all +likely to commend themselves to the shareholders, supposing the past +were really sifted. The ill-luck of it was truly stupendous; for on the +whole he had kept himself financially very clean since he had become a +member; having all through a jealous eye to his political success. + + * * * * * + +As to the political situation, nothing could be at once more promising +or more anxious! + +An important meeting of the whole Labour group had been fixed for August +10, by which time it was expected that a great measure concerning Labour +would be returned from the House of Lords with highly disputable +amendments. The last six weeks of the session would be in many ways more +critical for Labour than its earlier months had been; and it would be +proposed by Bennett, at the meeting on the 10th, to appoint a general +chairman of the party, in view of a campaign which would fill the +remainder of the session and strenuously occupy the recess. + +That Bennett would propose the name of the member for West Brookshire +was perfectly well known to Wharton and his friends. That the nomination +would meet with the warmest hostility from Wilkins and a small group of +followers was also accurately forecast. + +To this day, then, Wharton looked forward as to the crisis of his +parliamentary fortunes. All his chances, financial or social, must now +be calculated with reference to it. Every power, whether of combat or +finesse, that he commanded must be brought to bear upon the issue. + +What was, however, most remarkable in the man and the situation at the +moment was that, through all these gathering necessities, he was by no +means continuously anxious or troubled in his mind. During these days of +July he gave himself, indeed, whenever he could, to a fatalist oblivion +of the annoyances of life, coupled with a passionate pursuit of all +those interests where his chances were still good and the omens still +with him. + +Especially--during the intervals of ambition, intrigue, journalism, and +unsuccessful attempts to raise money--had he meditated the beauty of +Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. +As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her +for the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily denying him +elsewhere. + +At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial position +was reflected even in what, to himself, at any rate, he was boldly +beginning to call his "passion" for her. It had come to his knowledge +that Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectation +in clearing the Mellor estate. He had made skilful use of a railway +lately opened on the edge of his property; had sold building land in +the neighbourhood of a small country town on the line, within a +convenient distance of London; had consolidated and improved several of +his farms and relet them at higher rents; was, in fact, according to +Wharton's local informant, in a fair way to be some day, if he lived, +quite as prosperous as his grandfather, in spite of old scandals and +invalidism. Wharton knew, or thought he knew, that he would not live, +and that Marcella would be his heiress. The prospect was not perhaps +brilliant, but it was something; it affected the outlook. + +Although, however, this consideration counted, it was, to do him +justice, _Marcella_, the creature herself, that he desired. But for her +presence in his life he would probably have gone heiress-hunting with +the least possible delay. As it was, his growing determination to win +her, together with his advocacy of the Damesley workers--amply sufficed, +during the days that followed his evening talk with Lady Selina, to +maintain his own illusions about himself and so to keep up the zest of +life. + +Yes!--to master and breathe passion into Marcella Boyce, might safely be +reckoned on, he thought, to hurry a man's blood. And after it had gone +so far between them--after he had satisfied himself that her fancy, her +temper, her heart, were all more or less occupied with him--was he to +see her tamely recovered by Aldous Raeburn--by the man whose advancing +parliamentary position was now adding fresh offence to the old grievance +and dislike? No! not without a dash--a throw for it! + +For a while, after Lady Selina's confidences, jealous annoyance, +together with a certain reckless state of nerves, turned him almost into +the pining lover. For he could not see Marcella. She came no more to +Mrs. Lane; and the house in James Street was not open to him. He +perfectly understood that the Winterbournes did not want to know him. + +At last Mrs. Lane, a shrewd little woman with a half contemptuous liking +for Wharton, let him know--on the strength of a chance meeting with Lady +Ermyntrude--that the Winterbournes would be at the Masterton party on +the 26th. They had persuaded Miss Boyce to stay for it, and she would go +back to her work the Monday after. Wharton carelessly replied that he +did not know whether he would be able to put in an appearance at the +Mastertons'. He might be going out of town. + +Mrs. Lane looked at him and said, "Oh, really!" with a little laugh. + + * * * * * + +Lady Masterton was the wife of the Colonial Secretary, and her grand +mansion in Grosvenor Square was the principal rival to Alresford House +in the hospitalities of the party. Her reception on July 25 was to be +the last considerable event of a protracted but now dying season. +Marcella, detained in James Street day after day against her will by the +weakness of the injured arm and the counsels of her doctor, had at last +extracted permission to go back to work on the 27th; and to please Betty +Macdonald she had promised to go with the Winterbournes to the Masterton +party on the Saturday. Betty's devotion, shyly as she had opened her +proud heart to it, had begun to mean a good deal to her. There was balm +in it for many a wounded feeling; and, besides, there was the constant, +half eager, half painful interest of watching Betty's free and childish +ways with Aldous Raeburn, and of speculating upon what would ultimately +come out of them. + +So, when Betty first demanded to know what she was going to wear, and +then pouted over the dress shown her, Marcella submitted humbly to being +"freshened up" at the hands of Lady Ermyntrude's maid, bought what Betty +told her, and stood still while Betty, who had a genius for such things, +chattered, and draped, and suggested. + +"I wouldn't make you fashionable for the world!" cried Betty, with a +mouthful of pins, laying down masterly folds of lace and chiffon the +while over the white satin with which Marcella had provided her. "What +was it Worth said to me the other day?--Ce qu'on porte, Mademoiselle? O +pas grand'chose!--presque pas de corsage, et pas du tout de +manches!'--No, that kind of thing wouldn't suit you. But _distinguished_ +you shall be, if I sit up all night to think it out!" + +In the end Betty was satisfied, and could hardly be prevented from +hugging Marcella there and then, out of sheer delight in her own +handiwork, when at last the party emerged from the cloak-room into the +Mastertons' crowded hall. Marcella too felt pleasure in the reflections +of herself as they passed up the lavishly bemirrored staircase. The +chatter about dress in which she had been living for some days had +amused and distracted her; for there were great feminine potentialities +in her; though for eighteen months she had scarcely given what she wore +a thought, and in her pre-nursing days had been wont to waver between a +kind of proud neglect, which implied the secret consciousness of beauty, +and an occasional passionate desire to look well. So that she played her +part to-night very fairly; pinched Betty's arm to silence the elf's +tongue; and held herself up as she was told, that Betty's handiwork +might look its best. But inwardly the girl's mood was very tired and +flat. She was pining for her work; pining even for Minta Hurd's peevish +look, and the children to whom she was so easily an earthly providence. + +In spite of the gradual emptying of London, Lady Masterton's rooms were +very full. Marcella found acquaintances. Many of the people whom she had +met at Mrs. Lane's, the two Cabinet Ministers of the House of Commons +dinner, Mr. Lane himself--all were glad or eager to recall themselves to +her as she stood by Lady Winterbourne, or made her way half absently +through the press. She talked, without shyness--she had never been shy, +and was perhaps nearer now to knowing what it might mean than she had +been as a schoolgirl--but without heart; her black eye wandering +meanwhile, as though in quest. There was a gay sprinkling of uniforms in +the crowd, for the Speaker was holding a _levée_, and as it grew late +his guests began to set towards Lady Masterton. Betty, who had been +turning up her nose at the men she had so far smiled upon, all of whom +she declared were either bald or seventy, was a little propitiated by +the uniforms; otherwise, she pronounced the party very dull. + +"Well, upon my word!" she cried suddenly, in a tone that made Marcella +turn upon her. The child was looking very red and very upright--was +using her fan with great vehemence, and Frank Leven was humbly holding +out his hand to her. + +"I don't like being startled," said Betty, pettishly. "Yes, you _did_ +startle me--you did--you did! And then you begin to contradict before +I've said a word! I'm sure you've been contradicting all the way +upstairs--and why don't you say 'How do you do?' to Miss Boyce?" + +Frank, looking very happy, but very nervous, paid his respects rather +bashfully to Marcella--she laughed to see how Betty's presence subdued +him--and then gave himself up wholly to Betty's tender mercies. + +Marcella observed them with an eager interest she could not wholly +explain to herself. It was clear that all thought of anything or anybody +else had vanished for Frank Leven at the sight of Betty. Marcella +guessed, indeed knew, that they had not met for some little time; and +she was touched by the agitation and happiness on the boy's handsome +face. But Betty? what was the secret of her kittenish, teasing ways--or +was there any secret? She held her little head very high and chattered +very fast--but it was not the same chatter that she gave to Marcella, +nor, so far as Marcella could judge, to Aldous Raeburn. New elements of +character came out in it. It was self-confident, wilful, imperious. +Frank was never allowed to have an opinion; was laughed at before his +words were out of his mouth; was generally heckled, played with, and +shaken in a way which seemed alternately to enrage and enchant him. In +the case of most girls, such a manner would have meant encouragement; +but, as it was Betty, no one could be sure. The little thing was a great +puzzle to Marcella, who had found unexpected reserves in her. She might +talk of her love affairs to Aldous Raeburn; she had done nothing of the +sort with her new friend. And in such matters Marcella herself was far +more reserved than most modern women. + +"Betty!" cried Lady Winterbourne, "I am going on into the next room." + +Then in a lower tone she said helplessly to Marcella: + +"Do make her come on!" + +Marcella perceived that her old friend was in a fidget. Stooping her +tall head, she said with a smile: + +"But look how she is amusing herself!" + +"My dear!--that's just it! If you only knew how her mother--tiresome +woman--has talked to me! And the young man has behaved so beautifully +till now--has given neither Ermyntrude nor me any trouble." + +Was that why Betty was leading him such a life? Marcella wondered,--then +suddenly--was seized with a sick distaste for the whole scene--for +Betty's love affairs--for her own interest in them--for her own self and +personality above all. Her great black eyes gazed straight before them, +unseeing, over the crowd, the diamonds, the lights; her whole being +gave itself to a quick, blind wrestle with some vague overmastering +pain, some despair of life and joy to which she could give no name. + +She was roused by Betty's voice: + +"Mr. Raeburn! will _you_ tell me who people are? Mr. Leven's no more use +than my fan. Just imagine--I asked him who that lady in the tiara +is--and he vows he doesn't know! Why, it just seems that when you go to +Oxford, you leave the wits you had before, behind! And then--of +course"--Betty affected a delicate hesitation--"there's the difficulty +of being quite sure that you'll ever get any new ones!--But +there--look!--I'm in despair!--she's vanished--and I shall _never_ +know!" + +"One moment!" said Raeburn, smiling, "and I will take you in pursuit. +She has only gone into the tea-room." + +His hand touched Marcella's. + +"Just a _little_ better," he said, with a sudden change of look, in +answer to Lady Winterbourne's question. "The account to-night is +certainly brighter. They begged me not to come, or I should have been +off some days ago. And next week, I am thankful to say, they will be +home." + +Why should she be standing there, so inhumanly still and +silent?--Marcella asked herself. Why not take courage again--join +in--talk--show sympathy? But the words died on her lips. After +to-night--thank heaven!--she need hardly see him again. + +He asked after herself as usual. Then, just as he was turning away with +Betty, he came back to her, unexpectedly. + +"I should like to tell you about Hallin," he said gently. "His sister +writes to me that she is happier about him, and that she hopes to be +able to keep him away another fortnight. They are at Keswick." + +For an instant there was pleasure in the implication of common ground, a +common interest--here if no-where else. Then the pleasure was lost in +the smart of her own strange lack of self-government as she made a +rather stupid and awkward reply. + +Raeburn's eyes rested on her for a moment. There was in them a flash of +involuntary expression, which she did not notice--for she had turned +away--which no one saw--except Betty. Then the child followed him to the +tea-room, a little pale and pensive. + +Marcella looked after them. + +In the midst of the uproar about her, the babel of talk fighting against +the Hungarian band, which was playing its wildest and loudest in the +tea-room, she was overcome by a sudden rush of memory. Her eyes were +tracing the passage of those two figures through the crowd; the man in +his black court suit, stooping his refined and grizzled head to the girl +beside him, or turning every now and then to greet an acquaintance, with +the manner--cordial and pleasant, yet never quite gay even when he +smiled--that she, Marcella, had begun to notice of late as a new thing; +the girl lifting her small face to him, the gold of her hair showing +against his velvet sleeve. But the inward sense was busy with a number +of other impressions, past, and, as it now seemed, incredible. + +The little scene when Aldous had given her the pearls, returned so long +ago--why! she could see the fire blazing in the Stone Parlour, feel his +arm about her!--the drive home after the Gairsley meeting--that poignant +moment in his sitting-room the night of the ball--his face, his anxious, +tender face, as she came down the wide stairs of the Court towards him +on that terrible evening when she pleaded with him and his grandfather +in vain:--had these things, incidents, relations, been ever a real part +of the living world? Impossible! Why, there he was--not ten yards from +her--and yet more irrevocably separate from her than if the Sahara +stretched between them. The note of cold distance in his courteous +manner put her further from him than the merest stranger. + +Marcella felt a sudden terror rush through her as she blindly followed +Lady Winterbourne; her limbs trembled under her; she took advantage of a +conversation between her companion and the master of the house to sink +down for a moment on a settee, where she felt out of sight and notice. + +What was this intolerable sense of loss and folly, this smarting +emptiness, this rage with herself and her life? She only knew that +whereas the touch, the eye of Aldous Raeburn had neither compelled nor +thrilled her, so long as she possessed his whole heart and +life--_now_--that she had no right to either look or caress; now that he +had ceased even to regard her as a friend, and was already perhaps +making up that loyal and serious mind of his to ask from another woman +the happiness she had denied him; now, when it was absurdly too late, +she could-- + +Could what? Passionate, wilful creature that she was!--with that breath +of something wild and incalculable surging through the inmost places of +the soul, she went through a moment of suffering as she sat pale and +erect in her corner--brushed against by silks and satins, chattered +across by this person and that--such as seemed to bruise all the +remaining joy and ease out of life. + +But only a moment! Flesh and blood rebelled. She sprang up from her +seat; told herself that she was mad or ill; caught sight of Mr. Lane +coming towards them, and did her best by smile and greeting to attract +him to her. + +"You look very white, my dear Miss Boyce," said that cheerful and +fatherly person. "Is it that tiresome arm still? Now, don't please go +and be a heroine any more!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Meanwhile, in the tea-room, Betty was daintily sipping her claret-cup, +while Aldous stood by her. + +"No," said Betty, calmly, looking straight at the lady in the tiara who +was standing by the buffet, "she's not beautiful, and I've torn my dress +running after her. There's only one beautiful person here to-night!" + +Aldous found her a seat, and took one himself beside her, in a corner +out of the press. But he did not answer her remark. + +"Don't you think so, Mr. Aldous?" said Betty, persisting, but with a +little flutter of the pulse. + +"You mean Miss Boyce?" he said quietly, as he turned to her. + +"Of course!" cried Betty, with a sparkle in her charming eyes; "what +_is_ it in her face? It excites me to be near her. One feels that she +will just have lived _twice_ as much as the rest of us by the time she +comes to the end. You don't mind my talking of her, Mr. Aldous?" + +There was an instant's silence on his part. Then he said in a +constrained voice, looking away from his companion, "I don't _mind_ it, +but I am not going to pretend to you that I find it easy to talk of +her." + +"It would be a shame of you to pretend anything," said Betty, fervently, +"after all I've told you! I confessed all my scrapes to you, turned out +all my rubbish bag of a heart--well, nearly all"--she checked herself +with a sudden flush--"And you've been as kind to me as any big brother +could be. But you're dreadfully lofty, Mr. Aldous! You keep yourself to +yourself. I don't think it's fair!" + +Aldous laughed. + +"My dear Miss Betty, haven't you found out by now that I am a good +listener and a bad talker? I don't talk of myself or"--he +hesitated--"the things that have mattered most to me--because, in the +first place, it doesn't come easy to me--and, in the next, I can't, you +see, discuss my own concerns without discussing other people's." + +"Oh, good gracious!" said Betty, "what you must have been thinking about +me! I declare I'll never tell you anything again!"--and, beating her +tiny foot upon the ground, she sat, scarlet, looking down at it. + +Aldous made all the smiling excuses he could muster. He had found Betty +a most beguiling and attaching little companion, both at the Court in +the Easter recess, and during the Italian journey. Her total lack of +reserve, or what appeared so, had been first an amazement to him, and +then a positive pleasure and entertainment. To make a friend of +him--difficult and scrupulous as he was, and now more than ever--a woman +must be at the cost of most of the advances. But, after the first +evening with him, Betty had made them in profusion, without the smallest +demur, though perfectly well aware of her mother's ambitions. There was +a tie of cousinship between them, and a considerable difference of age. +Betty had decided at once that a mother was a dear old goose, and that +great friends she and Aldous Raeburn should be--and, in a sense, great +friends they were. + +Aldous was still propitiating her, when Lady Winterbourne came into the +tea-room, followed by Marcella. The elder lady threw a hurried and not +very happy glance at the pair in the corner. Marcella appeared to be in +animated talk with a young journalist whom Raeburn knew, and did not +look their way. + +"Just _one_ thing!" said Betty, bending forward and speaking eagerly in +Aldous's ear. "It was all a mistake--wasn't it? Now I know her I feel +sure it was. You don't--you don't--really think badly of her?" + +Aldous heard her unwillingly. He was looking away from her towards the +buffet, when she saw a change in the eyes--a tightening of the lip--a +something keen and hostile in the whole face. + +"Perhaps Miss Boyce will be less of a riddle to all of us before long!" +he said hastily, as though the words escaped him. "Shall we get out of +this very uncomfortable corner?" + +Betty looked where he had looked, and saw a young man greeting Marcella +with a manner so emphatic and intimate, that the journalist had +instantly moved out of his way. The young man had a noticeable pile of +fair curls above a very white and rounded forehead. + +"Who is that talking to Miss Boyce?" she asked of Aldous; "I have seen +him, but I can't remember the name." + +"That is Mr. Wharton, the member for one of our divisions," said +Aldous, as he rose from his chair. + +Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As she +too rose, she said resentfully to Aldous: + +"Well, you _have_ snubbed me!" + +As usual, he could not find the effective or clever thing to say. + +"I did not mean to," he replied simply; but Betty, glancing at him, saw +something in his face which gripped her heart. A lump rose in her +throat. + +"Do let's go and find Ermyntrude!" she said. + + * * * * * + +But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman, on +his way to the buffet with a cup to set down, touched him on the arm. +Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish, +good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most important +solicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons. + +"May I have a word with you presently?" said Mr. Pearson, in a pleasant +undertone. "I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurred +to me that I might meet you to-night. Excuse my interrupting you." + +He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away. + +Wharton had a momentary qualm. Then it struck him that Mr. Pearson's +manner was decidedly friendly. + +"In a moment," he said. "We might find a corner, I think, in that +further room." + +He made a motion of the head towards a little boudoir which lay beyond +the tea-room. + +Mr. Pearson nodded and passed on. + +Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Leven. At the +approach of the member for West Brookshire, Lady Winterbourne and her +daughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet. + +"A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment," he said; then he +dropped his voice a little; "but I have been looking forward to this +evening, this chance, for days--shall I find you here again in five +minutes?" + +Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said that would depend on the time +and Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair. +Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye. + +"Any one would think he was prime minister already! I never met him yet +anywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave as +though he had the world on his shoulders? Your _real_ swells always seem +to have nothing to do." + +"Do you know so many busy people?" Marcella asked him sweetly. + +"Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce!" said the boy, sulkily +thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I am going to work like blazes +this winter, if only my dons will let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she +_ripping_ to-night--Betty?" + +And, pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he stared +at the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined by +Aldous Raeburn and Betty, standing side by side. + +"What do you want me to say?" said Marcella, with a little cold laugh. +"I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please put my cup down." + +At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearson +behind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain. +She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by the +manner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourne +party--he approached her. + +"There is such a charming little room in there," he said, stooping his +head to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?" + +The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; she +followed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she passed. + +He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he found +a seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden from +view by a stand of flowers. + +As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come, +and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Her +heart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, then +gave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness. + +He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her as +she sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made her +a passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen her +under the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme, +incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only. +His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelings +which he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any power +to check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he had +regretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voice +dropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on the +memory of that one instant." But he had respected her suffering, her +struggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had gone +away into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had alone +enabled him to get through his parliamentary work. + +Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room and +dress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, passion--had +revived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have often +puzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series of +perplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause, +in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at times +to be-little his own enthusiasms and hers--his life and honour were +engaged; and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered, +and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of a +number of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed with +her--worries practical and financial, connected with the _Clarion_, with +the experiments he had been carrying out on his estate, and with other +troublesome matters. He had felt a thousand times that his fortunes, +political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to ask +any woman to share them.--Then, again, he had seen her--and his +resolution, his scruple, had melted in his breast! + +Well! there were still troubles in front! But he was no longer cowed by +them. In spite of them, he dared now to throw himself at her feet, to +ask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring her +beauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To _her_ +a man might show his effort and his toil,--from _her_ he might claim a +sympathy it would be vain to ask of any smaller woman. + +Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him. Only his +eyes--more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she had +ever known them--beseeched her--his hand sought hers. + +She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reason +nor of feeling. She felt his spell, as she had always done. The woman in +her thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. The +heart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so--the +past could only be silenced by filling the present with movement and +warm life. + +Yet what tremors of conscience--what radical distrust of herself and +him! And the first articulate words she found to say to him were very +much what she had said to Aldous so long ago--only filled with a +bitterer and more realised content. + +"After all, what do we know of each other! You don't know me--not as I +am. And I feel--" + +"Doubts?" he said, smiling. "Do you imagine that that seems anything but +natural to me? _I_ can have none; but _you_--After all, we are not quite +boy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us! But ask +yourself--has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all!" + +Their eyes met again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his. +Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of the +figures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convinced +and moved himself abundantly. Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filled +with the strangest mixture of passion--and a sort of disillusion--almost +contempt! If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of that +head and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more of +the _abandonment_ of love--have explored his own emotion more perfectly. + +Still, the situation was poignant enough--in one sense complete. Was +Raeburn still there--in that next room? + +"My answer?" he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in the +shelter of the flowers. For _he_ was aware of the practical facts--the +hour, the place--if she was not. + +She roused herself. + +"I can't," she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp, +however, prevented. "I _can't_ answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton. I +should have much to think over--so much! It might all look quite +different to me. You must give me time." + +"To-morrow?" he said quietly. + +"No!" she said impetuously, "not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and I +must have quiet and time. In a fortnight--not before. I will write." + +"Oh, impossible!" he said, with a little frown. + +And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over the +face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful +arms. She shrank from it--feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear; +but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on the +arm nearest to him. + +"I gave you no leave!" she said passionately, under her breath, as he +let her go. + +He met her flashing look with tender humbleness. + +"_Marcella_!" + +The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered--yet a chill had +passed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic. + +"_Not_ to-morrow," she repeated steadily, though dreading lest she +should burst into tears, "and not till I see clearly--till I can--" She +caught her breath. "Now I am going back to Lady Winterbourne." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +For some hours after he reached his own room, Wharton sat in front of +his open window, sunk in the swift rushing of thought, as a bramble +sways in a river. The July night first paled, then flushed into morning; +the sun rose above the empty street and the light mists enwrapping the +great city, before he threw himself on his bed, exhausted enough at last +to fall into a restless sleep. + +The speculation of those quick-pulsed hours was in the end about equally +divided between Marcella and the phrases and turns of his interview with +Mr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred in +him by that interview--heightened by the sight of Raeburn--that had +driven him past recall by the most natural of transitions, into his +declaration to Marcella. + +But he had no sooner reached his room than, at first with iron will, he +put the thought of Marcella, of the scene which had just passed, away +from him. His pulses were still quivering. No matter! It was the brain +he had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work. + +Mr. Pearson? Well!--Mr. Pearson had offered him a _bribe_; there could +be no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter for +an instant. Nor had he any illusions as to his own behaviour. Even now +he had no further right to the sleep of the honest man. + +Let him realise, however, what had happened. He had gone to Lady +Masterton's party, in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is upon +him, and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and +_eau de vie_ before the knife falls. Never had things looked so +desperate; never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted. +Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed property +would pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might be +ultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment, +socially and politically undone. + +There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce. +Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her; +and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate +claim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternately +attracted and repelled her. + +Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted. + +Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against the +window-frame close to the spot where, a quarter of an hour later, +Marcella had sat among the flowers--the dapper figure, the long, fair +moustaches, the hand playing with the eye-glass. + +"I have been asked--er--er--" What a conceited manner the fellow +had!--"to get some conversation with you, Mr. Wharton, on the subject of +the Damesley strike. You give me leave?" + +Whereupon, in less than ten minutes, the speaker had executed an +important commission, and, in offering Wharton a bribe of the most +bare-faced kind, had also found time for supplying him with a number of +the most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it. + +The masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully admitted the power of +the _Clarion_ and its owner. No doubt, it would not be possible for the +paper to keep up its strike fund indefinitely; there were perhaps +already signs of slackening. Still it had been maintained for a +considerable time; and so long as it was reckoned on, in spite of the +wide-spread misery and suffering now prevailing, the men would probably +hold out. + +In these circumstances, the principal employers concerned had thought it +best to approach so formidable an opponent and to put before him +information which might possibly modify his action. They had authorised +Mr. Pearson to give him a full account of what was proposed in the way +of re-organisation of the trade, including the probable advantages which +the work-people themselves would be likely to reap from it in the +future. + +Mr. Pearson ran in a few sentences through the points of the scheme. +Wharton stood about a yard away from him, his hands in his pockets, a +little pale and frowning--looking intently at the speaker. + +Then Mr. Pearson paused and cleared his throat. + +Well!--that was the scheme. His principals believed that, when both it +and the employers' determination to transfer their business to the +Continent rather than be beaten by the men were made fully known to the +owner of the _Clarion_, it must affect his point of view. Mr. Pearson +was empowered to give him any details he might desire. Meanwhile--so +confident were they in the reasonableness of the case that they even +suggested that the owner of the _Clarion_ himself should take part in +the new Syndicate. On condition of his future co-operation--it being +understood that the masters took their stand irrevocably on the +award--the men at present responsible for the formation of the Syndicate +proposed to allot Mr. Wharton ten Founder's Shares in the new +undertaking. + +Wharton, sitting alone, recalling these things, was conscious again of +that start in every limb, that sudden rush of blood to the face, as +though a lash had struck him. + +For in a few seconds his mind took in the situation. Only the day +before, a city acquaintance had said to him, "If you and your confounded +paper were out of the way, and this thing could be placed properly on +the market, there would be a boom in it at once. I am told that in +twenty-four hours the Founder's Shares would be worth 2,000 _l._ +apiece!" + +There was a pause of silence. Then Wharton threw a queer dark look at +the solicitor, and was conscious that his pulse was thumping. + +"There can be no question I think, Mr. Pearson--between you and me--as +to the nature of such a proposal as that!" + +"My dear sir," Mr. Pearson had interrupted hastily, "let me, above all, +ask you to take _time_--time enough, at any rate, to turn the matter +well over in your mind. The interests of a great many people, besides +yourself, are concerned. Don't give me an answer to-night; it is the +last thing I desire. I have thrown out my suggestion. Consider it. +To-morrow is Sunday. If you are disposed to carry it further, come and +see me Monday morning--that's all. I will be at your service at any +hour, and I can then give you a much more complete outline of the +intentions of the Company. Now I really must go and look for Mrs. +Pearson's carriage." + +Wharton followed the great man half mechanically across the little room, +his mind in a whirl of mingled rage and desire. Then suddenly he stopped +his companion: + +"Has George Denny anything to do with this proposal, Mr. Pearson?" + +Mr. Pearson paused, with a little air of vague cogitation. + +"George Denny? Mr. George Denny, the member for Westropp? I have had no +dealings whatever with that gentleman in the matter." + +Wharton let him pass. + +Then as he himself entered the tea-room, he perceived the bending form +of Aldous Raeburn chatting to Lady Winterbourne on his right, and that +tall whiteness close in front, waiting for him. + +His brain cleared in a flash. He was perfectly conscious that a bribe +had just been offered him, of the most daring and cynical kind, and that +he had received the offer in the tamest way. An insult had been put upon +him which had for ever revealed the estimate held of him by certain +shrewd people, for ever degraded him in his own eyes. + +Nevertheless, he was also conscious that the thing was done. The bribe +would be accepted, the risk taken. So far as his money-matters were +concerned he was once more a free man. The mind had adjusted itself, +reached its decision in a few minutes. + +And the first effect of the mingled excitement and self-contempt which +the decision brought with it had been to drive him into the scene with +Marcella. Instinctively he asked of passion to deliver him quickly from +the smart of a new and very disagreeable experience. + + * * * * * + +Well! why should he not take these men's offer? + +He was as much convinced as they that this whole matter of the strike +had of late come to a deadlock. So long as the public would give, the +workers, passionately certain of the justice of their own cause, and +filled with new ambitions after more decent living, would hold out. On +the other hand, he perfectly understood that the masters had also in +many ways a strong case, that they had been very hard hit by the strike, +and that many of them would rather close their works or transfer them +bodily to the Continent than give way. Some of the facts Pearson had +found time to mention had been certainly new and striking. + +At the same time he never disguised from himself for an instant that but +for a prospective 20,000 _l._ the facts concerned would not have +affected him in the least. Till to-night it had been to his interest to +back the strike, and to harass the employers. Now things were changed; +and he took a curious satisfaction in the quick movements of his own +intelligence, as his thought rapidly sketched the "curve" the _Clarion_ +would have to take, and the arguments by which he would commend it. + +As to his shares, they would be convertible of course into immediate +cash. Some man of straw would be forthcoming to buy what he would +possess in the name of another man of straw. It was not supposed--he +took for granted--by the men who had dared to tempt him, that he would +risk his whole political reputation and career for anything less than a +bird in the hand. + +Well! what were the chances of secrecy? + +Naturally _they_ stood to lose less by disclosure, a good deal, than he +did. And Denny, one of the principal employers, was his personal enemy. +He would be likely enough for the present to keep his name out of the +affair. But no man of the world could suppose that the transaction would +pass without his knowledge. Wharton's own hasty question to Mr. Pearson +on the subject seemed to himself now, in cold blood, a remarkably +foolish one. + +He walked up and down thinking this point out. It was the bitter pill of +the whole affair. + +In the end, with a sudden recklessness of youth and resource, he +resolved to dare it. There would _not_ be much risk. Men of business do +not as a rule blazon their own dirty work, and public opinion would be +important to the new Syndicate. + +_Some_ risk, of course, there would be. Well! his risks, as they stood, +were pretty considerable. He chose the lesser--not without something of +a struggle, some keen personal smart. He had done a good many mean and +questionable things in his time, but never anything as gross as this. +The thought of what his relation to a certain group of men--to Denny +especially--would be in the future, stung sharply. But it is the part +of the man of action to put both scruple and fear behind him on +occasion. His career was in question. + +Craven? Well, Craven would be a difficulty. He would telegraph to him +first thing in the morning before the offices closed, and see him on +Monday. For Marcella's sake the man must be managed--somehow. + +And--Marcella! How should she ever know, ever suspect! She already +disliked the violence with which the paper had supported the strike. He +would find no difficulty whatever in justifying all that she or the +public would see, to her. + +Then insensibly he let his thoughts glide into thinking of the money. +Presently he drew a sheet of paper towards him and covered it with +calculations as to his liabilities. By George! how well it worked out! +By the time he threw it aside, and walked to the window for air, he +already felt himself a _bonâ-fide_ supporter of the Syndicate--the +promoter in the public interest of a just and well-considered scheme. + +Finally, with a little joyous energetic movement which betrayed the +inner man, he flung down his cigarette, and turned to write an ardent +letter to Marcella, while the morning sun stole into the dusty room. + +Difficult? of course! Both now and in the future. It would take him half +his time yet--and he could ill afford it--to bring her bound and +captive. He recognised in her the southern element, so strangely mated +with the moral English temper. Yet he smiled over it. The subtleties of +the struggle he foresaw enchanted him. + +And she would be mastered! In this heightened state of nerve his man's +resolution only rose the more fiercely to the challenge of her +resistance. + +Nor should she cheat him with long delays. His income would be his own +again, and life decently easy. He already felt himself the vain showman +of her beauty. + +A thought of Lady Selina crossed his mind, producing amusement and +compassion--indulgent amusement, such as the young man is apt to feel +towards the spinster of thirty-five who pays him attention. A certain +sense of re-habilitation, too, which at the moment was particularly +welcome. For, no doubt, he might have married her and her fortune had he +so chosen. As it was, why didn't she find some needy boy to take pity on +her? There were plenty going, and she must have abundance of money. Old +Alresford, too, was fast doddering off the stage, and then where would +she be--without Alresford House, or Busbridge, or those various other +pedestals which had hitherto held her aloft? + + * * * * * + +Early on Sunday morning Wharton telegraphed to Craven, directing him to +"come up at once for consultation." The rest of the day the owner of the +_Clarion_ spent pleasantly on the river with Mrs. Lane and a party of +ladies, including a young Duchess, who was pretty, literary, and +socialistic. At night he went down to the _Clarion_ office, and produced +a leader on the position of affairs at Damesley which, to the practised +eye, contained one paragraph--but one only--wherein the dawn of a new +policy might have been discerned. + +Naturally the juxtaposition of events at the moment gave him +considerable anxiety. He knew very well that the Damesley bargain could +not be kept waiting. The masters were losing heavily every day, and were +not likely to let him postpone the execution of his part of the contract +for a fortnight or so to suit his own convenience. It was like the sale +of an "old master." His influence must be sold now--at the ripe +moment--or not at all. + +At the same time it was very awkward. In one short fortnight the meeting +of the party would be upon him. Surrender on the Damesley question would +give great offence to many of the Labour members. It would have to be +very carefully managed--very carefully thought out. + +By eleven o'clock on Monday he was in Mr. Pearson's office. After the +first involuntary smile, concealed by the fair moustaches, and instantly +dismissed, with which the eminent lawyer greeted the announcement of his +visitor's name, the two augurs carried through their affairs with +perfect decorum. Wharton realised, indeed, that he was being firmly +handled. Mr. Pearson gave the _Clarion_ a week in which to accomplish +its retreat and drop its strike fund. And the fund was to be "checked" +as soon as possible. + +A little later, when Wharton abruptly demanded a guarantee of secrecy, +Mr. Pearson allowed himself his first--visible--smile. + +"My dear sir, are such things generally made public property? I can +give you no better assurance than you can extract yourself from the +circumstances. As to writing--well!--I should advise you very strongly +against anything of the sort. A long experience has convinced me that in +any delicate negotiation the less that is _written_ the better." + +Towards the end Wharton turned upon his companion sharply, and asked: + +"How did you discover that I wanted money?" + +Mr. Pearson lifted his eyebrows pleasantly. + +"Most of the things in this world, Mr. Wharton, that one wants to know, +can be found out. Now--I have no wish to hurry you--not in the least, +but I may perhaps mention that I have an important appointment directly. +Don't you think--we might settle our business?" + +Wharton was half-humorously conscious of an inward leap of fury with the +necessities which had given this man--to whom he had taken an +instantaneous dislike--the power of dealing thus summarily with the +member for West Brookshire. However, there was no help for it; he +submitted, and twenty minutes afterwards he left Lincoln's Inn carrying +documents in the breast-pocket of his coat which, when brought under his +bankers' notice, would be worth to him an immediate advance of some +eight thousand pounds. The remainder of the purchase-money for his +"shares" would be paid over to him as soon as his part of the contract +had been carried out. + +He did not, however, go to his bank, but straight to the _Clarion_ +office, where he had a mid-day appointment with Louis Craven. + +At first sight of the tall, narrow-shouldered form and anxious face +waiting for him in his private room, Wharton felt a movement of +ill-humour. + +Craven had the morning's _Clarion_ in his hand. + +"This _cannot_ mean"--he said, when they had exchanged a brief +salutation--"that the paper is backing out?" + +He pointed to the suspicious paragraph in Wharton's leader, his delicate +features quivering with an excitement he could ill repress. + +"Well, let us sit down and discuss the thing," said Wharton, closing the +door, "that's what I wired to you for." + +He offered Craven a cigarette, which was refused, took one himself, and +the two men sat confronting each other with a writing-table between +them. Wharton was disagreeably conscious at times of the stiff papers in +his coat-pocket, and was perhaps a little paler than usual. Otherwise he +showed no trace of mental disturbance; and Craven, himself jaded and +sleepless, was struck with a momentary perception of his companion's +boyish good looks--the tumbling curls, that Wharton straightened now and +then, the charming blue eyes, the athlete's frame. Any stranger would +have taken Craven for the older man; in reality it was the other way. + +The conversation lasted nearly an hour. Craven exhausted both argument +and entreaty, though when the completeness of the retreat resolved upon +had been disclosed to him, the feeling roused in him was so fierce that +he could barely maintain his composure. He had been living among scenes +of starvation and endurance, which, to his mind, had all the character +of martyrdom. These men and women were struggling for two objects--the +power to live more humanly, and the free right of combination--to both +of which, if need were, he would have given his own life to help them +without an instant's hesitation. Behind his blinking manner he saw +everything with the idealist's intensity, the reformer's passion. To be +fair to an employer was not in his power. To spend his last breath, were +it called for, in the attempt to succour the working-man against his +capitalist oppressors, would have seemed to him the merest matter of +course. + +And his mental acuteness was quite equal to his enthusiasm, and far more +evident. In his talk with Wharton, he for a long time avoided, as +before, out of a certain inner disdain, the smallest touch of sentiment. +He pointed out--what, indeed, Wharton well knew--that the next two or +three weeks of the strike would be the most critical period in its +history; that, if the work-people could only be carried through them, +they were almost sure of victory. He gave his own reasons for believing +that the employers could ultimately be coerced, he offered proof of +yielding among them, proof also that the better men in their ranks were +fully alive to and ashamed of the condition of the workers. As to the +Syndicate, he saw no objection to it, _provided_ the workers' claims +were first admitted. Otherwise it would only prove a more powerful +engine of oppression. + +Wharton's arguments may perhaps be left to the imagination. He would +have liked simply to play the proprietor and the master--to say, "This +is my decision, those are my terms--take my work or leave it." But +Craven was Miss Boyce's friend; he was also a Venturist. Chafing under +both facts, Wharton found that he must state his case. + +And he did state it with his usual ability. He laid great stress on +"information from a private source which I cannot disregard," to the +effect that, if the resistance went on, the trade would be broken up; +that several of the largest employers were on the point of making +arrangements for Italian factories. + +"I know," he said finally, "that but for the _Clarion_ the strike would +drop. Well! I have come to the conclusion that the responsibility is too +heavy. I shall be doing the men themselves more harm than good. There is +the case in a nutshell. We differ--I can't help that. The responsibility +is mine." + +Craven rose with a quick, nervous movement. The prophet spoke at last. + +"You understand," he said, laying a thin hand on the table, "that the +condition of the workers in this trade is _infamous_!--that the award +and your action together plunge them back into a state of things which +is a _shame_ and a _curse_ to England!" + +Wharton made no answer. He, too, had risen, and was putting away some +papers in a drawer. A tremor ran through Craven's tall frame; and for an +instant, as his eye rested on his companion, the idea of foul play +crossed his mind. He cast it out, that he might deal calmly with his own +position. + +"Of course, you perceive," he said, as he took up his hat, "that I can +no longer on these terms remain the _Clarion's_ correspondent. Somebody +else must be found to do this business." + +"I regret your decision, immensely," said Wharton, with perfect +suavity, "but of course I understand it. I trust, however, that you will +not leave us altogether. I can give you plenty of work that will suit +you. Here, for instance"--he pointed to a pile of Blue Books from the +Labour Commission lying on the table--"are a number of reports that want +analysing and putting before the public. You could do them in town at +your leisure." + +Craven struggled with himself. His first instinct was to fling the offer +in Wharton's face. Then he thought of his wife; of the tiny new +household just started with such small, happy, self-denying shifts; of +the woman's inevitable lot, of the hope of a child. + +"Thank you," he said, in a husky voice. "I will consider, I will write." + +Wharton nodded to him pleasantly, and he went. + +The owner of the _Clarion_ drew a long breath. + +"Now I think on the whole it would serve my purpose best to sit down and +write to _her_--after that. It would be well that _my_ account should +come first." + +A few hours later, after an interview with his bankers and a further +spell of letter-writing, Wharton descended the steps of his club in a +curious restless state. The mortgage on the _Clarion_ had been arranged +for, his gambling debts settled, and all his other money matters were +successfully in train. Nevertheless, the exhilaration of the morning had +passed into misgiving and depression. + +Vague presentiments hung about him all day, whether in the House of +Commons or elsewhere, and it was not till he found himself on his legs +at a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the Government +Bill and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence in +the general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton, and Harry +Wharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power. + +A letter from Marcella--written before she had received either of +his--reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting. A +touching letter!--yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcerted +him. + +"Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. It +might be--I believe it would be--best for us both. But if you will +not--if I must give my answer, then, as I said, I must have time. It is +only quite recently that I have _realised_ the enormity of what I did +last year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life--or +another's--a second time. Not to be _sure_ is for me torment. Why +perfect simplicity of feeling--which would scorn the very notion of +questioning itself--seems to be beyond me, I do not know. That it is so +fills me with a sort of shame and bitterness. But I must follow my +nature. + +"So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your +'cause,' your life-work, attracts me strongly. I should not any longer +accept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion matters +infinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with a +friend 'in everything except opinion.' All that would matter to me now +would be to feel that _your_ heart was wholly in your work, in your +public acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I might +differ from. But there--for we must be frank with each other--is just my +difficulty. _Why_ do you do so many contradictory things? Why do you +talk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you can +with the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talk +their language; you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems; you accept +their standards. Oh!--to the really 'consecrate' in heart and thought I +could give my life so easily, so slavishly even! There is no one weaker +than I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon--and a strength, +pure at the core, that I can respect and follow. + +"Here in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to the +best of whom life is very real and simple--and often, of course, very +sad. And I am another being in it from what I was at Lady +Winterbourne's. Everything looks differently to me. No, no! you must +please wait till the inner voice speaks so that I can hear it +plainly--for your sake at least as much as for mine. If you persisted in +coming to see me now, I should have to put an end to it all." + +"Strange is the modern woman!" thought Wharton to himself, not without +sharp pique, as he pondered that letter in the course of his drive home +from the meeting. "I talk to her of passion, and she asks me in return +why I do things inconsistent with my political opinions! puts me through +a moral catechism, in fact! What is the meaning of it all--confound it! +--her state of mind and mine? Is the good old _ars amandi_ perishing out +of the world? Let some Stendhal come and tell us why!" + +But he sat up to answer her, and could not get free from an inward +pleading or wrestle with her, which haunted him through all the +intervals of these rapid days. + +Life while they lasted was indeed a gymnast's contest of breath and +endurance. The _Clarion_ made its retreat in Wharton's finest style, and +the fact rang through labouring England. The strike-leaders came up from +the Midlands; Wharton had to see them. He was hotly attacked in the +House privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennett +showed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile the Conservative papers talked +the usual employers' political economy; and the Liberal papers, whose +support of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of no +particular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they were +glad to get, and went in strongly for the award. + +Through it all Wharton showed extraordinary skill. The columns of the +_Clarion_ teemed with sympathetic appeals to the strikers, flanked by +long statements of "hard fact"--the details of foreign competition and +the rest, the plans of the masters--freely supplied him by Mr. Pearson. +With Bennett and his colleagues in the House he took a bold line; +admitted that he had endangered his popularity both inside Parliament +and out of it at a particularly critical moment; and implied, though he +did not say, that some men were still capable of doing independent +things to their own hurt. Meanwhile he pushed a number of other matters +to the front, both in the paper and in his own daily doings. He made at +least two important speeches in the provinces, in the course of these +days, on the Bill before the House of Lords; he asked questions in +Parliament on the subject of the wages paid to Government employés; and +he opened an attack on the report of a certain Conservative Commission +which had been rousing the particular indignation of a large mass of +South London working men. + +At the end of ten days the strike was over; the workers, sullen and +enraged, had submitted, and the plans of the Syndicate were in all the +papers. Wharton, looking round him, realised to his own amazement that +his political position had rather gained than suffered. The general +impression produced by his action had been on the whole that of a man +strong enough to take a line of his own, even at the risk of +unpopularity. There was a new tone of respect among his opponents, and, +resentful as some of the Labour members were, Wharton did not believe +that what he had done would ultimately damage his chances on the 10th at +all. He had vindicated his importance, and he held his head high, +adopting towards his chances of the leadership a strong and careless +tone that served him well. + +Meanwhile there were, of course, clever people behind the scenes who +looked on and laughed. But they held their tongues, and Wharton, who had +carefully avoided the mention of names during the negotiations with +Pearson, did his best to forget them. He felt uncomfortable, indeed, +when he passed the portly Denny in the House or in the street. Denny had +a way of looking at the member for West Brookshire out of the corner of +a small, slit-like eye. He did it more than usual during these days, +and Wharton had only to say to himself that for all things there is a +price--which the gods exact. + +Wilkins, since the first disclosure of the _Clarion_ change of policy, +had been astonishingly quiet. Wharton had made certain of violent attack +from him. On the contrary, Wilkins wore now in the House a subdued and +pre-occupied air that escaped notice even with his own party in the +general fulness of the public mind. A few caustic north-countryisms on +the subject of the _Clarion_ and its master did indeed escape him now +and then, and were reported from mouth to mouth; but on the whole he lay +very low. + +Still, whether in elation or anxiety, Wharton seemed to himself +throughout the whole period to be a _fighter_, straining every muscle, +his back to the wall and his hand against every man. There at the end of +the fortnight stood the three goal-posts that must be passed, in victory +or defeat; the meeting that would for the present decide his +parliamentary prospects, his interview with Marcella, and--the +confounded annual meeting of the "People's Banking Company," with all +its threatened annoyances. + +He became, indeed, more and more occupied with this latter business as +the days went on. But he could see no way of evading it. He would have +to fight it; luckily, now, he had the money. + +The annual meeting took place two days before that fixed for the +committee of the Labour party. Wharton was not present at it, and in +spite of ample warning he gave way to certain lively movements of +disgust and depression when at his club he first got hold of the +evening papers containing the reports. His name, of course, figured +amply in the denunciations heaped upon the directors of all dates; the +sums which he with others were supposed to have made out of the first +dealings with the shares on the Stock Exchange were freely mentioned; +and the shareholders as a body had shown themselves most uncomfortably +violent. He at once wrote off a letter to the papers disclaiming all +responsibility for the worst irregularities which had occurred, and +courting full enquiry--a letter which, as usual, both convinced and +affected himself. + +Then he went, restless and fuming, down to the House. Bennett passed him +in the lobby with an uneasy and averted eye. Whereupon Wharton seized +upon him, carried him into the Library, and talked to him, till Bennett, +who, in spite of his extraordinary shrewdness and judgment in certain +departments, was a babe in matters of company finance, wore a somewhat +cheered countenance. + +They came out into the lobby together, Wharton holding his head very +high. + +"I shall deal with the whole thing in my speech on Thursday!" he said +aloud, as they parted. + +Bennett gave him a friendly nod and smile. + +There was in this little man, with his considerable brain and his poet's +heart, something of the "imperishable child." Like a wholesome child, he +did not easily "think evil"; his temper towards all men--even the owners +of "way-leaves" and mining royalties--was optimist. He had the most +naďve admiration for Wharton's ability, and for the academic +attainments he himself secretly pined for; and to the young complex +personality itself he had taken from the beginning an unaccountable +liking. The bond between the two, though incongruous and recent, was +real; Wharton was as glad of Bennett's farewell kindness as Bennett had +been of the younger man's explanations. + +So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting, +championing, explaining; while Wharton, laden with parliamentary +business, vivid, unabashed, and resourceful, let it be known to all whom +it concerned that in his solicitor's opinion he had a triumphant answer +to all charges; and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the soreness +of those poor devils of shareholders. + +The hours passed on. Wednesday was mainly spent by Wharton in a series +of conferences and intrigues either at the House or at his club; when he +drove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged--the +train irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of the +party certain. + +Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable; but +the vehemence and rancour shown by the great Nehemiah during the summer +in the pursuit of his anti-Wharton campaign had to some extent defeated +themselves. A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not a +formidable weapon. Wharton would have felt perfectly easy on the subject +but for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins's part during the last +forty-eight hours--whenever, in fact, the two men had run across each +other in the House--marked by a sort of new and insolent good humour, +that puzzled him. But there is a bravado of defeat. Yes!--he thought +Wilkins was disposed of. + +From his present point of ease--debts paid, banker propitiated, income +assured--it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnight +before. Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain it +must have been accepted. After all his luck had held! Once get through +this odious company business--as to which, with a pleasing +consciousness of turning the tables, he had peremptorily instructed Mr. +Pearson himself--and the barque of his fortunes was assured. + +Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs from +him. His very hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood. There +stole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought--a +world well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rule +small inclination to dwell therein. But he was touched and shaken +to-night by his own achievement. The heavenly powers had been +unexpectedly kind to him, and he was half moved to offer them something +in return. + +"Do as you are done by"--that was an ethic he understood. And in moments +of feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to his +friends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtful +thing--but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vague +philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his +mind. The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christian +never. He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of +unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhaps +the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. He +would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling +to think of. + +_Marcella_!--ah! Marcella! He gave himself to the thought of her with a +new and delightful tenderness which had in it elements of compunction. +After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers, he had +instantly written to her. "Every public man"--he had said to her, +finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her--"is +liable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are at +once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe +perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask--I +know--that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your +thoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your +face! The time is long!" + +To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had rung sadly +and coldly. No doubt Louis Craven had something to do with it. It would +have alarmed him could he simply have found the time to think about it. +Yet she was ready to see him on the 11th; and his confidence in his own +powers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he had +told her at Lady Masterton's! Well! What passion ever yet but had its +subterfuges? One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish, +wild falcon that she was. Then--pleasure and brave living! And she also +should have her way. She should breathe into him the language of those +great illusions he had found it of late so hard to feign with her; and +they two would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, passion, +affairs--life explored and exploited--and at last--"_que la mort me +treuve plantant mes choulx--mais nonchalant d'elle!--et encore plus de +mon jardin imparfaict_!" + +He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the same +temper in which the devout man would have made an act of faith. Then, +with a long breath and a curious emotion, he went to try and sleep +himself into the new day. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +The following afternoon about six o'clock Marcella came in from her +second round. After a very busy week, work happened to be slack; and she +had been attending one or two cases in and near Brown's Buildings rather +because they were near than because they seriously wanted her. She +looked to see whether there was any letter or telegram from the office +which would have obliged her to go out again. Nothing was to be seen; +and she put down her bag and cloak, childishly glad of the extra hour of +rest. + +She was, indeed, pale and worn. The moral struggle which had filled the +past fortnight from end to end had deepened all the grooves and strained +the forces of life; and the path, though glimmering, was not wholly +plain. + +A letter lay unfinished in her drawer--if she sent it that night, there +would be little necessity or inducement for Wharton to climb those +stairs on the morrow. Yet, if he held her to it, she must see him. + +As the sunset and the dusk crept on she still sat silent and alone, sunk +in a depression which showed itself in every line of the drooping form. +She was degraded in her own eyes. The nature of the impulses which had +led her to give Wharton the hold upon her she had given him had become +plain to her. What lay between them, and the worst impulses that poison +the lives of women, but differences of degree, of expression? After +those wild hours of sensuous revolt, a kind of moral terror was upon +her. + +What had worked in her? What was at the root of this vehemence of moral +reaction, this haunting fear of losing for ever the _best_ in +life--self-respect, the comradeship of the good, communion with things +noble and unstained--which had conquered at last the mere _woman_, the +weakness of vanity and of sex? She hardly knew. Only there was in her a +sort of vague thankfulness _for her daily work_. It did not seem to be +possible to see one's own life solely under the aspects of selfish +desire while hands and mind were busy with the piteous realities of +sickness and of death. From every act of service--from every contact +with the patience and simplicity of the poor--_something_ had spoken to +her, that divine ineffable something for ever "set in the world," like +beauty, like charm, for the winning of men to itself. "Follow truth!" it +said to her in faint mysterious breathings--"the truth of your own +heart. The sorrow to which it will lead you is the only _joy_ that +remains to you." + +Suddenly she looked round her little room with a rush of tenderness. The +windows were open to the evening and the shouts of children playing in +the courtyard came floating up. A bowl of Mellor roses scented the air; +the tray for her simple meal stood ready, and beside it a volume of "The +Divine Comedy," one of her mother's very rare gifts to her, in her +motherless youth--for of late she had turned thirstily to poetry. There +was a great peace and plainness about it all; and, besides, touches of +beauty--tokens of the soul. Her work spoke in it; called to her; +promised comfort and ennobling. She thought with yearning, too, of her +parents; of the autumn holiday she was soon to spend with them. Her +heart went out--sorely--to all the primal claims upon it. + + * * * * * + +Nevertheless, clear as was the inner resolution, the immediate future +filled her with dread. Her ignorance of herself--her excitable +folly--had given Wharton rights which her conscience admitted. He would +not let her go without a struggle, and she must face it. + +As to the incidents which had happened during the fortnight--Louis +Craven's return, and the scandal of the "People's Banking Company"--they +had troubled and distressed her; but it would not be true to say that +they had had any part in shaping her slow determination. Louis Craven +was sore and bitter. She was very sorry for him; and his reports of the +Damesley strikers made her miserable. But she took Wharton's "leaders" +in the _Clarion_ for another equally competent opinion on the same +subject; and told herself that she was no judge. As for the Company +scandal, she had instantly and proudly responded to the appeal of his +letter, and put the matter out of her thoughts, till at least he should +give his own account. So much at any rate she owed to the man who had +stood by her through the Hurd trial. Marcella Boyce would not readily +believe in his dishonour! She did not in fact believe it. In spite of +later misgivings, the impression of his personality, as she had first +conceived it, in the early days at Mellor, was still too strong. + +No--rather--she had constantly recollected throughout the day what was +going on in Parliament. These were for him testing and critical hours, +and she felt a wistful sympathy. Let him only rise to his part--take up +his great task. + + * * * * * + +An imperious knocking on her thin outer door roused her. She went to +open it and saw Anthony Craven,--the perspiration standing on his brow, +his delicate cripple's face white and fierce. + +"I want to talk to you," he said without preface. "Have you seen the +afternoon papers?" + +"No," she said in astonishment, "I was just going to send for them. What +is wrong?" + +He followed her into the sitting-room without speaking; and then he +unfolded the _Pall Mall_ he had in his hand and pointed to a large-print +paragraph on the central page with a shaking hand. + +Marcella read: + +"EXCITING SCENES IN THE HOUSE.--MEETING OF THE LABOUR MEMBERS.--A +committee of the Labour representatives in Parliament met this afternoon +at 2 o'clock for the purpose of electing a chairman, and appointing +whips to the party, thus constituting a separate parliamentary group. +Much interest was felt in the proceedings, which it was universally +supposed would lead to the appointment of Mr. H. S. Wharton, the member +for West Brookshire, as chairman and leader of the Labour party. The +excitement of the meeting and in the House may be imagined when--after a +short but very cordial and effective speech from Mr. Bennett, the member +for North Whinwick, in support of Mr. Wharton's candidature--Mr. +Wilkins, the miner's member for Derlingham, rose and made a series of +astounding charges against the personal honour of the member for West +Brookshire. Put briefly, they amount to this: that during the recent +strike at Damesley the support of the _Clarion_ newspaper, of which Mr. +Wharton is owner and practically editor, was _bought_ by the employers +in return for certain shares in the new Syndicate; that the money for +these shares--which is put as high as 20,000 _l._--had already gone into +Mr. Wharton's private pocket; and that the change of policy on the part +of the _Clarion_, which led to the collapse of the strike, was thus +entirely due to what the Labour members can only regard under the +circumstances as a bribe of a most disgraceful kind. The effect produced +has been enormous. The debate is still proceeding, and reporters have +been excluded. But I hope to send a fuller account later." + +Marcella dropped the paper from her hand. + +"What does it mean?" she said to her companion. + +"Precisely what it says," replied Anthony, with a nervous impatience he +could not repress. "Now," he added, as his lameness forced him to sit +down, "will you kindly allow me some conversation with you? It was +you--practically--who introduced Louis to that man. You meant well to +Louis, and Mr. Wharton has been your friend. We therefore feel that we +owe you some explanation. For that paragraph"--he pointed to the +paper--"is, substantially--Louis's doing, and mine." + +"_Yours?_" she said mechanically. "But Louis has been going on working +for the paper--I persuaded him." + +"I know. It was not we who actually discovered the thing. But we set a +friend to work. Louis has had his suspicions all along. And at last--by +the merest chance--we got the facts." + +Then he told the story, staring at her the while with his sparkling +eyes, his thin invalid's fingers fidgeting with his hat. If there was in +truth any idea in his mind that the relations between his companion and +Harry Wharton were more than those of friendship, it did not avail to +make him spare her in the least. He was absorbed in vindictive feeling, +which applied to her also. He might _say_ for form's sake that she had +meant well; but in fact he regarded her at this moment as a sort of +odious Canidia whose one function had been to lure Louis to misfortune. +Cut off himself, by half a score of peculiarities, physical and other, +from love, pleasure, and power, Anthony Craven's whole affections and +ambitions had for years centred in his brother. And now Louis was not +only violently thrown out of employment, but compromised by the +connection with the _Clarion_; was, moreover, saddled with a wife--and +in debt. + +So that his explanation was given with all the edge he could put upon +it. Let her stop him, if she pleased!--but she did not stop him. + +The facts were these: + +Louis had, indeed, been persuaded by Marcella, for the sake of his wife +and bread and butter, to go on working for the _Clarion_, as a reviewer. +But his mind was all the time feverishly occupied with the apostasy of +the paper and its causes. Remembering Wharton's sayings and letters +throughout the struggle, he grew less and less able to explain the +incident by the reasons Wharton had himself supplied, and more and more +convinced that there was some mystery behind. + +He and Anthony talked the matter over perpetually. One evening Anthony +brought home from a meeting of the Venturists that George Denny, the son +of one of the principal employers in the Damesley trade, whose name he +had mentioned once before in Marcella's ears. Denny was by this time the +candidate for a Labour constituency, an ardent Venturist, and the +laughing-stock of his capitalist family, with whom, however, he was +still on more or less affectionate terms. His father thought him an +incorrigible fool, and his mother wailed over him to her friends. But +they were still glad to see him whenever he would condescend to visit +them; and all friction on money matters was avoided by the fact that +Denny had for long refused to take any pecuniary help from his father, +and was nevertheless supporting himself tolerably by lecturing and +literature. + +Denny was admitted into the brothers' debate, and had indeed puzzled +himself a good deal over the matter already. He had taken a lively +interest in the strike, and the articles in the _Clarion_ which led to +its collapse had seemed to him both inexplicable and enraging. + +After his talk with the Cravens, he went away, determined to dine at +home on the earliest possible opportunity. He announced himself +accordingly in Hertford Street, was received with open arms, and then +deliberately set himself, at dinner and afterwards, to bait his father +on social and political questions, which, as a rule, were avoided +between them. + +Old Denny fell into the trap, lost his temper and self-control +completely, and at a mention of Harry Wharton--skilfully introduced at +the precisely right moment--as an authority on some matter connected +with the current Labour programme, he threw himself back in his chair +with an angry laugh. + +"Wharton? _Wharton_? You quote that fellow to _me?_" + +"Why shouldn't I?" said the son, quietly. + +"Because, my good sir,--he's a _rogue_,--that's all!--a common rogue, +from my point of view even--still more from yours." + +"I know that any vile tale you can believe about a Labour leader you do, +father," said George Denny, with dignity. + +Whereupon the older man thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and +drawing out a small leather case, in which he was apt to carry important +papers about with him, extracted from it a list containing names and +figures, and held it with a somewhat tremulous hand under his son's +eyes. + +"Read it, sir! and hold your tongue! Last week my friends and I _bought_ +that man--and his precious paper--for a trifle of 20,000 _l._ or +thereabouts. It paid us to do it, and we did it. I dare say _you_ will +think the preceding questionable. In my eyes it was perfectly +legitimate, a piece of _bonne guerre_. The man was ruining a whole +industry. Some of us had taken his measure, had found out too--by good +luck!--that he was in sore straits for money--mortgages on the paper, +gambling debts, and a host of other things--discovered a shrewd man to +play him, and made our bid! He rose to it like a gudgeon--gave us no +trouble whatever. I need not say, of course"--he added, looking up at +his son--"that I have shown you that paper in the _very strictest +confidence_. But it seemed to me it was my duty as a father to warn you +of the nature of some of your associates!" + +"I understand," said George Denny, as, after a careful study of the +paper--which contained, for the help of the writer's memory, a list of +the sums paid and founders' shares allotted to the various "promoters" +of the new Syndicate--he restored it to its owner. "Well, I, father, +have _this_ to say in return. I came here to-night in the hope of +getting from you this very information, and in the public interest I +hold myself not only free but _bound_ to make public use of it, at the +earliest possible opportunity!" + +The family scene may be imagined. But both threats and blandishments +were entirely lost upon the son. There was in him an idealist obstinacy +which listened to nothing but the cry of a _cause_, and he declared that +nothing would or should prevent him from carrying the story of the bribe +direct to Nehemiah Wilkins, Wharton's chief rival in the House, and so +saving the country and the Labour party from the disaster and disgrace +of Wharton's leadership. There was no time to lose, the party meeting in +the House was only two days off. + +At the end of a long struggle, which exhausted everybody concerned, and +was carried on to a late hour of the night, Denny _pčre_, influenced by +a desire to avoid worse things--conscious, too, of the abundant evidence +he possessed of Wharton's acceptance and private use of the money--and, +probably, when it came to the point, not unwilling,--under +compulsion!--to tumble such a hero from his pedestal, actually wrote, +under his son's advice, a letter to Wilkins. It was couched in the most +cautious language, and professed to be written in the interests of +Wharton himself, to put an end "to certain ugly and unfounded rumours +that have been brought to my knowledge." The negotiation itself was +described in the driest business terms. "Mr. Wharton, upon cause shown, +consented to take part in the founding of the Syndicate, and in return +for his assistance, was allotted ten founders' shares in the new +company. The transaction differed in nothing from those of ordinary +business"--a last sentence slily added by the Socialist son, and +innocently accepted by one of the shrewdest of men. + +After which Master George Denny scarcely slept, and by nine o'clock next +morning was in a hansom on his way to Wilkins's lodgings in Westminster. +The glee of that black-bearded patriot hardly needs description. He +flung himself on the letter with a delight and relief so exuberant that +George Denny went off to another more phlegmatic member of the +anti-Wharton "cave," with entreaties that an eye should be kept on the +member for Derlingham, lest he should do or disclose anything before the +dramatic moment. + +Then he himself spent the next forty-eight hours in ingenious efforts to +put together certain additional information as to the current value of +founders' shares in the new company, the nature and amount of Wharton's +debts, and so on. Thanks to his father's hints he was able in the end +to discover quite enough to furnish forth a supplementary statement. So +that, when the 10th arrived, the day rose upon a group of men +breathlessly awaiting a play within a play--with all their parts +rehearsed, and the prompter ready. + + * * * * * + +Such in substance, was Anthony's story. So carried away was he by the +excitement and triumph of it, that he soon ceased to notice what its +effect might be upon his pale and quick-breathing companion. + +"And now what has happened?" she asked him abruptly, when at last he +paused. + +"Why, you saw!" he said in astonishment, pointing to the evening +paper--"at least the beginning of it. Louis is at the House now. I +expect him every moment. He said he would follow me here." + +Marcella pressed her hands upon her eyes a moment as though in pain. +Anthony looked at her with a tardy prick of remorse. + +"I hear Louis's knock!" he said, springing up. "May I let him in?" And, +without waiting for reply, he hobbled as fast as his crutch would carry +him to the outer door. Louis came in. Marcella rose mechanically. He +paused on the threshold, his short sight trying to make her out in the +dusk. Then his face softened and quivered. He walked forward quickly. + +"I know you have something to forgive us," he said, "and that this will +distress you. But we could not give you warning. Everything was so +rapid, and the public interests involved so crushing." + +He was flushed with vengeance and victory, but as he approached her his +look was deprecating--almost timid. Only the night before, Anthony for +the first time had suggested to him an idea about her. He did not +believe it--had had no time in truth to think of it in the rush of +events. But now he saw her, the doubt pulled at his heart. Had he indeed +stabbed the hand that had tried to help him? + +Anthony touched him impatiently on the arm. "What has happened, Louis? I +have shown Miss Boyce the first news." + +"It is all over," said Louis, briefly. "The meeting was breaking up as I +came away. It had lasted nearly five hours. There was a fierce fight, of +course, between Wharton and Wilkins. Then Bennett withdrew his +resolution, refused to be nominated himself--nearly broke down, in fact, +they say; he had always been attached to Wharton, and had set his heart +upon making him leader--and finally, after a long wrangle, Molloy was +appointed chairman of the party." + +"Good!" cried Anthony, not able to suppress the note of exultation. + +Louis did not speak. He looked at Marcella. + +"Did he defend himself?" she asked in a low, sharp voice. + +Louis shrugged his shoulders. + +"Oh, yes. He spoke--but it did him no good. Everybody agreed that the +speech was curiously ineffective. One would have expected him to do it +better. But he seemed to be knocked over. He said, of course, that he +had satisfied himself, and given proof in the paper, that the strike +could not be maintained, and that being so he was free to join any +syndicate he pleased. But he spoke amid dead silence, and there was a +general groan when he sat down. Oh, it was not this business only! +Wilkins made great play in part of his speech with the Company scandal +too. It is a complete smash all round." + +"Which he will never get over?" said Marcella, quickly. + +"Not with our men. What he may do elsewhere is another matter. Anthony +has told you how it came out?" + +She made a sign of assent. She was sitting erect and cold, her hands +round her knees. + +"I did not mean to keep anything from you," he said in a low voice, +bending to her. "I know--you admired him--that he had given you cause. +But--my mind has been on _fire_--ever since I came back from those +Damesley scenes!" + +She offered no reply. Silence fell upon all three for a minute or two; +and in the twilight each could hardly distinguish the others. Every now +and then the passionate tears rose in Marcella's eyes; her heart +contracted. That very night when he spoke to her, when he used all those +big words to her about his future, those great ends for which he had +claimed her woman's help--he had these things in his mind. + +"I think," said Louis Craven presently, touching her gently on the +arm--he had tried once in vain to attract her attention--"I think I hear +some one asking for you outside on the landing--Mrs. Hurd seems to be +bringing them in." + +As he spoke, Anthony suddenly sprang to his feet, and the outer door +opened. + +"Louis!" cried Anthony, "it is _he_!" + +"Are yer at home, miss?" said Minta Hurd, putting in her head; "I can +hardly see, it's so dark. Here's a gentleman wants to see you." + +As she spoke, Wharton passed her, and stood--arrested--by the sight of +the three figures. At the same moment Mrs. Hurd lit the gas in the +little passage. The light streamed upon his face, and showed him the +identity of the two men standing beside Marcella. + +Never did Marcella forget that apparition--the young grace and power of +the figure--the indefinable note of wreck, of catastrophe--the Lucifer +brightness of the eyes in the set face. She moved forward. Anthony +stopped her. + +"Good-night, Miss Boyce!" + +She shook hands unconsciously with him and with Louis. The two Cravens +turned to the door. Wharton advanced into the room, and let them pass. + +"You have been in a hurry to tell your story!" he said, as Louis walked +by him. + +Contemptuous hate breathed from every feature, but he was perfectly +self-controlled. + +"Yes--" said Craven, calmly--"Now it is your turn." + +The door was no sooner shut than Wharton strode forward and caught her +hand. + +"They have told you everything? Ah!--" + +His eye fell upon the evening paper. Letting her go, he felt for a chair +and dropped into it. Throwing himself back, his hands behind his head, +he drew a long breath and his eyes closed. For the first time in his +life or hers she saw him weak and spent like other men. Even his nerve +had been worn down by the excitement of these five fighting hours. The +eyes were lined and hollow--the brow contracted; the young roundness of +the cheek was lost in the general pallor and patchiness of the skin; the +lower part of the face seemed to have sharpened and lengthened,--and +over the whole had passed a breath of something aging and withering the +traces of which sent a shiver through Marcella. She sat down near him, +still in her nurse's cloak, one trembling hand upon her lap. + +"Will you tell me what made you do this?" she asked, not being able to +think of anything else to say. + +He opened his eyes with a start. + +In that instant's quiet the scene he had just lived through had been +rushing before him again--the long table in the panelled committee-room, +the keen angry faces gathered about it. Bennett, in his blue tie and +shabby black coat, the clear moist eyes vexed and miserable--Molloy, +small and wiry, business-like in the midst of confusion, cool in the +midst of tumult--and Wilkins, a black, hectoring leviathan, thundering +on the table as he flung his broad Yorkshire across it, or mouthing out +Denny's letter in the midst of the sudden electrical silence of some +thirty amazed and incredulous hearers. + +"_Spies,_ yo call us?" with a finger like a dart, threatening the +enemy--"Aye; an' yo're aboot reet! I and my friends--we _have_ been +trackin' and spyin' for weeks past. We _knew_ those men, those starvin' +women and bairns, were bein' _sold_, but we couldn't prove it. Now +we've come at the how and the why of it! And we'll make it harder for +men like you to _sell 'em again_! Yo call it infamy?--well, _we_ call it +detection." + +Then rattling on the inner ear came the phrases of the attack which +followed on the director of "The People's Banking Association," the +injured innocent of as mean a job, as unsavoury a bit of vulturous +finance, as had cropped into publicity for many a year--and finally the +last dramatic cry: + +"But it's noa matter, yo say! Mester Wharton has nobbut played his party +and the workin' man a dirty trick or two--_an' yo mun have a gentleman!_ +Noa--the workin' man isn't fit _himself_ to speak wi' his own enemies i' +th' gate--_yo mun have a gentleman_!--an' Mester Wharton, he says he'll +tak' the post, an' dea his best for yo--an', remember, _yo mun have a +gentleman_! Soa now--Yes! or No!--wull yo?--or _woan't yo_?" + +And at that, the precipitation of the great unwieldy form half across +the table towards Wharton's seat--the roar of the speaker's immediate +supporters thrown up against the dead silence of the rest! + +As to his own speech--he thought of it with a soreness, a disgust which +penetrated to bones and marrow. He had been too desperately taken by +surprise--had lost his nerve--missed the right tone throughout. Cool +defiance, free self-justification, might have carried him through. +Instead of which--faugh! + +All this was the phantom-show of a few seconds' thought. He roused +himself from a miserable reaction of mind and body to attend to +Marcella's question. + +"Why did I do it?" he repeated; "why--" + +He broke off, pressing both his hands upon his brow. Then he suddenly +sat up and pulled himself together. + +"Is that tea?" he said, touching the tray. "Will you give me some?" + +Marcella went into the back kitchen and called Minta. While the boiling +water was brought and the tea was made, Wharton sat forward with his +face on his hands and saw nothing. Marcella whispered a word in Minta's +ear as she came in. The woman paused, looked at Wharton, whom she had +not recognised before in the dark--grew pale--and Marcella saw her hands +shaking as she set the tray in order. Wharton knew nothing and thought +nothing of Kurd's widow, but to Marcella the juxtaposition of the two +figures brought a wave of complex emotion. + +Wharton forced himself to eat and drink, hardly speaking the while. +Then, when the tremor of sheer exhaustion had to some extent abated, he +suddenly realised who this was that was sitting opposite to him +ministering to him. + +She felt his hand--his quick powerful hand--on hers. + +"To _you_ I owe the whole truth--let me tell it!" + +She drew herself away instinctively--but so softly that he did not +realise it. He threw himself back once more in the chair beside her--one +knee over the other, the curly head so much younger to-night than the +face beneath it supported on his arms, his eyes closed again for +rest--and plunged into the story of the _Clarion_. + +It was admirably told. He had probably so rehearsed it to himself +several times already. He described his action as the result of a double +influence working upon him--the influence of his own debts and +necessities, and the influence of his growing conviction that the +maintenance of the strike had become a blunder, even a misfortune for +the people themselves. + +"Then--just as I was at my wit's end, conscious besides that the paper +was on a wrong line, and must somehow be got out of it--came the +overtures from the Syndicate. I knew perfectly well I ought to have +refused them--of _course_ my whole career was risked by listening to +them. But at the same time they gave me assurances that the workpeople +would ultimately gain--they proved to me that I was helping to +extinguish the trade. As to the _money_--when a great company has to be +launched, the people who help it into being get _paid_ for it--it is +invariable--it happens every day. I like the system no more than you may +do--or Wilkins. But consider. I was in such straits that _bankruptcy_ +lay between me and my political future. Moreover--I had lost nerve, +sleep, balance. I was scarcely master of myself when Pearson first +broached the matter to me--" + +"Pearson!" cried Marcella, involuntarily. She recalled the figure of the +solicitor; had heard his name from Frank Leven. She remembered Wharton's +impatient words--"There is a tiresome man wants to speak to me on +business--" + +It was _then I_--that evening! Something sickened her. + +Wharton raised himself in his chair and looked at her attentively with +his young haggard eyes. In the faint lamplight she was a pale vision of +the purest and noblest beauty. But the lofty sadness of her face filled +him with a kind of terror. Desire--impotent pain--violent resolve, swept +across him. He had come to her, straight from the scene of his ruin, as +to the last bulwark left him against a world bent on his destruction, +and bare henceforward of all delights. + +"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said, suddenly, in a low changed +voice--"as I speak--as I look at you--I see in your face that you +distrust--that you have judged me; those two men, I suppose, have done +their work! Yet from you--_you_ of all people--I might look not only for +justice--but--I will dare say it--for kindness!" + +She trembled. She understood that he appealed to the days at Mellor, and +her lips quivered. + +"No," she exclaimed, almost timidly--"I try to think the best. I see the +pressure was great." + +"And consider, please," he said proudly, "what the reasons were for that +pressure." + +She looked at him interrogatively--a sudden softness in her eyes. If at +that moment he had confessed himself fully, if he had thrown himself +upon her in the frank truth of his mixed character--and he could have +done it, with a Rousseau-like completeness--it is difficult to say what +the result of this scene might have been. In the midst of shock and +repulsion, she was filled with pity; and there were moments when she was +more drawn to his defeat and undoing, than she had ever been to his +success. + +Yet how question him? To do so, would be to assume a right, which in +turn would imply _his_ rights. She thought of that mention of "gambling +debts," then of his luxurious habits, and extravagant friends. But she +was silent. Only, as she sat there opposite to him, one slim hand +propping the brow, her look invited him. + +He thought he saw his advantage. + +"You must remember," he said, with the same self-assertive bearing, +"that I have never been a rich man, that my mother spent my father's +savings on a score of public objects, that she and I started a number of +experiments on the estate, that my expenses as a member of Parliament +are very large, and that I spent thousands on building up the _Clarion_. +I have been ruined by the _Clarion_, by the cause the _Clarion_ +supported. I got no help from my party--where was it to come from? They +are all poor men. I had to do everything myself, and the struggle has +been more than flesh and blood could bear! This year, often, I have not +known how to move, to breathe, for anxieties of every sort. Then came +the crisis--my work, my usefulness, my career, all threatened. The men +who hated me saw their opportunity. I was a fool and gave it them. And +my enemies have used it--to the bitter end!" + +Tone and gesture were equally insistent and strong. What he was saying +to himself was that, with a woman of Marcella's type, one must "bear it +out." This moment of wreck was also with him the first moment of +all-absorbing and desperate desire. To win her--to wrest her from the +Cravens' influence--that had been the cry in his mind throughout his +dazed drive from the House of Commons. Her hand in his--her strength, +her beauty, the romantic reputation that had begun to attach to her, at +his command--and he would have taken the first step to recovery, he +would see his way to right himself. + +Ah! but he had missed his chance! Somehow, every word he had been saying +rang false to her. She could have thrown herself as a saving angel on +the side of weakness and disaster which had spoken its proper language, +and with a reckless and confiding truth had appealed to the largeness of +a woman's heart. But this patriot--ruined so nobly--for such +disinterested purposes--left her cold! She began to think even--hating +herself--of the thousands he was supposed to have made in the gambling +over that wretched company--no doubt for the "cause" too! + +But before she could say a word he was kneeling beside her. + +"_Marcella_ I give me my answer!--I am in trouble and defeat--be a +woman, and come to me!" + +He had her hands. She tried to recover them. + +"No!" she said, with passionate energy, "_that_ is impossible. I had +written to you before you came, before I had heard a word of this. +Please, _please_ let me go!" + +"Not till you explain!"--he said, still holding her, and roused to a +white heat of emotion--"_why_ is it impossible? You said to me once, +with all your heart, that you thanked me, that I had taught you, helped +you. You cannot ignore the bond between us! And you are free. I have a +right to say to you--you thirst to save, to do good--come and save a +man that cries to you!--he confesses to _you_, freely enough, that he +has made a hideous mistake--help him to redeem it!" + +She rose suddenly with all her strength, freeing herself from him, so +that he rose too, and stood glowering and pale. + +"When I said that to you," she cried, "I was betraying "--her voice +failed her an instant--"we were both false--to the obligation that +should have held us--restrained us. No! _no!_ I will never be your wife! +We should hurt each other--poison each other!" + +Her eyes shone with wild tears. As he stood there before her she was +seized with a piteous sense of contrast--of the irreparable--of what +might have been. + +"What do you mean?" he asked her, roughly. + +She was silent. + +His passion rose. + +"Do you remember," he said, approaching her again, "that you have given +me cause to hope? It is those two fanatics that have changed +you--possessed your mind." + +She looked at him with a pale dignity. + +"My letters must have warned you," she said simply. "If you had come +to-morrow--in prosperity--you would have got the same answer, at once. +To-day--now--I have had weak moments, because--because I did not know +how to add pain to pain. But they are gone--I see my way! _I do not love +you_--that is the simple, the whole truth--I could not follow you!" + +He stared at her an instant in a bitter silence. + +"I have been warned,"--he said slowly, but in truth losing control of +himself, "not only by you--and I suppose I understand! You repent last +year. Your own letter said as much. You mean to recover, the ground--the +place you lost. Ah, well!--most natural!--most fitting! When the time +comes--and my bones are less sore--I suppose I shall have my second +congratulations ready! Meanwhile--" + +She gave a low cry and burst suddenly into a passion of weeping, turning +her face from him. But when in pale sudden shame he tried to excuse +himself--to appease her--she moved away, with a gesture that overawed +him. + +"_You_ have not confessed yourself"--she said, and his look wavered +under the significance of hers--"but you drive me to it. Yes, _I +repent!_"--her breast heaved, she caught her breath. "I have been trying +to cheat myself these last few weeks--to run away from grief--and the +other night when you asked me--I would have given all I have and am to +feel like any happy girl, who says 'Yes' to her lover. I tried to feel +so. But even then, though I was miserable and reckless, I knew in my +heart--it was impossible! If you suppose--if you like to suppose--that +I--I have hopes or plans--as mean as they would be silly--you must--of +course. But I have given no one any _right_ to think so or say so. Mr. +Wharton--" + +Gathering all her self-control, she put out her white hand to him. +"Please--please say good-bye to me. It has been hideous vanity--and +mistake--and wretchedness--our knowing each other--from the beginning. +I _am_ grateful for all you did, I shall always be grateful. I hope--oh! +I hope--that--that you will find a way through this trouble. I don't +want to make it worse by a word. If I could do anything! But I can't. +You must please go. It is late. I wish to call my friend, Mrs. Hurd." + +Their eyes met--hers full of a certain stern yet quivering power, his +strained and bloodshot, in his lined young face. + +Then, with a violent gesture--as though he swept her out of his path--he +caught up his hat, went to the door, and was gone. + +She fell on her chair almost fainting, and sat there for long in the +summer dark, covering her face. But it was not his voice that haunted +her ears. + +"_You have done me wrong--I pray God you may not do yourself a greater +wrong in the future!_" + +Again and again, amid the whirl of memory, she pressed the sad +remembered words upon the inward wound and fever--tasting, cherishing +the smart of them. And as her trance of exhaustion and despair gradually +left her, it was as though she crept close to some dim beloved form in +whom her heart knew henceforward the secret and sole companion of its +inmost life. + + + + + +BOOK IV. + + +"You and I-- +Why care by what meanders we are here +I' the centre of the labyrinth? Men have died +Trying to find this place which we have found." + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Ah! how purely, cleanly beautiful was the autumn sunrise! After her long +hardening to the stale noisomeness of London streets, the taint of +London air, Marcella hung out of her window at Mellor in a thirsty +delight, drinking in the scent of dew and earth and trees, watching the +ways of the birds, pouring forth a soul of yearning and of memory into +the pearly silence of the morning. + +High up on the distant hill to the left, beyond the avenue, the pale +apricots and golds of the newly-shorn stubbles caught the mounting +light. The beeches of the avenue were turning fast, and the chestnuts +girdling the church on her right hand were already thin enough to let +the tower show through. That was the bell--the old bell given to the +church by Hampden's friend, John Boyce--striking half-past five; and +close upon it came the call of a pheasant in the avenue. There he was, +fine fellow, with his silly, mincing run, redeemed all at once by the +sudden whirr of towering flight. + +To-day Mary Harden and the Rector would be at work in the church, and +to-morrow was to be the Harvest Festival. Was it two years?--or in an +hour or two would she be going with her basket from the Cedar Garden, to +find that figure in the brown shooting-coat standing with the Hardens on +the altar steps? + +Alas!--alas!--her head dropped on her hands as she knelt by the open +window. How changed were all the aspects of the world! Three weeks +before, the bell in that little church had tolled for one who, in the +best way and temper of his own generation, had been God's servant and +man's friend--who had been Marcella's friend--and had even, in his last +days, on a word from Edward Hallin, sent her an old man's kindly +farewell. + +"Tell her," Lord Maxwell had written with his own hand to Hallin, "she +has taken up a noble work, and will make, I pray God, a noble woman. She +had, I think, a kindly liking for an old man, and she will not disdain +his blessing." + +He had died at Geneva, Aldous and Miss Raeburn with him. For instead of +coming home in August, he had grown suddenly worse, and Aldous had gone +out to him. They had brought him to the Court for burial, and the new +Lord Maxwell, leaving his aunt at the Court, had almost immediately +returned to town,--because of Edward Hallin's state of health. + +Marcella had seen much of Hallin since he and his sister had come back +to London in the middle of August. Hallin's apparent improvement had +faded within a week or two of his return to his rooms; Aldous was at +Geneva; Miss Hallin was in a panic of alarm; and Marcella found herself +both nurse and friend. Day after day she would go in after her nursing +rounds, share their evening meal, and either write for Hallin, or help +the sister--by the slight extra weight of her professional voice--to +keep him from writing and thinking. + +He would not himself admit that he was ill at all, and his whole +energies at the time were devoted to the preparation of a series of +three addresses on the subject of Land Reform, which were to be +delivered in October to the delegates of a large number of working-men's +clubs from all parts of London. So strong was Hallin's position among +working-men reformers, and so beloved had been his personality, that as +soon as his position towards the new land nationalising movement, now +gathering formidable strength among the London working men, had come to +be widely understood, a combined challenge had been sent him by some +half-dozen of the leading Socialist and Radical clubs, asking him to +give three weekly addresses in October to a congress of London +delegates, time to be allowed after the lecture for questions and +debate. + +Hallin had accepted the invitation with eagerness, and was throwing an +intensity of labour into the writing of his three lectures which often +seemed to his poor sister to be not only utterly beyond his physical +strength, but to carry with it a note as of a last effort, a farewell +message, such as her devoted affection could ill endure. For all the +time he was struggling with cardiac weakness and brain irritability +which would have overwhelmed any one less accustomed to make his account +with illness, or to balance against feebleness of body a marvellous +discipline of soul. + +Lord Maxwell was still alive, and Hallin, in the midst of his work, was +looking anxiously for the daily reports from Aldous, living in his +friend's life almost as much as in his own--handing on the reports, too, +day by day to Marcella, with a manner which had somehow slipped into +expressing a new and sure confidence in her sympathy--when she one +evening found Minta Hurd watching for her at the door with a telegram +from her mother: "Your father suddenly worse. Please come at once." She +arrived at Mellor late that same night. + +On the same day Lord Maxwell died. Less than a week later he was buried +in the little Gairsley church. Mr. Boyce was then alarmingly ill, and +Marcella sat in his darkened room or in her own all day, thinking from +time to time of what was passing three miles away--of the great house in +its mourning--of the figures round the grave. Hallin, of course, would +be there. It was a dripping September day, and she passed easily from +moments of passionate yearning and clairvoyance to worry herself about +the damp and the fatigue that Hallin must be facing. + +Since then she had heard occasionally from Miss Hallin. Everything was +much as it had been, apparently. Edward was still hard at work, still +ill, still serene. "Aldous"--Miss Hallin could not yet reconcile herself +to the new name--was alone in the Curzon Street house, much occupied and +harassed apparently by the legal business of the succession, by the +election presently to be held in his own constituency, and by the +winding-up of his work at the Home Office. He was to resign his +under-secretaryship; but with the new session and a certain +rearrangement of offices it was probable that he would be brought back +into the Ministry. Meanwhile he was constantly with them; and she +thought that his interest in Edward's work and anxiety about his health +were perhaps both good for him as helping to throw off something of his +own grief and depression. + +Whereby it will be noticed that Miss Hallin, like her brother, had by +now come to speak intimately and freely to Marcella of her old lover and +their friend. + +Now for some days, however, she had received no letter from either +brother or sister, and she was particularly anxious to hear. For this +was the fourth of October, and on the second he was to have delivered +the first of his addresses. How had the frail prophet sped? She had her +fears. For her weekly "evenings" in Brown's Buildings had shown her a +good deal of the passionate strength of feeling developed during the +past year in connection with this particular propaganda. She doubted +whether the London working man at the present moment was likely to give +even Hallin a fair hearing on the point. However, Louis Craven was to be +there. And he had promised to write even if Susie Hallin could find no +time. Some report ought to reach Mellor by the evening. + +Poor Cravens! The young wife, who was expecting a baby, had behaved with +great spirit through the _Clarion_ trouble; and, selling their bits of +furniture to pay their debts, they had gone to lodge near Anthony. Louis +had got some odds and ends of designing and artistic work to do through +his brother's influence; and was writing where he could, here and there. +Marcella had introduced them to the Hallins, and Susie Hallin was taking +a motherly interest in the coming child. Anthony, in his gloomy way, was +doing all he could for them. But the struggle was likely to be a hard +one, and Marcella had recognised of late that in Louis as in Anthony +there were dangerous possibilities of melancholy and eccentricity. Her +heart was often sore over their trouble and her own impotence. + +Meantime for some wounds, at any rate, time had brought swift cautery! +Not three days after her final interview with Wharton, while the +catastrophe in the Labour party was still in every one's mouth, and the +air was full of bitter speeches and recriminations, Hallin one evening +laid down his newspaper with a sudden startled gesture, and then pushed +it over to Marcella. There, in the columns devoted to personal news of +various sorts, appeared the announcement: + +"A marriage has been arranged between Mr. H.S. Wharfon, M.P. for West +Brookshire, and Lady Selina Farrell, only surviving daughter of Lord +Alresford. The ceremony will probably take place somewhere about Easter +next. Meanwhile Mr. Wharton, whose health has suffered of late from his +exertions in and out of the House, has been ordered to the East for rest +by his medical advisers. He and his friend Sir William Ffolliot start +for French Cochin China in a few days. Their object is to explore the +famous ruined temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and if the season is +favourable they may attempt to ascend the Mekong. Mr. Wharton is paired +for the remainder of the session." + +"Did you know anything of this?" said Hallin, with that careful +carelessness in which people dress a dubious question. + +"Nothing," she said quietly. + +Then an impulse not to be stood against, springing from very mingled +depths of feeling, drove her on. She, too, put down the paper, and +laying her finger-tips together on her knee she said with an odd slight +laugh: + +"But I was the last person to know. About a fortnight ago Mr. Wharton +proposed to me." + +Hallin sprang from his chair, almost with a shout. "And you refused +him?" + +She nodded, and then was angrily aware that, totally against her will or +consent, and for the most foolish and remote reasons, those two eyes of +hers had grown moist. + +Hallin went straight over to her. + +"Do you mind letting me shake hands with you?" he said, half ashamed of +his outburst, a dancing light of pleasure transforming the thin face. +"There--I am an idiot! We won't say a word more--except about Lady +Selina. Have you seen her?" + +"Three or four times." + +"What is she like?" + +Marcella hesitated. + +"Is she fat--and forty?" said Hallin, fervently--she beat him?" + +"Not at all. She is very thin--thirty-five, elegant, terribly of her own +opinion--and makes a great parade of 'papa.'" + +She looked round at him, unsteadily, but gaily. + +"Oh! I see," said Hallin, with disappointment, "she will only take care +he doesn't beat her--which I gather from your manner doesn't matter. And +her politics?" + +"Lord Alresford was left out of the Ministry," said Marcella slily. "He +and Lady Selina thought it a pity." + +"Alresford--_Alresford_? Why, of course! He was Lord Privy Seal in their +last Cabinet--a narrow-minded old stick!--did a heap of mischief in the +Lords. _Well!_"--Hallin pondered a moment--"Wharton will go over!" + +Marcella was silent. The tremor of that wrestler's hour had not yet +passed away. The girl could find no words in which to discuss Wharton +himself, this last amazing act, or its future. + +As for Hallin, he sat lost in pleasant dreams of a whitewashed Wharton, +comfortably settled at last below the gangway on the Conservative side, +using all the old catch-words in slightly different connections, and +living gaily on his Lady Selina. Fragments from the talk of +Nehemiah--Nehemiah the happy and truculent, that new "scourge of God" +upon the parasites of Labour--of poor Bennett, of Molloy, and of various +others who had found time to drop in upon him since the Labour smash, +kept whirling in his mind. The same prediction he had just made to +Marcella was to be discerned in several of them. He vowed to himself +that he would write to Raeburn that night, congratulate him and the +party on the possibility of so eminent a recruit--and hint another item +of news by the way. She had trusted her confidence to him without any +pledge--an act for which he paid her well thenceforward, in the coin of +a friendship far more intimate, expansive, and delightful than anything +his sincerity had as yet allowed him to show her. + +But these London incidents and memories, near as they were in time, +looked many of them strangely remote to Marcella in this morning +silence. When she drew back from the window, after darkening the now +sun-flooded room in a very thorough business-like way, in order that she +might have four or five hours' sleep, there was something symbolic in +the act. She gave back her mind, her self, to the cares, the anxieties, +the remorses of the past three weeks. During the night she had been +sitting up with her father that her mother might rest. Now, as she lay +down, she thought with the sore tension which had lately become habitual +to her, of her father's state, her mother's strange personality, her own +short-comings. + + * * * * * + +By the middle of the morning she was downstairs again, vigorous and +fresh as ever. Mrs. Boyce's maid was for the moment in charge of the +patient, who was doing well. Mrs. Boyce was writing some household notes +in the drawing-room. Marcella went in search of her. + +The bare room, just as it ever was--with its faded antique charm--looked +bright and tempting in the sun. But the cheerfulness of it did but +sharpen the impression of that thin form writing in the window. Mrs. +Boyce looked years older. The figure had shrunk and flattened into that +of an old woman; the hair, which two years before had been still young +and abundant, was now easily concealed under the close white cap she had +adopted very soon after her daughter had left Mellor. The dress was +still exquisitely neat; but plainer and coarser. Only the beautiful +hands and the delicate stateliness of carriage remained--sole relics of +a loveliness which had cost its owner few pangs to part with. + +Marcella hovered near her--a little behind her--looking at her from time +to time with a yearning compunction--which Mrs. Boyce seemed to be aware +of, and to avoid. + +"Mamma, can't I do those letters for you? I am quite fresh." + +"No, thank you. They are just done." + +When they were all finished and stamped, Mrs. Boyce made some careful +entries in a very methodical account-book, and then got up, locking the +drawers of her little writing-table behind her. + +"We can keep the London nurse another week I think," she said. + +"There is no need," said Marcella, quickly. "Emma and I could divide the +nights now and spare you altogether. You see I can sleep at any time." + +"Your father seems to prefer Nurse Wenlock," said Mrs. Boyce. + +Marcella took the little blow in silence. No doubt it was her due. +During the past two years she had spent two separate months at Mellor; +she had gone away in opposition to her father's wish; and had found +herself on her return more of a stranger to her parents than ever. Mr. +Boyce's illness, involving a steady extension of paralytic weakness, +with occasional acute fits of pain and danger, had made steady though +very gradual progress all the time. But it was not till some days after +her return home that Marcella had realised a tenth part of what her +mother had undergone since the disastrous spring of the murder. + +She passed now from the subject of the nurse with a half-timid remark +about "expense." + +"Oh! the expense doesn't matter!" said Mrs. Boyce, as she stood absently +before the lately kindled fire, warming her chilled fingers at the +blaze. + +"Papa is more at ease in those ways?" Marcella ventured. And kneeling +down beside her mother she gently chafed one of the cold hands. + +"There seems to be enough for what is wanted," said Mrs. Boyce, bearing +the charing with patience. "Your father, I believe, has made great +progress this year in freeing the estate. Thank you, my dear. I am not +cold now." + +And she gently withdrew her hand. + +Marcella, indeed, had already noticed that there were now no weeds on +the garden-paths, that instead of one gardener there were three, that +the old library had been decently patched and restored, that there was +another servant, that William, grown into a very--tolerable footman, +wore a reputable coat, and that a plain but adequate carriage and horse +had met her at the station. Her pity even understood that part of her +father's bitter resentment of his ever-advancing disablement came from +his feeling that here at last--just as death was in sight--he, that +squalid failure, Dick Boyce, was making a success of something. + +Presently, as she knelt before the fire, a question escaped her, which, +when it was spoken, she half regretted. + +"Has papa been able to do anything for the cottages yet?" + +"I don't think so," said Mrs. Boyce, calmly. After a minute's pause she +added, "That will be for your reign, my dear." + +Marcella looked up with a sharp thrill of pain. + +"Papa is better, mamma, and--and I don't know what you mean. I shall +never reign here without you." + +Mrs. Boyce began to fidget with the rings on her thin left hand. + +"When Mellor ceases to be your father's it will be yours," she said, not +without a certain sharp decision; "that was settled long ago. I must be +free--and if you are to do anything with this place, you must give your +youth and strength to it. And your father is not better--except for the +moment. Dr. Clarke exactly foretold the course of his illness to me two +years ago, on my urgent request. He may live four months--six, if we can +get him to the South. More is impossible." + +There was something ghastly in her dry composure. Marcella caught her +hand again and leant her trembling young cheek against it. + +"I could not live here without you, mamma!" + +Mrs. Boyce could not for once repress the inner fever which in general +her will controlled so well. + +"I hardly think it would matter to you so much, my dear." + +Marcella shrank. + +"I don't wonder you say that!" she said in a low voice. "Do you think it +was all a mistake, mamma, my going away eighteen months ago--a wrong +act?" + +Mrs. Boyce grew restless. + +"I judge nobody, my dear!--unless I am obliged. As you know, I am for +liberty--above all"--she spoke with emphasis--"for letting the past +alone. But I imagine you must certainly have learnt to do without us. +Now I ought to go to your father." + +But Marcella held her. + +"Do you remember in the _Purgatorio_, mamma, the lines about the loser +in the game: 'When the game of dice breaks up, he who lost lingers +sorrowfully behind, going over the throws, and _learning by his grief_'? +Do you remember?" + +Mrs. Boyce looked down upon her, involuntarily a little curious, a +little nervous, but assenting. It was one of the inconsistencies of her +strange character that she had all her life been a persistent Dante +student. The taste for the most strenuous and passionate of poets had +developed in her happy youth; it had survived through the loneliness of +her middle life. Like everything else personal to herself she never +spoke of it; but the little worn books on her table had been familiar to +Marcella from a child. + +"_E tristo impara?_" repeated Marcella, her voice wavering. "Mamma +"--she laid her face against her mother's dress again--"I have lost more +throws than you think in the last two years. Won't you believe I may +have learnt a little?" + +She raised her eyes to her mother's pinched and mask-like face. Mrs. +Boyce's lips moved as though she would have asked a question. But she +did not ask it. She drew, instead, the stealthy breath Marcella knew +well--the breath of one who has measured precisely her own powers of +endurance, and will not risk them for a moment by any digression into +alien fields of emotion. + +"Well, but one expects persons like you to learn," she said, with a +light, cold manner, which made the words mere convention. There was +silence an instant; then, probably to release herself, her hand just +touched her daughter's hair. "Now, will you come up in half an hour? +That was twelve striking, and Emma is never quite punctual with his +food." + + * * * * * + +Marcella went to her father at the hour named. She found him in his +wheeled chair, beside a window opened to the sun, and overlooking the +Cedar Garden. The room in which he sat was the state bedroom of the old +house. It had a marvellous paper of branching trees and parrots and +red-robed Chinamen, in the taste of the morning room downstairs, a +carved four-post bed, a grate adorned with purplish Dutch tiles, an +array of family miniatures over the mantelpiece, and on a neighbouring +wall a rack of old swords and rapiers. The needlework hangings of the +bed were full of holes; the seats of the Chippendale chairs were frayed +or tattered. But, none the less, the inalienable character and dignity +of his sleeping-room were a bitter satisfaction to Richard Boyce, even +in his sickness. After all said and done, he was king here in his +father's and grandfather's place; ruling where they ruled, and--whether +they would or no--dying where they died, with the same family faces to +bear him witness from the walls, and the same vault awaiting him. + +When his daughter entered, he turned his head, and his eyes, deep and +black still as ever, but sunk in a yellow relic of a face, showed a +certain agitation. She was disagreeably aware that his thoughts were +much occupied with her; that he was full of grievance towards her, and +would probably before long bring the pathos of his situation as well as +the weight of his dying authority to bear upon her, for purposes she +already suspected with alarm. + +"Are you a little easier, papa?" she said, as she came up to him. + +"I should think as a nurse you ought to know better, my dear, than to +ask," he said testily. "When a person is in my condition, enquiries of +that sort are a mockery!" + +"But one may be in less or more pain," she said gently. "I hoped Dr. +Clarke's treatment yesterday might have given you some relief." + +He did not vouchsafe an answer. She took some work and sat down by him. +Mrs. Boyce, who had been tidying a table of food and medicine, came and +asked him if he would be wheeled into another room across the gallery, +which had been arranged as a sitting-room. He shook his head irritably. + +"I am not fit for it. Can't you see? And I want to speak to Marcella." + +Mrs. Boyce went away. Marcella waited, not without a tremor. She was +sitting in the sun, her head bent over the muslin strings she was +hemming for her nurse's bonnet. The window was wide open; outside, the +leaves under a warm breeze were gently drifting down into the Cedar +Garden, amid a tangled mass of flowers, mostly yellow or purple. To one +side rose the dark layers of the cedars; to the other, the grey front +of the library wing. + +Mr. Boyce looked at her with the frown which had now become habitual to +him, moved his lips once or twice without speaking; and at last made his +effort. + +"I should think, Marcella, you must often regret by now the step you +took eighteen months ago!" + +She grew pale. + +"How regret it, papa?" she said, without looking up. + +"Why, good God!" he said angrily; "I should think the reasons for regret +are plain enough. You threw over a man who was devoted to you, and could +have given you the finest position in the county, for the most +nonsensical reasons in the world--reasons that by now, I am certain, you +are ashamed of." + +He saw her wince, and enjoyed his prerogative of weakness. In his normal +health he would never have dared so to speak to her. But of late, during +long fits of feverish brooding--intensified by her return home--he had +vowed to himself to speak his mind. + +"Aren't you ashamed of them?" he repeated, as she was silent. + +She looked up. + +"I am not ashamed of anything I did to save Hurd, if that is what you +mean, papa." + +Mr. Boyce's anger grew. + +"Of course you know what everybody said?" + +She stooped over her work again, and did not reply. + +"It's no good being sullen over it," he said in exasperation; "I'm your +father, and I'm dying. I have a right to question you. It's my duty to +see something settled, if I can, before I go. Is it _true_ that all the +time you were attacking Raeburn about politics and the reprieve, and +what not, you were really behaving as you never ought to have behaved, +with Harry Wharton?" + +He gave out the words with sharp emphasis, and, bending towards her, he +laid an emaciated hand upon her arm. + +"What use is there, papa, in going back to these things?" she said, +driven to bay, her colour going and coming. "I may have been wrong in a +hundred ways, but you never understood that the real reason for it all +was that--that--I never was in love with Mr. Raeburn." + +"Then why did you accept him?" He fell back against his pillows with a +jerk. + +"As to that, I will confess my sins readily enough," she said, while her +lip trembled, and he saw the tears spring into her eyes. "I accepted him +for what you just now called his position in the county, though not +quite in that way either." + +He was silent a little, then he began again in a voice which gradually +became unsteady from self-pity. + +"Well, now look here! I have been thinking about this matter a great +deal--and God knows I've time to think and cause to think, considering +the state I'm in--and I see no reason whatever why I should not +try--before I die--to put this thing _straight_. That man was head over +ears in love with you, _madly_ in love with you. I used to watch him, +and I know. Of course you offended and distressed him greatly. He could +never have expected such conduct from you or any one else. But _he's_ +not the man to change round easily, or to take up with any one else. +Now, if you regret what you did or the way in which you did it, why +shouldn't I--a dying man may be allowed a little licence I should +think!--give him a hint?" + +"_Papa!_" cried Marcella, dropping her work, and looking at him with a +pale, indignant passion, which a year ago would have quelled him +utterly. But he held up his hand. + +"Now just let me finish. It would be no good my doing a thing of this +kind without saying something to you first, because you'd find it out, +and your pride would be the ruin of it. You always had a demoniacal +pride, Marcella, even when you were a tiny child; but if you make up +your mind now to let me tell him you regret what you did--just +that--you'll make him happy, and yourself, for you know very well he's a +man of the highest character--and your poor father, who never did _you_ +much harm anyway!" His voice faltered. "I'd manage it so that there +should be nothing humiliating to you in it whatever. As if there could +be anything humiliating in confessing such a mistake as that; besides, +what is there to be ashamed of? You're no pauper. I've pulled Mellor out +of the mud for you, though you and your mother do give me credit for so +precious little!" + +He lay back, trembling with fatigue, yet still staring at her with +glittering eyes, while his hand on the invalid table fixed to the side +of his chair shook piteously. Marcella dreaded the effect the whole +scene might have upon him; but, now they were in the midst of it, both +feeling for herself and prudence for him drove her into the strongest +speech she could devise. + +"Papa, if _anything_ of that sort were done, I should take care Mr. +Raeburn knew I had had nothing to do with it--in such a way that it +would be _impossible_ for him to carry it further. Dear papa, don't +think of such a thing any more. Because I treated Mr. Raeburn unjustly +last year, are we now to harass and persecute him? I would sooner +disappear from everybody I know--from you and mamma, from England--and +never be heard of again." + +She stopped a moment--struggling for composure--that she might not +excite him too much. + +"Besides, it would be absurd! You forget I have seen a good deal of Mr. +Raeburn lately--while I have been with the Winterbournes. He has +entirely given up all thought of me. Even my vanity could see that +plainly enough. His best friends expect him to marry a bright, +fascinating little creature of whom I saw a good deal in James Street--a +Miss Macdonald." + +"Miss how--much?" he asked roughly. + +She repeated the name, and then dwelt, with a certain amount of +confusion and repetition, upon the probabilities of the matter--half +conscious all the time that she was playing a part, persuading herself +and him of something she was not at all clear about in her own inner +mind--but miserably, passionately determined to go through with it all +the same. + +He bore with what she said to him, half disappointed and depressed, yet +also half incredulous. He had always been obstinate, and the approach of +death had emphasised his few salient qualities, as decay had emphasised +the bodily frame. He said to himself stubbornly that he would find some +way yet of testing the matter in spite of her. He would think it out. + +Meanwhile, step by step, she brought the conversation to less dangerous +things, and she was finally gliding into some chat about the +Winterbournes when he interrupted her abruptly-- + +"And that other fellow--Wharton. Your mother tells me you have seen him +in London. Has he been making love to you?" + +"Suppose I won't be catechised!" she said gaily, determined to allow no +more tragedy of any kind. "Besides, papa, you can't read your gossip as +good people should. Mr. Wharton's engagement to a certain Lady Selina +Farrell--a distant cousin of the Winterbournes--was announced, in +several papers with great plainness three weeks ago." + +At that moment her mother came in, looking anxiously at them both, and +half resentfully at Marcella. Marcella, sore and bruised in every moral +fibre, got up to go. + +Something in the involuntary droop of her beautiful head as she left the +room drew her father's eyes after her, and for the time his feeling +towards her softened curiously. Well, _she_ had not made very much of +her life so far! That old strange jealousy of her ability, her beauty, +and her social place, he had once felt so hotly, died away. He wished +her, indeed, to be Lady Maxwell. Yet for the moment there was a certain +balm in the idea that she too--her mother's daughter--with her Merritt +blood--could be unlucky. + +Marcella went about all day under a vague sense of impending +trouble--the result, no doubt, of that intolerable threat of her +father's, against which she was, after all, so defenceless. + +But whatever it was, it made her all the more nervous and sensitive +about the Hallins; about her one true friend, to whom she was slowly +revealing herself, even without speech; whose spiritual strength had +been guiding and training her; whose physical weakness had drawn to him +the maternal, the _spending_ instincts which her nursing life had so +richly developed. + +She strolled down the drive to meet the post. But there were no letters +from London, and she came in, inclined to be angry indeed with Louis +Craven for deserting her, but saying to herself at the same time that +she must have heard if anything had gone wrong. + +An hour or so later, just as the October evening was closing in, she was +sitting dreaming over a dim wood-fire in the drawing-room. Her father, +as might have been expected, had been very tired and comatose all day. +Her mother was with him; the London nurse was to sit up, and Marcella +felt herself forlorn and superfluous. + +Suddenly, in the silence of the house, she heard the front-door bell +ring. There was a step in the hall--she sprang up--the door opened, and +William, with fluttered emphasis, announced-- + +"Lord Maxwell!" + +In the dusk she could just see his tall form--the short pause as he +perceived her--then her hand was in his, and the paralysing astonishment +of that first instant had disappeared under the grave emotion of his +look. + +"Will you excuse me," he said, "for coming at this hour? But I am +afraid you have heard nothing yet of our bad news--and Hallin himself +was anxious I should come and tell you. Miss Hallin could not write, and +Mr. Craven, I was to tell you, had been ill for a week with a chill. You +haven't then seen any account of the lecture in the papers?" + +"No; I have looked yesterday and to-day in our paper, but there was +nothing--" + +"Some of the Radical papers reported it. I hoped you might have seen it. +But when we got down here this afternoon, and there was nothing from +you, both Miss Hallin and Edward felt sure you had not heard--and I +walked over. It was a most painful, distressing scene, and he--is very +ill." + +"But you have brought him to the Court?" she said trembling, lost in the +thought of Hallin, her quick breath coming and going. "He was able to +bear the journey? Will you tell me?--will you sit down?" + +He thanked her hurriedly, and took a seat opposite to her, within the +circle of the firelight, so that she saw his deep mourning and the look +of repressed suffering. + +"The whole thing was extraordinary--I can hardly now describe it," he +said, holding his hat in his hands and staring into the fire. "It began +excellently. There was a very full room. Bennett was in the chair--and +Edward seemed much as usual. He had been looking desperately ill, but he +declared that he was sleeping better, and that his sister and I coddled +him. Then,--directly he was well started!--I felt somehow that the +audience was very hostile. And _he_ evidently felt it more and more. +There was a good deal of interruption and hardly any cheers--and I saw +after a little--I was sitting not far behind him--that he was +discouraged--that he had lost touch. It was presently clear, indeed, +that the real interest of the meeting lay not in the least in what he +had to say, but in the debate that was to follow. They meant to let him +have his hour--but not a minute more. I watched the men about me, and I +could see them following the clock--thirsting for their turn. Nothing +that he said seemed to penetrate them in the smallest degree. He was +there merely as a ninepin to be knocked over. I never saw a meeting so +_possessed_ with a madness of fanatical conviction--it was amazing!" + +He paused, looking sadly before him. She made a little movement, and he +roused himself instantly. + +"It was just a few minutes before he was to sit down--I was +thankful!--when suddenly--I heard his voice change. I do not know now +what happened--but I believe he completely lost consciousness of the +scene before him--the sense of strain, of exhaustion, of making no way, +must have snapped something. He began a sort of confession--a reverie in +public--about himself, his life, his thoughts, his prayers, his +hopes--mostly his religious hopes--for the working man, for England--I +_never_ heard anything of the kind from him before--you know his +reserve. It was so intimate--so painful--oh! so painful!"--he drew +himself together with an involuntary shudder--"before this crowd, this +eager hostile crowd which was only pining for him to sit down--to get +out of their way. The men near me began to look at each other and +titter. They wondered what he meant by maundering on like that--'damned +canting stuff'--I heard one man near me call it. I tore off a bit of +paper, and passed a line to Bennett asking him to get hold of Edward, to +stop it. But I think Bennett had rather lost his presence of mind, and I +saw him look back at me and shake his head. Then time was up, and they +began to shout him down." + +Marcella made an exclamation of horror. He turned to her. + +"I think it was the most tragic scene I ever saw," he said with a +feeling as simple as it was intense. "This crowd so angry and +excited--without a particle of understanding or sympathy--laughing, and +shouting at him--and he in the midst--white as death--talking this +strange nonsense--his voice floating in a high key, quite unlike itself. +At last just as I was getting up to go to him, I saw Bennett rise. But +we were both too late. He fell at our feet!" + +Marcella gave an involuntary sob! "What a horror!" she said, "what a +martyrdom!" + +"It was just that," he answered in a low voice--"It was a martyrdom. And +when one thinks of the way in which for years past he has held these big +meetings in the hollow of his hand, and now, because he crosses their +passion, their whim,--no kindness!--no patience--nothing but a blind +hostile fury! Yet _they_ thought him a traitor, no doubt. Oh! it was all +a tragedy!" + +There was silence an instant. Then he resumed: + +"We got him into the back room. Luckily there was a doctor on the +platform. It was heart failure, of course, with brain prostration. We +managed to get him home, and Susie Hallin and I sat up. He was delirious +all night; but yesterday he rallied, and last night he begged us to move +him out of London if we could. So we got two doctors and an invalid +carriage, and by three this afternoon we were all at the Court. My aunt +was ready for him--his sister is there--and a nurse. Clarke was there to +meet him. He thinks he cannot possibly live more than a few +weeks--possibly even a few days. The shock and strain have been +irreparable." + +Marcella lay back in her chair, struggling with her grief, her head and +face turned away from him, her eyes hidden by her handkerchief. Then in +some mysterious way she was suddenly conscious that Aldous was no longer +thinking of Hallin, but of her. + +"He wants very much to see you," he said, bending towards her; "but I +know that you have yourself serious illness to nurse. Forgive me for not +having enquired after Mr. Boyce. I trust he is better?" + +She sat up, red-eyed, but mistress of herself. The tone had been all +gentleness, but to her quivering sense some slight indefinable +change--coldness--had passed into it. + +"He _is_ better, thank you--for the present. And my mother does not let +me do very much. We have a nurse too. When shall I come?" + +He rose. + +"Could you--come to-morrow afternoon? There is to be a consultation of +doctors in the morning, which will tire him. About six?--that was what +he said. He is very weak, but in the day quite conscious and rational. +My aunt begged me to say how glad she would be--" + +He paused. An invincible awkwardness took possession of both of them. +She longed to speak to him of his grandfather but could not find the +courage. + +When he was gone, she, standing alone in the firelight, gave one +passionate thought to the fact that so--in this tragic way--they had met +again in this room where he had spoken to her his last words as a lover; +and then, steadily, she put everything out of her mind but her +friend--and death. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Mrs. Boyce received Marcella's news with more sympathy than her daughter +had dared to hope for, and she made no remark upon Aldous himself and +his visit, for which Marcella was grateful to her. + +As they left the dining-room, after their short evening meal, to go up +to Mr. Boyce, Marcella detained her mother an instant. + +"Mamma, will you please not tell papa that--that Lord Maxwell came here +this afternoon? And will you explain to him why I am going there +to-morrow?" + +Mrs. Boyce's fair cheek flushed. Marcella saw that she understood. + +"If I were you, I should not let your father talk to you any more about +those things," she said with a certain proud impatience. + +"If I can help it!" exclaimed Marcella. "Will you tell him, +mamma,--about Mr. Hallin?--and how good he has been to me?" + +Then her voice failed her, and, hurriedly leaving her mother at the top +of the stairs, she went away by herself to struggle with a grief and +smart almost unbearable. + +That night passed quietly at the Court. Hallin was at intervals slightly +delirious, but less so than the night before; and in the early morning +the young doctor, who had sat up with him, reported him to Aldous as +calmer and a little stronger. But the heart mischief was hopeless, and +might bring the bruised life to an end at any moment. + +He could not, however, be kept in bed, owing to restlessness and +difficulty of breathing, and by midday he was in Aldous's sitting-room, +drawn close to the window, that he might delight his eyes with the wide +range of wood and plain that it commanded. After a very wet September, +the October days were now following each other in a settled and sunny +peace. The great woods of the Chilterns, just yellowing towards that +full golden moment--short, like all perfection,--which only beeches +know, rolled down the hill-slopes to the plain, their curving lines cut +here and there by straight fir stems, drawn clear and dark on the pale +background of sky and lowland. In the park, immediately below the +window, groups of wild cherry and of a slender-leaved maple made spots +of "flame and amethyst" on the smooth falling lawns; the deer wandered +and fed, and the squirrels were playing and feasting among the beech +nuts. + +Since Aldous and his poor sister had brought him home from the Bethnal +Green hall in which the Land Reform Conference had been held, Hallin had +spoken little, except in delirium, and that little had been marked by +deep and painful depression. But this morning, when Aldous was summoned +by the nurse, and found him propped up by the window, in front of the +great view, he saw gracious signs of change. Death, indeed, already in +possession, looked from the blue eyes so plainly that Aldous, on his +first entrance, had need of all his own strength of will to keep his +composure. But with the certainty of that great release, and with the +abandonment of all physical and mental struggle--the struggle of a +lifetime--Hallin seemed to-day to have recovered something of his +characteristic serenity and blitheness--the temper which had made him +the leader of his Oxford contemporaries, and the dear comrade of his +friend's life. + +When Aldous came in, Hallin smiled and lifted a feeble hand towards the +park and the woods. + +"Could it have greeted me more kindly," he said, in his whispering +voice, "for the end?" + +Aldous sat down beside him, pressing his hand, and there was silence +till Hallin spoke again. + +"You will keep this sitting-room, Aldous?" + +"Always." + +"I am glad. I have known you in it so long. What good talks we have had +here in the old hot days! I was hot, at least, and you bore with me. +Land Reform--Church Reform--Wages Reform--we have threshed them all out +in this room. Do you remember that night I kept you up till it was too +late to go to bed, talking over my Church plans? How full I was of +it!--the Church that was to be the people--reflecting their life, their +differences--governed by them--growing with them. You wouldn't join it, +Aldous--our poor little Association!" + +Aldous's strong lip quivered. + +"Let me think of something I _did_ join in," he said. + +Hallin's look shone on him with a wonderful affection. + +"Was there anything else you didn't help in? I don't remember it. I've +dragged you into most things. You never minded failure. And I have not +had so much of it--not till this last. This has been failure--absolute +and complete." + +But there was no darkening of expression. He sat quietly smiling. + +"Do you suppose anybody who could look beyond the moment would dream of +calling it failure?" said Aldous, with difficulty. + +Hallin shook his head gently, and was silent for a little time, +gathering strength and breath again. + +"I ought to suffer"--he said, presently. "Last week I dreaded my own +feeling if I should fail or break down--more than the failure itself. +But since yesterday--last night--I have no more regrets. I see that my +power is gone--that if I were to live I could no longer carry on the +battle--or my old life. I am out of touch. Those whom I love and would +serve, put me aside. Those who invite me, I do not care to join. So I +drop--into the gulf--and the pageant rushes on. But the curious thing is +now--I have no suffering. And as to the future--do you remember Jowett +in the Introduction to the Phaedo--" + +He feebly pointed to a book beside him, which Aldous took up. Hallin +guided him and he read-- + +"_Most persons when the last hour comes are resigned to the order of +nature and the will of God. They are not thinking of Dante's 'Inferno' +or 'Paradiso,' or of the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Heaven and Hell are not +realities to them, but words or ideas_--_the outward symbols of some +great mystery, they hardly know what_." + +"It is so with me," said Hallin, smiling, as, at his gesture, Aldous +laid the book aside; "yet not quite. To my _mind_, that mystery indeed +is all unknown and dark--but to the heart it seems unveiled--with the +heart, I see." + +A little later Aldous was startled to hear him say, very clearly and +quickly: + +"Do you remember that this is the fifth of October?" + +Aldous drew his chair closer, that he might not raise his voice. + +"Yes, Ned." + +"Two years, wasn't it, to-day? Will you forgive me if I speak of her?" + +"You shall say anything you will." + +"Did you notice that piece of news I sent you, in my last letter to +Geneva? But of course you did. Did it please you?" + +"Yes, I was glad of it," said Aldous, after a pause, "extremely glad. I +thought she had escaped a great danger." + +Hallin studied his face closely. + +"She is free, Aldous--and she is a noble creature--she has learnt from +life--and from death--this last two years. And--you still love her. Is +it right to make no more effort?" + +Aldous saw the perspiration standing on the wasted brow--would have +given the world to be able to content or cheer him--yet would not, for +the world, at such a moment be false to his own feeling or deceive his +questioner. + +"I think it is right," he said deliberately, "--for a good many reasons, +Edward. In the first place I have not the smallest cause--not the +fraction of a cause--to suppose that I could occupy with her now any +other ground than that I occupied two years ago. She has been kind and +friendly to me--on the whole--since we met in London. She has even +expressed regret for last year--meaning, of course, as I understood, for +the pain and trouble that may be said to have come from her not knowing +her own mind. She wished that we should be friends. And"--he turned his +head away--"no doubt I could be, in time.... But, you see--in all that, +there is nothing whatever to bring me forward again. My fatal mistake +last year, I think now, lay in my accepting what she gave me--accepting +it so readily, so graspingly even. That was my fault, my blindness, +and--it was as unjust to her--as it was hopeless for myself. For hers is +a nature"--his eyes came back to his friend; his voice took a new force +and energy--"which, in love at any rate, will give all or nothing--and +will never be happy itself, or bring happiness, till it gives all. That +is what last year taught me. So that even if she--out of kindness or +remorse for giving pain--were willing to renew the old tie--I should be +her worst enemy and my own if I took a single step towards it. Marriage +on such terms as I was thankful for last year, would be humiliation to +me, and bring no gain to her. It will never serve a man with her"--his +voice broke into emotion--"that he should make no claims! Let him claim +the uttermost far-thing--her whole self. If she gives it, _then_ he may +know what love means!" + +Hallin had listened intently. At Aldous's last words his expression +showed pain and perplexity. His mind was full of vague impressions, +memories, which seemed to argue with and dispute one of the chief things +Aldous had been saying. But they were not definite enough to be put +forward. His sensitive chivalrous sense, even in this extreme weakness, +remembered the tragic weight that attaches inevitably to dying words. +Let him not do more harm than good. + +He rested a little. They brought him food; and Aldous sat beside him +making pretence to read, so that he might be encouraged to rest. His +sister came and went; so did the doctor. But when they were once more +alone, Hallin put out his hand and touched his companion. + +"What is it, dear Ned?" + +"Only one thing more, before we leave it. Is that _all_ that stands +between you now--the whole? You spoke to me once in the summer of +feeling _angry_, more angry than you could have believed. Of course, I +felt the same. But just now you spoke of its all being your fault. Is +there anything changed in your mind?" + +Aldous hesitated. It was extraordinarily painful to him to speak of the +past, and it troubled him that at such a moment it should trouble +Hallin. + +"There is nothing changed, Ned, except that perhaps time makes _some_ +difference always. I don't want now"--he tried to smile--"as I did then, +to make anybody else suffer for my suffering. But perhaps I marvel even +more than I did at first, that--that--she could have allowed some things +to happen as she did!" + +The tone was firm and vibrating; and, in speaking, the whole face had +developed a strong animation most passionate and human. + +Hallin sighed. + +"I often think," he said, "that she was extraordinarily immature--much +more immature than most girls of that age--as to feeling. It was really +the brain that was alive." + +Aldous silently assented; so much so that Hallin repented himself. + +"But not now," he said, in his eager dying whisper; "not now. The plant +is growing full and tall, into the richest life." + +Aldous took the wasted hand tenderly in his own. There was something +inexpressibly touching in this last wrestle of Hallin's affection with +another's grief. But it filled Aldous with a kind of remorse, and with +the longing to free him from that, as from every other burden, in these +last precious hours of life. And at last he succeeded, as he thought, in +drawing his mind away from it. They passed to other things. Hallin, +indeed, talked very little more during the day. He was very restless and +weak, but not in much positive suffering. Aldous read to him at +intervals, from Isaiah or Plato, the bright sleepless eyes following +every word. + +At last the light began to sink. The sunset flooded in from the +Berkshire uplands and the far Oxford plain, and lay in gold and purple +on the falling woods and the green stretches of the park. The distant +edges of hill were extraordinarily luminous and clear, and Aldous, +looking into the west with the eye of one to whom every spot and line +were familiar landmarks, could almost fancy he saw beyond the invisible +river, the hill, the "lovely tree against the western sky," which keep +for ever the memory of one with whose destiny it had often seemed to him +that Hallin's had something in common. To him, as to Thyrsis, the same +early joy, the same "happy quest," the same "fugitive and gracious +light" for guide and beacon, that-- + + does not come with houses or with gold, + With place, with honour and a flattering crew; + +and to him, too, the same tasked pipe and tired throat, the same +struggle with the "life of men unblest," the same impatient tryst with +death. + +The lovely lines ran dirge-like in his head, as he sat, sunk in grief, +beside his friend. Hallin did not speak; but his eye took note of every +change of light, of every darkening tone, as the quiet English scene +with its villages, churches, and woods, withdrew itself plane by plane +into the evening haze. His soul followed the quiet deer, the homing +birds, loosening itself gently the while from pain and from desire, +saying farewell to country, to the poor, to the work left undone, and +the hopes unrealised--to everything except to love. + +It had just struck six when he bent forward to the window beneath which +ran the wide front terrace. + +"That was her step!" he said, while his face lit up, "will you bring her +here?" + + * * * * * + +Marcella rang the bell at the Court with a fast beating heart. The old +butler who came gave what her shrinking sense thought a forbidding +answer to her shy greeting of him, and led her first into the +drawing-room. A small figure in deep black rose from a distant chair and +came forward stiffly. Marcella found herself shaking hands with Miss +Raeburn. + +"Will you sit and rest a little before you go upstairs?" said that lady +with careful politeness, "or shall I send word at once? He is hardly +worse--but as ill as he can be." + +"I am not the least tired," said Marcella, and Miss Raeburn rang. + +"Tell his lordship, please, that Miss Boyce is here." + +The title jarred and hurt Marcella's ear. But she had scarcely time to +catch it before Aldous entered, a little bent, as it seemed to her, from +his tall erectness, and speaking with an extreme quietness, even +monotony of manner. + +"He is waiting for you--will you come at once?" + +He led her up the central staircase and along the familiar passages, +walking silently a little in front of her. They passed the long line of +Caroline and Jacobean portraits in the upper gallery, till just outside +his own door Aldous paused. + +"He ought not to talk long," he said, hesitating, "but you will know--of +course--better than any of us." + +"I will watch him," she said, almost inaudibly, and he gently opened the +door and let her pass, shutting it behind her. + +The nurse, who was sitting beside her patient, got up as Marcella +entered, and pointed her to a low chair on his further side. Susie +Hallin rose too, and kissed the new-comer hurriedly, absently, without +a word, lest she should sob. Then she and the nurse disappeared through +an inner door. The evening light was still freely admitted; and there +were some candles. By the help of both she could only see him +indistinctly. But in her own mind, as she sat down, she determined that +he had not even days to live. + +Yet as she bent over him she saw a playful gleam on the cavernous face. + +"You won't scold me?" said the changed voice--"you did warn me--you and +Susie--but--I was obstinate. It was best so!" + +She pressed her lips to his hand and was answered by a faint pressure +from the cold fingers. + +"If I could have been there!" she murmured. + +"No--I am thankful you were not. And I must not think of it--or of any +trouble. Aldous is very bitter--but he will take comfort by and by--he +will see it--and them--more justly. They meant me no unkindness. They +were full of an idea, as I was. When I came back to myself--first--all +was despair. I was in a blank horror of myself and life. Now it has +gone--I don't know how. It is not of my own will--some hand has lifted a +weight. I seem to float--without pain." + +He closed his eyes, gathering strength again in the interval, by a +strong effort of will--calling up in the dimming brain what he had to +say. She meanwhile, spoke to him in a low voice, mainly to prevent his +talking, telling him of her father, of her mother's strain of +nursing--of herself--she hardly knew what. Hew grotesque to be giving +him these little bits of news about strangers--to him, this hovering, +consecrated soul, on the brink of the great secret! + +In the intervals, while he was still silent, she could not sometimes +prevent the pulse of her own life from stirring. Her eye wandered round +the room--Aldous's familiar room. There, on the writing-table with its +load of letters and books, stood the photograph of Hallin; another, her +own, used to stand beside it; it was solitary now. + +Otherwise, all was just as it had been--flowers, books, newspapers--the +signs of familiar occupation, the hundred small details of character and +personality which in estrangement take to themselves such a smarting +significance for the sad and craving heart. The date--the +anniversary--echoed in her mind. + +Then, with a rush of remorseful pain, her thoughts came back to the +present and to Hallin. At the same moment she saw that his eyes were +open, and fixed upon her with a certain anxiety and expectancy. He made +a movement as though to draw her towards him; and she stooped to him. + +"I feel," he said, "as though my strength were leaving me fast. Let me +ask you one question--because of my love for you--and _him_. I have +fancied--of late--things were changed. Can you tell me--will you?--or is +it unfair?"--the words had all their bright, natural intonation--"Is +your heart--still where it was?--or, could you ever--undo the past--" + +He held her fast, grasping the hand she had given him with unconscious +force. She had looked up startled, her lip trembling like a child's. +Then she dropped her head against the arm of her chair, as though she +could not speak. + +He moved restlessly, and sighed. + +"I should not," he said to himself; "I should not--it was wrong. The +dying are tyrannous." + +He even began a word of sweet apology. But she shook her head. + +"Don't!" she said, struggling with herself; "don't say that! It would do +me good to speak--to you--" + +An exquisite smile dawned on Hallin's face. + +"Then!"--he said--"confess!" + + * * * * * + +A few minutes later they were still sitting together. She strongly +wished to go; but he would not yet allow it. His face was full of a +mystical joy--a living faith, which must somehow communicate itself in +one last sacramental effort. + +"How strange that you--and I--and he--should have been so mixed together +in this queer life. Now I seem to regret nothing--I _hope_ everything. +One more little testimony let me bear!--the last. We disappear one by +one--into the dark--but each may throw his comrades--a token--before he +goes. You have been in much trouble of mind and spirit--I have seen it. +Take my poor witness. There is one clue, one only--_goodness_--_the +surrendered will_. Everything is there--all faith--all religion--all +hope for rich or poor.--Whether we feel our way through consciously to +the Will--that asks our will--matters little. Aldous and I have differed +much on this--in words--never at heart! I could use words, symbols he +cannot--and they have given me peace. But half my best life I owe to +him." + +At this he made a long pause--but, still, through that weak grasp, +refusing to let her go--till all was said. Day was almost gone; the +stars had come out over the purple dusk of the park. + +"That Will--we reach--through duty and pain," he whispered at last, so +faintly she could hardly hear him, "is the root, the source. It leads us +in living--it--carries us in death. But our weakness and vagueness--want +help--want the human life and voice--to lean on--to drink from. We +Christians--are orphans--without Christ! There again--what does it +matter what we think--_about_ him--if only we think--_of_ him. In _one_ +such life are all mysteries, and all knowledge--and our fathers have +chosen for us--" + +The insistent voice sank lower and lower into final silence--though the +lips still moved. The eyelids too fell. Miss Hallin and the nurse came +in. Marcella rose and stood for one passionate instant looking down upon +him. Then, with a pressure of the hand to the sister beside her, she +stole out. Her one prayer was that she might see and meet no one. So +soft was her step that even the watching Aldous did not hear her. She +lifted the heavy latch of the outer door without the smallest noise, and +found herself alone in the starlight. + + * * * * * + +After Marcella left him, Hallin remained for some hours in what seemed +to those about him a feverish trance. He did not sleep, but he showed no +sign of responsive consciousness. In reality his mind all through was +full of the most vivid though incoherent images and sensations. But he +could no longer distinguish between them and the figures and movements +of the real people in his room. Each passed into and intermingled with +the other. In some vague, eager way he seemed all the time to be waiting +or seeking for Aldous. There was the haunting impression of some word to +say--some final thing to do--which would not let him rest. But something +seemed always to imprison him, to hold him back, and the veil between +him and the real Aldous watching beside him grew ever denser. + +At night they made no effort to move him from the couch and the +half-sitting posture in which he had passed the day. Death had come too +near. His sister and Aldous and the young doctor who had brought him +from London watched with him. The curtains were drawn back from both the +windows, and in the clearness of the first autumnal frost a crescent +moon hung above the woods, the silvery lawns, the plain. + +Not long after midnight Hallin seemed to himself to wake, full of +purpose and of strength. He spoke, as he thought, to Aldous, asking to +be alone with him. But Aldous did not move; that sad watching gaze of +his showed no change. Then Hallin suffered a sudden sharp spasm of +anguish and of struggle. Three words to say--only three words; but those +he _must_ say! He tried again, but Aldous's dumb grief still sat +motionless. Then the thought leapt in the ebbing sense, "Speech is gone; +I shall speak no more!" + +It brought with it a stab, a quick revolt. But something checked both, +and in a final offering of the soul, Hallin gave up his last desire. + +What Aldous saw was only that the dying man opened his hand as though it +asked for that of his friend. He placed his own within those seeking +fingers, and Hallin's latest movement--which death stopped half-way--was +to raise it to his lips. + + * * * * * + +So Marcella's confession--made in the abandonment, the blind passionate +trust, of a supreme moment--bore no fruit. It went with Hallin to the +grave. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I think I saw the letters arrive," said Mrs. Boyce to her daughter. +"And Donna Margherita seems to be signalling to us." + +"Let me go for them, mamma." + +"No, thank you, I must go in." + +And Mrs. Boyce rose from her seat, and went slowly towards the hotel. +Marcella watched her widow's cap and black dress as they passed along +the _pergola_ of the hotel garden, between bright masses of geraniums +and roses on either side. + +They had been sitting in the famous garden of the Cappucini Hotel at +Amalfi. To Marcella's left, far below the high terrace of the hotel, the +green and azure of the Salernian gulf shone and danced in the sun, to +her right a wood of oak and arbutus stretched up into a purple cliff--a +wood starred above with gold and scarlet berries, and below with +cyclamen and narcissus. From the earth under the leafy oaks--for the +oaks at Amalfi lose and regain their foliage in winter and spring by +imperceptible gradations--came a moist English smell. The air was damp +and warm. A convent bell tolled from invisible heights above the garden; +while the olives and vines close at hand were full of the chattering +voices of gardeners and children, and broken here and there by clouds of +pink almond-blossom. March had just begun, and the afternoons were fast +lengthening. It was little more than a fortnight since Mr. Boyce's +death. In the November of the preceding year Mrs. Boyce and Marcella had +brought him to Naples by sea, and there, at a little villa on Posilippo, +he had drawn sadly to his end. It had been a dreary time, from which +Marcella could hardly hope that her mother would ever fully recover. She +herself had found in the long months of nursing--nursing of which, with +quiet tenacity, she had gradually claimed and obtained her full share--a +deep moral consolation. They had paid certain debts to conscience, and +they had for ever enshrined her father's memory in the silence of an +unmeasured and loving pity. + +But the wife? Marcella sorely recognised that to her mother these last +days had brought none of the soothing, reconciling influences they had +involved for herself. Between the husband and wife there had been dumb +friction and misery--surely also a passionate affection!--to the end. +The invalid's dependence on her had been abject, her devotion wonderful. +Yet, in her close contact with them, the daughter had never been able to +ignore the existence between them of a wretched though tacit +debate--reproach on his side, self-defence or spasmodic effort on +hers--which seemed to have its origin deep in the past, yet to be +stimulated afresh by a hundred passing incidents of the present. Under +the blight of it, as under the physical strain of nursing, Mrs. Boyce +had worn and dwindled to a white-haired shadow; while he had both clung +to life and feared death more than would normally have been the case. +At the end he had died in her arms, his head on her breast; she had +closed his eyes and performed every last office without a tear; nor had +Marcella ever seen her weep from then till now. The letters she had +received, mostly, Marcella believed, from her own family, remained +unopened in her travelling-bag. She spoke very little, and was +constantly restless, nor could Marcella as yet form any idea of the +future. + +After the funeral at Naples Mrs. Boyce had written immediately to her +husband's solicitor for a copy of his will and a statement of affairs. +She had then allowed herself to be carried off to Amalfi, and had there, +while entirely declining to admit that she was ill, been clearly doing +her best to recover health and nerve sufficient to come to some +decision, to grapple with some crisis which Marcella also felt to be +impending--though as to why it should be impending, or what the nature +of it might be, she could only dread and guess. + +There was much bitter yearning in the girl's heart as she sat, breathed +on by the soft Italian wind blowing from this enchanted sea. The inner +cry was that her mother did not love her, had never loved her, and might +even now--weird, incredible thought!--be planning to desert her. Hallin +was dead--who else was there that cared for her or thought of her? Betty +Macdonald wrote often, wild, "_schwärmerisch_" letters. Marcella looked +for them with eagerness, and answered them affectionately. But Betty +must soon marry, and then all that would be at an end. Meanwhile +Marcella knew well it was Betty's news that made Betty's adoration +doubly welcome. Aldous Raeburn--she never did or could think of him +under his new name--was apparently in London, much occupied in politics, +and constantly, as it seemed, in Betty's society. What likelihood was +there that her life and his would ever touch again? She thought often of +her confession to Hallin, but in great perplexity of feeling. She had, +of course, said no word of secrecy to him at the time. Such a demand in +a man's last hour would have been impossible. She had simply followed a +certain mystical love and obedience in telling him what he asked to +know, and in the strong spontaneous impulse had thought of nothing +beyond. Afterwards her pride had suffered fresh martyrdom. Could he, +with his loving instinct, have failed to give his friend some sign? If +so, it had been unwelcome, for since the day of Hallin's funeral she and +Aldous had been more complete strangers than before. Lady Winterbourne, +Betty, Frank Leven, had written since her father's death; but from him, +nothing. + +By the way, Frank Leven had succeeded at Christmas, by old Sir Charles +Leven's unexpected death, to the baronetcy and estates. How would that +affect his chances with Betty?--if indeed there were any such chances +left. + +As to her own immediate future, Marcella knew from many indications that +Mellor would be hers at once. But in her general tiredness of mind and +body she was far more conscious of the burden of her inheritance than of +its opportunities. All that vivid castle-building gift which was +specially hers, and would revive, was at present in abeyance. She had +pined once for power and freedom, that she might make a Kingdom of +Heaven of her own, quickly. Now power and freedom, up to a certain +point, were about to be put into her hands; and instead of plans for +acting largely and bountifully on a plastic outer world, she was saying +to herself, hungrily, that unless she had something close to her to love +and live for, she could do nothing. If her mother would end these +unnatural doubts, if she would begin to make friends with her own +daughter, and only yield herself to be loved and comforted, why _then_ +it might be possible to think of the village and the straw-plaiting! +Otherwise--the girl's attitude as she sat dreaming in the sun showed her +despondency. + +She was roused by her mother's voice calling her from the other end of +the _pergola_. + +"Yes, mamma." + +"Will you come in? There are some letters." + +"It is the will," thought Marcella, as Mrs. Boyce turned back to the +hotel, and she followed. + +Mrs. Boyce shut the door of their sitting-room, and then went up to her +daughter with a manner which suddenly struck and startled Marcella. +There was natural agitation and trouble in it. + +"There is something in the will, Marcella, which will, I fear, annoy and +distress you. Your father inserted it without consulting me. I want to +know what you think ought to be done. You will find that Lord Maxwell +and I have been appointed joint executors." + +Marcella turned pale. + +"Lord Maxwell!" she said, bewildered. "_Lord Maxwell--Aldous_! What do +you mean, mamma?" + +Mrs. Boyce put the will into her hands, and, pointing the way among the +technicalities she had been perusing while Marcella was still lingering +in the garden, showed her the paragraph in question. The words of the +will were merely formal: "I hereby appoint," &c., and no more; but in a +communication from the family solicitor, Mr. French, which Mrs. Boyce +silently handed to her daughter after she had read the legal +disposition, the ladies were informed that Mr. Boyce had, before +quitting England, written a letter to Lord Maxwell, duly sealed and +addressed, with instructions that it should be forwarded to its +destination immediately after the writer's burial. "Those instructions," +said Mr. French, "I have carried out. I understand that Lord Maxwell was +not consulted as to his appointment as executor prior to the drawing up +of the will. But you will no doubt hear from him at once, and as soon as +we know that he consents to act, we can proceed immediately to probate." + +"Mamma, how _could_ he?" said Marcella, in a low, suffocated voice, +letting will and letter fall upon her knee. + +"Did he give you no warning in that talk you had with him at Mellor?" +said Mrs. Boyce, after a minute's silence. + +"Not the least," said Marcella, rising restlessly and beginning to walk +up and down. "He spoke to me about wishing to bring it on again--asked +me to let him write. I told him it was all done with--for ever! As to my +own feelings, I felt it was no use to speak of them; but I thought--I +_believed_, I had proved to him that Lord Maxwell had absolutely given +up all idea of such a thing; and that it was already probable he would +marry some one else. I told him I would rather disappear from every one +I knew than consent to it--he could only humiliate us all by saying a +word. And _now_, after that!--" + +She stopped in her restless walk, pressing her hands miserably together. + +"What _does_ he want with us and our affairs?" she broke out. "He +wishes, of course, to have no more to do with me. And now we force +him--_force_ him into these intimate relations. What can papa have said +in that letter to him? What _can_ he have said? Oh! it is unbearable! +Can't we write at once?" + +She pressed her hands over her eyes in a passion of humiliation and +disgust. Mrs. Boyce watched her closely. + +"We must wait, anyway, for his letter," she said. "It ought to be here +by to-morrow morning." + +Marcella sank on a chair by an open glass door, her eyes wandering, +through the straggling roses growing against the wall of the stone +balcony outside, to the laughing purples and greens of the sea. + +"Of course," she said unhappily, "it is most probable he will consent. +It would not be like him to refuse. But, mamma, you must write. _I_ must +write and beg him not to do it. It is quite simple. We can manage +everything for ourselves. Oh! how _could_ papa?" she broke out again in +a low wail, "how could he?" + +Mrs. Boyce's lips tightened sharply. It seemed to her a foolish +question. _She_, at least, had had the experience of twenty years out of +which to answer it. Death had made no difference. She saw her husband's +character and her own seared and broken life with the same tragical +clearness; she felt the same gnawing of an affection not to be plucked +out while the heart still beat. This act of indelicacy and injustice was +like many that had gone before it; and there was in it the same evasion +and concealment towards herself. No matter. She had made her account +with it all twenty years before. What astonished her was, that the force +of her strong coercing will had been able to keep him for so long within +the limits of the smaller and meaner immoralities of this world. + +"Have you read the rest of the will?" she asked, after a long pause. + +Marcella lifted it again, and began listlessly to go through it. + +"Mamma!" she said presently, looking up, the colour flushing back into +her face, "I find no mention of you in it throughout. There seems to be +no provision for you." + +"There is none," said Mrs. Boyce, quietly. "There was no need. I have my +own income. We lived upon it for years before your father succeeded to +Mellor. It is therefore amply sufficient for me now." + +"You cannot imagine," cried Marcella, trembling in every limb, "that I +am going to take the whole of my father's estate, and leave +nothing--_nothing_ for his wife. It would be impossible--unseemly. It +would be to do _me_ an injustice, mamma, as well as yourself," she added +proudly. + +"No, I think not," said Mrs. Boyce, with her usual cold absence of +emotion. "You do not yet understand the situation. Your father's +misfortunes nearly ruined the estate for a time. Your grandfather went +through great trouble, and raised large sums to--" she paused for the +right phrase--"to free us from the consequences of your father's +actions. I benefited, of course, as much as he did. Those sums crippled +all your grandfather's old age. He was a man to whom I was +attached--whom I respected. Mellor, I believe, had never been +embarrassed before. Well, your uncle did a little towards recovery--but +on the whole he was a fool. Your father has done much more, and you, no +doubt, will complete it. As for me, I have no claim to anything more +from Mellor. The place itself is"--again she stopped for a word of which +the energy, when it came, seemed to escape her--"hateful to me. I shall +feel freer if I have no tie to it. And at last I persuaded your father +to let me have my way." + +Marcella rose from her seat impetuously, walked quickly across the room, +and threw herself on her knees beside her mother. + +"Mamma, are you still determined--now that we two are alone in the +world--to act towards me, to treat me as though I were not your +daughter--not your child at all, but a stranger?" + +It was a cry of anguish. A sudden slight tremor swept over Mrs. Boyce's +thin and withered face. She braced herself to the inevitable. + +"Don't let us make a tragedy of it, my dear," she said, with a light +touch on Marcella's hands. "Let us discuss it reasonably. Won't you sit +down? I am not proposing anything very dreadful. But, like you, I have +some interests of my own, and I should be glad to follow them--now--a +little. I wish to spend some of the year in London; to make that, +perhaps, my headquarters, so as to see something of some old friends +whom I have had no intercourse with for years--perhaps also of my +relations." She spoke of them with a particular dryness. "And I should +be glad--after this long time--to be somewhat taken out of oneself, to +read, to hear what is going on, to feed one's mind a little." + +Marcella, looking at her, saw a kind of feverish light, a sparkling +intensity in the pale blue eyes, that filled her with amazement. What, +after all, did she know of this strange individuality from which her own +being had taken its rise? The same flesh and blood--what an irony of +nature! + +"Of course," continued Mrs. Boyce, "I should go to you, and you would +come to me. It would only be for part of the year. Probably we should +get more from each other's lives so. As you know, I long to see things +as they are, not conventionally. Anyway, whether I were there or no, you +would probably want some companion to help you in your work and plans. I +am not fit for them. And it would be easy to find some one who could act +as chaperon in my absence." + +The hot tears sprang to Marcella's eyes. "Why did you send me away from +you, mamma, all my childhood," she cried. "It was wrong--cruel. I have +no brother or sister. And you put me out of your life when I had no +choice, when I was too young to understand." + +Mrs. Boyce winced, but made no reply. She sat with her delicate hand +across her brow. She was the white shadow of her former self; but her +fragility had always seemed to Marcella more indomitable than anybody +else's strength. + +Sobs began to rise in Marcella's throat. + +"And now," she said, in half-coherent despair, "do you know what you are +doing? You are cutting yourself off from me--refusing to have any real +bond to me just when I want it most. I suppose you think that I shall be +satisfied with the property and the power, and the chance of doing what +I like. But"--she tried her best to gulp back her pain, her outraged +feeling, to speak quietly--"I am not like that really any more. I can +take it all up, with courage and heart, if you will stay with me, and +let me--let me--love you and care for you. But, by myself, I feel as if +I could not face it! I am not likely to be happy--for a long +time--except in doing what work I can. It is very improbable that I +shall marry. I dare say you don't believe me, but it is true. We are +both sad and lonely. We have no one but each other. And then you talk in +this ghastly way of separating from me--casting me off." + +Her voice trembled and broke, she looked at her mother with a frowning +passion. + +Mrs. Boyce still sat silent, studying her daughter with a strange, +brooding eye. Under her unnatural composure there was in reality a +half-mad impatience, the result of physical and moral reaction. This +beauty, this youth, talk of sadness, of finality! What folly! Still, she +was stirred, undermined in spite of herself. + +"There!" she said, with a restless gesture, "let us, please, talk of it +no more. I will come back with you--I will do my best. We will let the +matter of my future settlement alone for some months, at any rate, if +that will satisfy you or be any help to you." + +She made a movement as though to rise from her low chair. But the great +waters swelled in Marcella--swelled and broke. She fell on her knees +again by her mother, and before Mrs. Boyce could stop her she had thrown +her young arms close round the thin, shrunken form. + +"Mother!" she said. "Mother, be good to me--love me--you are all I +have!" + +And she kissed the pale brow and cheek with a hungry, almost a violent +tenderness that would not be gainsaid, murmuring wild incoherent things. + +Mrs. Boyce first tried to put her away, then submitted, being physically +unable to resist, and at last escaped from her with a sudden sob that +went to the girl's heart. She rose, went to the window, struggled hard +for composure, and finally left the room. + +But that evening, for the first time, she let Marcella put her on the +sofa, tend her, and read to her. More wonderful still, she went to sleep +while Marcella was reading. In the lamplight her face looked piteously +old and worn. The girl sat for long with her hands clasped round her +knees, gazing down upon it, in a trance of pain and longing. + + * * * * * + +Marcella was awake early next morning, listening to the full voice of +the sea as it broke three hundred feet below, against the beach and +rocky walls of the little town. She was lying in a tiny white room, one +of the cells of the old monastery, and the sun as it rose above the +Salernian mountains--the mountains that hold Paestum in their blue and +purple shadows--danced in gold on the white wall. The bell of the +cathedral far below tolled the hour. She supposed it must be six +o'clock. Two hours more or so, and Lord Maxwell's letter might be looked +for. + +She lay and thought of it--longed for it, and for the time of answering +it, with the same soreness that had marked all the dreams of a restless +night. If she could only see her father's letter! It was inconceivable +that he should have mentioned _her_ name in his plea. He might have +appealed to the old friendship between the families. That was possible, +and would have, at any rate, an _appearance_ of decency. But who could +answer for it--or for him? She clasped her hands rigidly behind her +head, her brows frowning, bending her mind with an intensity of will to +the best means of assuring Aldous Raeburn that she and her mother would +not encroach upon him. She had a perpetual morbid vision of herself as +the pursuer, attacking him now through his friend, now through her +father. Oh! when would that letter come, and let her write her own! + +She tried to read, but in reality listened for every sound of awakening +life in the hotel. When at last her mother's maid came in to call her, +she sprang up with a start. + +"Deacon, are the letters come?" + +"There are two for your mother, miss; none for you." + +Marcella threw on her dressing-gown, watched her opportunity, and +slipped in to her mother, who occupied a similar cell next door. + +Mrs. Boyce was sitting up in bed, with a letter before her, her pale +blue eyes fixed absently on the far stretch of sea. + +She looked round with a start as Marcella entered. "The letter is to me, +of course," she said. + +Marcella read it breathlessly. + +"Dear Mrs. Boyce,--I have this morning received from your solicitor, Mr. +French, a letter written by Mr. Boyce to myself in November of last +year. In it he asks me to undertake the office of executor, to which, I +hear from Mr. French, he has named me in his will. Mr. French also +enquires whether I shall be willing to act, and asks me to communicate +with you. + +"May I, then, venture to intrude upon you with these few words? Mr. +Boyce refers in his touching letter to the old friendship between our +families, and to the fact that similar offices have often been performed +by his relations for mine, or _vice versa_. But no reminder of the kind +was in the least needed. If I can be of any service to yourself and to +Miss Boyce, neither your poor husband nor you could do me any greater +kindness than to command me. + +"I feel naturally some diffidence in the matter. I gather from Mr. +French that Miss Boyce is her father's heiress, and comes at once into +the possession of Mellor. She may not, of course, wish me to act, in +which case I should withdraw immediately; but I sincerely trust that she +will not forbid me the very small service I could so easily and gladly +render. + +"I cannot close my letter without venturing to express the deep +sympathy I have felt for you and yours during the past six months. I +have been far from forgetful of all that you have been going through, +though I may have seemed so. I trust that you and your daughter will not +hurry home for any business cause, if it is still best for your health +to stay in Italy. With your instructions Mr. French and I could arrange +everything. + + "Believe me, + + "Yours most sincerely, + + "MAXWELL." + +"You will find it difficult, my dear, to write a snub in answer to that +letter," said Mrs. Boyce, drily, as Marcella laid it down. + +Marcella's face was, indeed, crimson with perplexity and feeling. + +"Well, we can think it over," she said as she went away. + +Mrs. Boyce pondered the matter a good deal when she was left alone. The +signs of reaction and change in Marcella were plain enough. What they +precisely meant, and how much, was another matter. As to him, Marcella's +idea of another attachment might be true, or might be merely the +creation of her own irritable pride. Anyway, he was in the mood to write +a charming letter. Mrs. Boyce's blanched lip had all its natural irony +as she thought it over. To her mind Aldous Raeburn's manners had always +been a trifle too good, whether for his own interests or for this wicked +world. And if he had any idea now of trying again, let him, for +Heaven's sake, not be too yielding or too eager! "It was always the +way," thought Mrs. Boyce, remembering a child in white frock and baby +shoes--"if you wished to make her want anything, you had to take it away +from her." + +Meanwhile the mere thought that matters might even yet so settle +themselves drew from the mother a long breath of relief. She had spent +an all but sleepless night, tormented by Marcella's claim upon her. +After twenty years of self-suppression this woman of forty-five, +naturally able, original, and independent, had seen a glimpse of +liberty. In her first youth she had been betrayed as a wife, degraded as +a member of society. A passion she could not kill, combined with some +stoical sense of inalienable obligation, had combined to make her both +the slave and guardian of her husband up to middle life; and her family +and personal pride, so strong in her as a girl, had found its only +outlet in this singular estrangement she had achieved between herself +and every other living being, including her own daughter. Now her +husband was dead, and all sorts of crushed powers and desires, mostly of +the intellectual sort, had been strangely reviving within her. Just +emerged, as she was, from the long gloom of nursing, she already wished +to throw it all behind her--to travel, to read, to make +acquaintances--she who had lived as a recluse for twenty years! There +was in it a last clutch at youth, at life. And she had no desire to +enter upon this new existence--in comradeship with Marcella. They were +independent and very different human beings. That they were mother and +daughter was a mere physical accident. + +Moreover, though she was amply conscious of the fine development in +Marcella during the past two years, it is probable that she felt her +daughter even less congenial to her now than of old. For the rich, +emotional nature had, as we have seen, "suffered conviction," had turned +in the broad sense to "religion," was more and more sensitive, +especially since Hallin's death, to the spiritual things and symbols in +the world. At Naples she had haunted churches; had read, as her mother +knew, many religious books. + +Now Mrs. Boyce in these matters had a curious history. She had begun +life as an ardent Christian, under evangelical influences. Her husband, +on the other hand, at the time she married him was a man of purely +sceptical opinions, a superficial disciple of Mill and Comte, and fond +of an easy profanity which seemed to place him indisputably with the +superior persons of this world. To the amazement and scandal of her +friends, Evelyn Merritt had not been three months his wife before she +had adopted his opinions _en bloc_, and was carrying them out to their +logical ends with a sincerity and devotion quite unknown to her teacher. +Thenceforward her conception of things--of which, however, she seldom +spoke--had been actively and even vehemently rationalist; and it had +been one of the chief sorenesses and shames of her life at Mellor that, +in order to suit his position as country squire, Richard Boyce had sunk +to what, in her eyes, were a hundred mean compliances with things +orthodox and established. + +Then, in his last illness, he had finally broken away from her, and his +own past. "Evelyn, I should like to see a clergyman," he had said to +her in his piteous voice, "and I shall ask him to give me the +Sacrament." She had made every arrangement accordingly; but her bitter +soul could see nothing in the step but fear and hypocrisy; and he knew +it. And as he lay talking alone with the man whom they had summoned, two +or three nights before the end, she, sitting in the next room, had been +conscious of a deep and smarting jealousy. Had not the hard devotion of +twenty years made him at least her own? And here was this black-coated +reciter of incredible things stepping into her place. Only in death she +recovered him wholly. No priest interfered while he drew his last breath +upon her bosom. + +And now Marcella! Yet the girl's voice and plea tugged at her withered +heart. She felt a dread of unknown softnesses--of being invaded and +weakened by things in her akin to her daughter, and so captured afresh. +Her mind fell upon the bare idea of a revival of the Maxwell engagement, +and caressed it. + +Meanwhile Marcella stood dressing by the open window in the sunlight, +which filled the room with wavy reflections caught from the sea. +Fishing-boats were putting off from the beach, three hundred feet below +her; she could hear the grating of the keels, the songs of the boatmen. +On the little breakwater to the right an artist's white umbrella shone +in the sun; and a half-naked boy, poised on the bows of a boat moored +beside the painter, stood bent in the eager attitude of one about to +drop the bait into the blue wave below. His brown back burnt against the +water. Cliff, houses, sea, glowed in warmth and light; the air was full +of roses and orange-blossom; and to an English sense had already the +magic of summer. + +And Marcella's hands, as she coiled and plaited her black hair, moved +with a new lightness; for the first time since her father's death her +look had its normal fire, crossed every now and then by something that +made her all softness and all woman. No! as her mother said, one could +not snub that letter or its writer. But how to answer it! In imagination +she had already penned twenty different replies. How not to be grasping +or effusive, and yet to show that you could feel and repay +kindness--there was the problem! + +Meanwhile, from that letter, or rather in subtle connection with it, her +thoughts at last went wandering off with a natural zest to her new realm +of Mellor, and to all that she would and could do for the dwellers +therein. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It was a bleak east-wind day towards the end of March. Aldous was at +work in the library at the Court, writing at his grandfather's table, +where in general he got through his estate and county affairs, keeping +his old sitting-room upstairs for the pursuits that were more +particularly his own. + +All the morning he had been occupied with a tedious piece of local +business, wading through endless documents concerning a dispute between +the head-master of a neighbouring grammar-school and his governing body, +of which Aldous was one. The affair was difficult, personal, odious. To +have wasted nearly three hours upon it was, to a man of Aldous's type, +to have lost a day. Besides he had not his grandfather's knack in such +things, and was abundantly conscious of it. + +However, there it was, a duty which none but he apparently could or +would do, and he had been wrestling with it. With more philosophy than +usual, too, since every tick of the clock behind him bore him nearer to +an appointment which, whatever it might be, would not be tedious. + +At last he got up and went to the window to look at the weather. A +cutting wind, clearly, but no rain. Then he walked into the +drawing-room, calling for his aunt. No one was to be seen, either there +or in the conservatory, and he came back to the library and rang. + +"Roberts, has Miss Raeburn gone out?" + +"Yes, my lord," said the old butler addressed. "She and Miss Macdonald +have gone out driving, and I was to tell your lordship that Miss Raeburn +would drop Miss Macdonald at Mellor on her way home." + +"Is Sir Frank anywhere about?" + +"He was in the smoking-room a little while ago, my lord." + +"Will you please try and find him?" + +"Yes, my lord." + +Aldous's mouth twitched with impatience as the old servant shut the +door. + +"How many times did Roberts manage to be-lord me in a minute?" he asked +himself; "yet if I were to remonstrate, I suppose I should only make him +unhappy." + +And walking again to the window, he thrust his hands into his pockets +and stood looking out with a far from cheerful countenance. + +One of the things that most tormented him indeed in this recent +existence was a perpetual pricking sense of the contrast between this +small world of his ancestral possessions and traditions, with all its +ceremonial and feudal usage, and the great rushing world outside it of +action and of thought. Do what he would, he could not un-king himself +within the limits of the Maxwell estate. To the people living upon it he +was the man of most importance within their ken, was inevitably their +potentate and earthly providence. He confessed that there was a real +need of him, if he did his duty. But on this need the class-practice of +generations had built up a deference, a sharpness of class-distinction, +which any modern must find more and more irksome in proportion to his +modernness. What was in Aldous's mind, as he stood with drawn brows +looking out over the view which showed him most of his domain, was a +sort of hot impatience of being made day by day, in a hundred foolish +ways, to play at greatness. + +Yet, as we know, he was no democrat by conviction, had no comforting +faith in what seemed to him the rule of a multitudinous ignorance. Still +every sane man of to-day knows, at any rate, that the world has taken +the road of democracy, and that the key to the future, for good or ill, +lies not in the revolts and speculations of the cultivated few, but in +the men and movements that can seize the many. Aldous's temper was +despondently critical towards the majority of these, perhaps; he had, +constitutionally, little of that poet's sympathy with the crowd, as +such, which had given Hallin his power. But, at any rate, they filled +the human stage--these men and movements--and his mind as a beholder. +Beside the great world-spectacle perpetually in his eye and thought, the +small old-world pomps and feudalisms of his own existence had a way of +looking ridiculous to him. He constantly felt himself absurd. It was +ludicrously clear to him, for instance, that in this kingdom he had +inherited it would be thought a huge condescension on his part if he +were to ask the secretary of a trades union to dine with him at the +Court. Whereas, in his own honest opinion, the secretary had a far more +important and interesting post in the universe than he. + +So that, in spite of a strong love of family, rigidly kept to himself, +he had very few of the illusions which make rank and wealth delightful. +On the other hand, he had a tyrannous sense of obligation, which kept +him tied to his place and his work--to such work as he had been spending +the morning on. This sense of obligation had for the present withdrawn +him from any very active share in politics. He had come to the +conclusion early in the year, just about the time when, owing to some +rearrangements in the _personnel_ of the Government, the Premier had +made him some extremely flattering overtures, that he must for the +present devote himself to the Court. There were extensive changes and +reforms going on in different parts of the estate: some of the schools +which he owned and mainly supported were being rebuilt and enlarged; and +he had a somewhat original scheme for the extension of adult education +throughout the property very much on his mind--a scheme which must be +organised and carried through by himself apparently, if it was to thrive +at all. + +Much of this business was very dreary to him, some of it altogether +distasteful. Since the day of his parting with Marcella Boyce his only +real _pleasures_ had lain in politics or books. Politics, just as they +were growing absorbing to him, must, for a while at any rate, be put +aside; and even books had not fared as well as they might have been +expected to do in the country quiet. Day after day he walked or rode +about the muddy lanes of the estate, doing the work that seemed to him +to be his, as best he could, yet never very certain of its value; +rather, spending his thoughts more and more, with regard to his own +place and function in the world, on a sort of mental apologetic which +was far from stimulating; sorely conscious the while of the unmatched +charm and effectiveness with which his grandfather had gone about the +same business; and as lonely at heart as a man can well be--the wound of +love unhealed, the wound of friendship still deep and unconsoled. To +bring social peace and progress, as he understood them, to this bit of +Midland England a man of first-rate capacities was perhaps sacrificing +what ambition would have called his opportunities. Yet neither was he a +hero to himself nor to the Buckinghamshire farmers and yokels who +depended on him. They had liked the grandfather better, and had become +stolidly accustomed to the grandson's virtues. + +The only gleam in the grey of his life since he had determined about +Christmas-time to settle down at the Court had come from Mr. French's +letter. That letter, together with Mr. Boyce's posthumous note, which +contained nothing, indeed, but a skilful appeal to neighbourliness and +old family friendship, written in the best style of the ex-Balkan +Commissioner, had naturally astonished him greatly. He saw at once what +_she_ would perceive in it, and turned impatiently from speculation as +to what Mr. Boyce might actually have meant, to the infinitely more +important matter, how she would take her father's act. Never had he +written anything with greater anxiety than he devoted to his letter to +Mrs. Boyce. There was in him now a craving he could not stay, to be +brought near to her again, to know how her life was going. It had first +raised its head in him since he knew that her existence and Wharton's +were finally parted, and had but gathered strength from the +self-critical loneliness and tedium of these later months. + +Mrs. Boyce's reply couched in terms at once stately and grateful, which +accepted his offer of service on her own and her daughter's behalf, had +given him extraordinary pleasure. He turned it over again and again, +wondering what part or lot Marcella might have had in it, attributing to +her this cordiality or that reticence; picturing the two women together +in their black dresses--the hotel, the _pergola_, the cliff--all of +which he himself knew well. Finally, he went up to town, saw Mr. French, +and acquainted himself with the position and prospects of the Mellor +estate, feeling himself a sort of intruder, yet curiously happy in the +business. It was wonderful what that poor sickly fellow had been able to +do in the last two years; yet his thoughts fell rather into amused +surmise as to what _she_ would find it in her restless mind to do in the +_next_ two years. + +Nevertheless, all the time, the resolution of which he had spoken to +Hallin seemed to himself unshaken. He recognised and adored the womanly +growth and deepening which had taken place in her; he saw that she +wished to show him kindness. But he thought he could trust himself now +and henceforward not to force upon her a renewed suit for which there +was in his eyes no real or abiding promise of happiness. + +Marcella and her mother had now been at home some three or four days, +and he was just about to walk over to Mellor for his first interview +with them. A great deal of the merely formal business consequent on Mr. +Boyce's death had been already arranged by himself and Mr. French. Yet +he had to consult Marcella as to certain investments, and in a pleasant +though quite formal little note he had that morning received from her +she had spoken of asking his advice as to some new plans for the estate. +It was the first letter she herself had as yet written to him; hitherto +all his correspondence had been carried on with Mrs. Boyce. It had +struck him, by the way, as remarkable that there was no mention of the +wife in the will. He could only suppose that she was otherwise provided +for. But there had been some curious expressions in her letters. + +Where was Frank? Aldous looked impatiently at the clock, as Roberts did +not reappear. He had invited Leven to walk with him to Mellor, and the +tiresome boy was apparently not to be found. Aldous vowed he would not +wait a minute, and going into the hall, put on coat and hat with most +business-like rapidity. + +He was just equipped when Roberts, somewhat breathless with long +searching, arrived in time to say that Sir Frank was on the front +terrace. + +And there Aldous caught sight of the straight though somewhat heavily +built figure, in its grey suit with the broad band of black across the +arm. + +"Hullo, Frank! I thought you were to look me up in the library. Roberts +has been searching the house for you." + +"You said nothing about the library," said the boy, rather sulkily, "and +Roberts hadn't far to search. I have been in the smoking-room till this +minute." + +Aldous did not argue the point, and they set out. It was presently +clear to the elder man that his companion was not in the best of +tempers. The widowed Lady Leven had sent her firstborn over to the Court +for a few days that Aldous might have some discussion as to his +immediate future with the young man. She was a silly, frivolous woman; +but it was clear, even to her, that Frank was not doing very well for +himself in the world; and advice she would not have taken from her son's +Oxford tutor seemed cogent to her when it came from a Raeburn. "Do at +least, for goodness' sake, get him to give up his absurd plan of going +to America!" she wrote to Aldous; "if he can't take his degree at +Oxford, I suppose he must get on without it, and certainly his dons seem +very unpleasant. But at least he might stay at home and do his duty to +me and his sisters till he marries, instead of going off to the +'Rockies' or some other ridiculous place. He really never seems to think +of Fanny and Rachel, or what he might do to help me to get them settled +now that his poor father is gone." + +No; certainly the young man was not much occupied with "Fanny and +Rachel!" He spoke with ill-concealed impatience, indeed, of both his +sisters and his mother. If his people would get in the way of everything +he wanted to do, they needn't wonder if he cut up rough at home. For the +present it was settled that he should at any rate go back to Oxford till +the end of the summer term--Aldous heartily pitying the unfortunate dons +who might have to do with him--but after that he entirely declined to be +bound. He swore he would not be tied at home like a girl; he must and +would see the world. This in itself, from a lad who had been accustomed +to regard his home as the centre of all delights, and had on two +occasions stoutly refused to go with his family to Rome, lest he should +miss the best month for his father's trout-stream, was sufficiently +surprising. + +However, of late some tardy light had been dawning upon Aldous! The +night after Frank's arrival at the Court Betty Macdonald came down to +spend a few weeks with Miss Raeburn, being for the moment that lady's +particular pet and _protégée_. Frank, whose sulkiness during the +twenty-four hours before she appeared had been the despair of both his +host and hostess, brightened up spasmodically when he heard she was +expected, and went fishing with one of the keepers, on the morning +before her arrival, with a fair imitation of his usual spirits. But +somehow, since that first evening, though Betty had chattered, and +danced, and frolicked her best, though her little figure running up and +down the big house gave a new zest to life in it, Frank's manners had +gone from bad to worse. And at last Aldous, who had not as yet seen the +two much together, and was never an observant man in such matters, had +begun to have an inkling. Was it _possible_ that the boy was in love, +and with Betty? He sounded Miss Raeburn; found that she did not rise to +his suggestion at all--was, in fact, annoyed by it--and with the usual +stupidity of the clever man failed to draw any reasonable inference from +the queerness of his aunt's looks and sighs. + +As to the little minx herself, she was inscrutable. She teased them all +in turns, Frank, perhaps, less than the others. Aldous, as usual, found +her a delightful companion. She would walk all over the estate with him +in the most mannish garments and boots conceivable, which only made her +childish grace more feminine and more provocative than ever. She took an +interest in all his tenants; she dived into all his affairs; she +insisted on copying his letters. And meanwhile, on either side were Miss +Raeburn, visibly recovering day by day her old cheeriness and bustle, +and Frank--Frank, who ate nothing, or nothing commensurate to his bulk, +and, if possible, said less. + +Aldous had begun to feel that the situation must be probed somehow, and +had devised this walk, indeed, with some vague intention of plying +remonstrances and enquiries. He had an old affection for the boy, which +Lady Leven had reckoned upon. + +The first difficulty, of course, was to make him talk at all. Aldous +tried various sporting "gambits" with very small success. At last, by +good-luck, the boy rose to something like animation in describing an +encounter he had had the week before with a piebald weasel in the course +of a morning's ferreting. + +"All at once we saw the creature's head poke out of the hole--_pure +white_, with a brown patch on it. When it saw us, back it scooted!--and +we sent in another ferret after the one that was there already. My +goodness! there _was_ a shindy down in the earth--you could hear them +rolling and kicking like anything. We had our guns ready,--but all of a +sudden everything stopped--not a sound or a sign of anything! We threw +down our guns and dug away like blazes. Presently we came on the two +ferrets gorging away at a dead rabbit,--nasty little beasts!--that +accounted for _them_; but where on earth was the weasel? I really began +to think we had imagined the creature, when, whish! came a flash of +white lightning, and out the thing bolted--pure white with a splash of +brown--its winter coat, of course. I shot at it, but it was no go. If +I'd only put a bag over the hole, and not been an idiot, I should have +caught it." + +The boy swung along, busily ruminating for a minute or two, and +forgetting his trouble. + +"I've seen one something like it before," he went on--"ages ago, when I +was a little chap, and Harry Wharton and I were out rabbiting. By the +way--" he stopped short--"do you see that that fellow's come back?" + +"I saw the paragraph in the _Times_ this morning," said Aldous, drily. + +"And I've got a letter from Fanny this morning, to say that he and Lady +Selina are to be married in July, and that she's going about making a +martyr and a saint of him, talking of the 'persecution' he's had to put +up with, and the vulgar fellows who couldn't appreciate him, and +generally making an ass of herself. Oh! he won't ask any of us to his +wedding--trust him. It is a rum business. You know Willie Ffolliot--that +queer dark fellow--that used to be in the 10th Hussars--did all those +wild things in the Soudan?" + +"Yes--slightly." + +"I heard all about it from him. He was one of that gambling set at +Harry's club there's been all that talk about you know, since Harry came +to grief. Well!--he was going along Piccadilly one night last summer, +quite late, between eleven and twelve, when Harry caught hold of him +from behind. Willie thought he was out of his mind, or drunk. He told me +he never saw anybody in such a queer state in his life. 'You come along +with me,' said Harry, 'come and talk to me, or I shall shoot myself!' So +Willie asked him what was up. 'I'm engaged to be married,' said Harry. +Whereupon Willie remarked that, considering his manner and his +appearance, he was sorry for the young lady. '_Young_!' said Harry as +though he would have knocked him down. And then it came out that he had +just--that moment!--engaged himself to Lady Selina. And it was the very +same day that he got into that precious mess in the House--the _very +same night_! I suppose he went to her to be comforted, and thought he'd +pull something off, anyway! Why she took him! But of course she's no +chicken, and old Alresford may die any day. And about the bribery +business--I suppose he made her think him an injured innocent. Anyway, +he talked to Willie, when they got to his rooms, like a raving lunatic, +and you know he was always such a cool hand. 'Ffolliot,' he said, 'can +you come with me to Siam next week?' 'How much?' said Will. 'I thought +you were engaged to Lady Selina.' Then he swore little oaths, and vowed +he had told her he must have a year. 'We'll go and explore those temples +in Siam,' he said, and then he muttered something about 'Why should I +ever come back?' Presently he began to talk of the strike--and the +paper--and the bribe, and all the rest of it, making out a long +rigmarole story. Oh! of course he'd done everything for the best--trust +him!--and everybody else was a cur and a slanderer. And Ffolliot +declared he felt quite pulpy--the man was such a wreck; and he said he'd +go with him to Siam, or anywhere else, if he'd only cheer up. And they +got out the maps, and Harry began to quiet down, and at last Will got +him to bed. Fanny says Ffolliot reports he had great difficulty in +dragging him home. However, Lady Selina has no luck!--there he is." + +"Oh! he will be one of the shining lights of our side before long," said +Aldous, with resignation. "Since he gave up his seat here, there has +been some talk of finding him one in the Alresfords' neighbourhood, I +believe. But I don't suppose anybody's very anxious for him. He is to +address a meeting, I see, on the Tory Labour Programme next week. The +_Clarion_, I suppose, will go round with him." + +"Beastly rag!" said Frank, fervently. "It's rather a queer thing, isn't +it, that such a clever chap as that should have made such a mess of his +chances. It almost makes one not mind being a fool." + +He laughed, but bitterly, and at the same moment the cloud that for some +twenty minutes or so seemed to have completely rolled away descended +again on eye and expression. + +"Well, there are worse things than being a fool," said Aldous, with +insidious emphasis--"sulking, and shutting up with your best friends, +for instance." + +Frank flushed deeply, and turned upon him with a sort of uncertain fury. + +"I don't know what you mean." + +Whereupon Aldous slipped his arm inside the boy's, and prepared himself +with resignation for the scene that had to be got through somehow, when +Frank suddenly exclaimed: + +"I say, there's Miss Boyce!" + +Never was a man more quickly and completely recalled from altruism to +his own affairs. Aldous dropped his companion's arm, straightened +himself with a thrill of the whole being, and saw Marcella some distance +ahead of them in the Mellor drive, which they had just entered. She was +stooping over something on the ground, and was not apparently aware of +their approach. A ray of cold sun came out at the moment, touched the +bending figure and the grass at her feet--grass starred with primroses, +which she was gathering. + +"I didn't know you were going to call," said Frank, bewildered. "Isn't +it too soon?" + +And he looked at his companion in astonishment. + +"I came to speak to Miss Boyce and her mother on business," said Aldous, +with all his habitual reserve. "I thought you wouldn't mind the walk +back by yourself." + +"Business?" the boy echoed involuntarily. + +Aldous hesitated, then said quietly: + +"Mr. Boyce appointed me executor under his will." + +Frank lifted his eyebrows, and allowed himself at least an inward "By +Jove!" + +By this time Marcella had caught sight of them, and was advancing. She +was in deep mourning, but her hands were full of primroses, which shone +against the black; and the sun, penetrating the thin green of some +larches to her left, danced in her eyes and on a face full of sensitive +and beautiful expression. + +They had not met since they stood together beside Hallin's grave. This +fact was in both their minds. Aldous felt it, as it were, in the touch +of her hand. What he could not know was, that she was thinking quite as +much of his letter to her mother and its phrases. + +They stood talking a little in the sunshine. Then, as Frank was taking +his leave, Marcella said: + +"Won't you wait for--for Lord Maxwell, in the old library? We can get at +it from the garden, and I have made it quite habitable. My mother, of +course, does not wish to see anybody." + +Frank hesitated, then, pushed by a certain boyish curiosity, and by the +angry belief that Betty had been carried off by Miss Raeburn, and was +out of his reach till luncheon-time, said he would wait. Marcella led +the way, opened the garden-door of the lower corridor, close to the spot +where she had seen Wharton standing in the moonlight on a +never-to-be-forgotten night, and then ushered them into the library. The +beautiful old place had been decently repaired, though in no sense +modernised. The roof had no holes, and its delicate stucco-work, +formerly stained and defaced by damp, had been whitened, so that the +brown and golden tones of the books in the latticed cases told against +it with delightful effect. The floor was covered with a cheap matting, +and there were a few simple chairs and tables. A wood fire burnt on the +old hearth. Marcella's books and work lay about, and some shallow +earthenware pans filled with home-grown hyacinths scented the air. What +with the lovely architecture of the room itself, its size, its books +and old portraits, and the signs it bore of simple yet refined use, it +would have been difficult to find a gentler, mellower place. Aldous +looked round him with delight. + +"I hope to make a village drawing-room of it in time," she said casually +to Frank as she stooped to put a log on the fire. "I think we shall get +them to come, as it has a separate door, and scraper, and mat all to +itself." + +"Goodness!" said Frank, "they won't come. It's too far from the +village." + +"Don't you be so sure," said Marcella, laughing. "Mr. Craven has all +sorts of ideas." + +"Who's Mr. Craven?" + +"Didn't you meet him at my rooms?" + +"Oh! I remember," ejaculated the boy--"a frightful Socialist!" + +"And his wife's worse," said Marcella, merrily. "They've come down to +settle here. They're going to help me." + +"Then for mercy's sake keep them to yourself," cried Frank, "and don't +let them go loose over the county. We don't want them at our place." + +"Oh! your turn will come. Lord Maxwell"--her tone changed--became shy +and a little grave. "Shall we go into the Stone Parlour? My mother will +come down if you wish to see her, but she thought that--that--perhaps we +could settle things." + +Aldous had been standing by, hat in hand, watching her as she chattered +to Frank. As she addressed him he gave a little start. + +"Oh! I think we can settle everything," he said. + +"Well, this is rum!" said Frank to himself, as the door closed behind +them, and instead of betaking himself to the chair and the newspaper +with which Marcella had provided him, he began to walk excitedly up and +down. "Her father makes him executor--he manages her property for +her--and they behave nicely to each other, as though nothing had ever +happened at all. What the deuce does it mean? And all the time +Betty--why, Betty's devoted to him!--and it's as plain as a pikestaff +what that old cat, Miss Raeburn, is thinking of from morning till night! +Well, I'm beat!" + +And throwing himself down on a stool by the fire, his chin between his +hands, he stared dejectedly at the burning logs. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Meanwhile Marcella and her companion were sitting in the Stone Parlour +side by side, save for a small table between them, which held the +various papers Aldous had brought with him. At first, there had been on +her side--as soon as they were alone--a feeling of stifling +embarrassment. All the painful, proud sensations with which she had +received the news of her father's action returned upon her; she would +have liked to escape; she shrank from what once more seemed an +encroachment, a situation as strange as it was embarrassing. + +But his manner very soon made it impossible, indeed ridiculous, to +maintain such an attitude of mind. He ran through his business with his +usual clearness and rapidity. It was not complicated; her views proved +to be the same as his; and she was empowered to decide for her mother. +Aldous took notes of one or two of her wishes, left some papers with her +for her mother's signature, and then his work was practically done. +Nothing, throughout, could have been more reassuring or more everyday +than his demeanour. + +Then, indeed, when the end of their business interview approached, and +with it the opportunity for conversation of a different kind, both were +conscious of a certain tremor. To him this old parlour was torturingly +full of memories. In this very place where they sat he had given her +his mother's pearls, and taken a kiss in return from the cheek that was +once more so near to him. With what free and exquisite curves the hair +set about the white brow! How beautiful was the neck--the hand! What +ripened, softened charm in every movement! The touching and rebuking +thought rose in his mind that from her nursing experience, and its frank +contact with the ugliest realities of the physical life--a contact he +had often shrunk from realising--there had come to her, not so much +added strength, as a new subtlety and sweetness, some delicate, +vibrating quality, that had been entirely lacking to her first splendid +youth. + +Suddenly she said to him, with a certain hesitation: + +"There was one more point I wanted to speak to you about. Can you advise +me about selling some of those railway shares?" + +She pointed to an item in a short list of investments that lay beside +them. + +"But why?" said Aldous, surprised. "They are excellent property already, +and are going up in value." + +"Yes, I know. But I want some ready money immediately--more than we +have--to spend on cottage-building in the village. I saw a builder +yesterday and came to a first understanding with him. We are altering +the water-supply too. They have begun upon it already, and it will cost +a good deal." + +Aldous was still puzzled. + +"I see," he said. "But--don't you suppose that the income of the estate, +now that your father has done so much to free it, will be enough to meet +expenses of that kind, without trenching on investments? A certain +amount, of course, should be systematically laid aside every year for +rebuilding, and estate improvements generally." + +"Yes; but you see I only regard half of the income as mine." + +She looked up with a little smile. + +He was now standing in front of her, against the fire, his grey eyes, +which could be, as she well knew, so cold and inexpressive, bent upon +her with eager interest. + +"Only half the income?" he repeated. "Ah!"--he smiled kindly--"is that +an arrangement between you and your mother?" + +Marcella let her hand fall with a little despairing gesture. + +"Oh no!" she said--"oh no! Mamma--mamma will take nothing from me or +from the estate. She has her own money, and she will live with me part +of the year." + +The intonation in the words touched Aldous profoundly. + +"Part of the year?" he said, astonished, yet not knowing how to question +her. "Mrs. Boyce will not make Mellor her home?" + +"She would be thankful if she had never seen it," said Marcella, +quickly--"and she would never see it again if it weren't for me. It's +dreadful what she went through last year, when--when I was in London." + +Her voice fell. Glancing up at him involuntarily, her eye looked with +dread for some chill, some stiffening in him. Probably he condemned her, +had always condemned her for deserting her home and her parents. But +instead she saw nothing but sympathy. + +"Mrs. Boyce has had a hard life," he said, with grave feeling. + +Marcella felt a tear leap, and furtively raised her handkerchief to +brush it away. Then, with a natural selfishness, her quick thought took +another turn. A wild yearning rose in her mind to tell him much more +than she had ever done in old days of the miserable home-circumstances +of her early youth; to lay stress on the mean unhappiness which had +depressed her own child-nature whenever she was with her parents, and +had withered her mother's character. Secretly, passionately, she often +made the past an excuse. Excuse for what? For the lack of delicacy and +loyalty, of the best sort of breeding, which had marked the days of her +engagement? + +Never--_never_ to speak of it with him!--to pour out everything--to ask +him to judge, to understand, to forgive!-- + +She pulled herself together by a strong effort, reminding herself in a +flash of all that divided them:--of womanly pride--of Betty Macdonald's +presence at the Court--of that vain confidence to Hallin, of which her +inmost being must have been ashamed, but that something calming and +sacred stole upon her whenever she thought of Hallin, lifting everything +concerned with him into a category of its own. + +No; let her selfish weakness make no fettering claim upon the man before +her. Let her be content with the friendship she had, after all, +achieved, that was now doing its kindly best for her. + +All these images, like a tumultuous procession, ran through the mind in +a moment. He thought, as she sat there with her bent head, the hands +clasped round the knee in the way he knew so well, that she was full of +her mother, and found it difficult to put what she felt into words. + +"But tell me about your plan," he said gently, "if you will." + +"Oh! it is nothing," she said hurriedly. "I am afraid you will think it +impracticable--perhaps wrong. It's only this: you see, as there is no +one depending on me--as I am practically alone--it seemed to me I might +make an experiment. Four thousand a year is a great deal more than I +need ever spend--than I _ought_, of course, to spend on myself. I don't +think altogether what I used to think. I mean to keep up this house--to +make it beautiful, to hand it on, perhaps _more_ beautiful than I found +it, to those that come after. And I mean to maintain enough service in +it both to keep it in order and to make it a social centre for all the +people about--for everybody of all classes, so far as I can. I want it +to be a place of amusement and delight and talk to us all--especially to +the very poor. After all"--her cheek flushed under the quickening of her +thought--"_everybody_ on the estate, in their different degree, has +contributed to this house, in some sense, for generations. I want it to +come into their lives--to make it _their_ possession, _their_ pride,--as +well as mine. But then that isn't all. The people here can enjoy +nothing, use nothing, till they have a worthier life of their own. Wages +here, you know, are terribly low, much lower"--she added timidly--"than +with you. They are, as a rule, eleven or twelve shillings a week. Now +there seem to be about one hundred and sixty labourers on the estate +altogether, in the farmers' employment and in our own. Some, of course, +are boys, and some old men earning a half-wage. Mr. Craven and I have +worked it out, and we find that an average weekly increase of five +shillings per head--which would give the men of full age and in full +work about a pound a week--would work out at about two thousand a year." + +She paused a moment, trying to put her further statement into its best +order. + +"Your farmers, you know," he said, smiling, after a pause, "will be your +chief difficulty." + +"Of course! But I thought of calling a meeting of them. I have discussed +it with Mr. French--of course he thinks me mad!--but he gave me some +advice. I should propose to them all fresh leases, with certain small +advantages that Louis Craven thinks would tempt them, at a reduced +rental exactly answering to the rise in wages. Then, in return they must +accept a sort of fair-wage clause, binding them to pay henceforward the +standard wage of the estate." + +She looked up, her face expressing urgent though silent interrogation. + +"You must remember," he said quickly, "that though the estate is +recovering, and rents have been fairly paid about here during the last +eighteen months, you may be called upon at any moment to make the +reductions which hampered your uncle. These reductions will, of course, +fall upon you as before, seeing that the farmers, in a different way, +will be paying as much as before. Have you left margin enough?" + +"I think so," she said eagerly. "I shall live here very simply, and +accumulate all the reserve fund I can. I have set all my heart upon it. +I know there are not many people _could_ do such a thing--other +obligations would, must, come first. And it may turn out a mistake. +But--whatever happens--whatever any of us, Socialists or not, may hope +for in the future--here one _is_ with one's conscience, and one's money, +and these people, who like oneself have but the one life? In all labour, +it is the modern question, isn't it?--_how much_ of the product of +labour the workman can extract from the employer? About here there is no +union to act for the labourers--they have practically no power. But _in +the future_, we must surely _hope_ they will combine, that they will be +stronger--strong enough to _force_ a decent wage. What ought to prevent +my free will anticipating a moment--since I _can_ do it--that we all +want to see?" + +She spoke with a strong feeling; but his ear detected a new +note--something deeper and wistfuller than of old. + +"Well--as you say, you are for experiments!" he replied, not finding it +easy to produce his own judgment quickly. Then, in another tone--"it was +always Hallin's cry." + +She glanced up at him, her lips trembling. + +"I know. Do you remember how he used to say--'the big changes may +come--the big Collectivist changes. But neither you nor I will see them. +I pray _not_ to see them. Meanwhile--all still hangs upon, comes back +to, the individual, Here are you with your money and power; there are +those men and women whom you can share with--in new and honourable +ways--_to-day_.'" + +Then she checked herself suddenly. + +"But now I want you to tell me--will you tell me?--all the objections +you see. You must often have thought such things over." + +She was looking nervously straight before her. She did not see the flash +of half-bitter, half-tender irony that crossed his face. Her tone of +humility, of appeal, was so strange to him, remembering the past. + +"Yes, very often," he answered. "Well, I think these are the kind of +arguments you will have to meet." + +He went through the objections that any economist would be sure to weigh +against a proposal of the kind, as clearly as he could, and at some +length--but without zest. What affected Marcella all through was not so +much the matter of what he said, as the manner of it. It was so +characteristic of the two voices in him--the voice of the idealist +checked and mocked always by the voice of the observer and the student. +A year before, the little harangue would have set her aflame with +impatience and wrath. Now, beneath the speaker, she felt and yearned +towards the man. + +Yet, as to the scheme, when all demurs were made, she was "of the same +opinion still"! His arguments were not new to her; the inward eagerness +over-rode them. + +"In my own case"--he said at last, the tone passing instantly into +reserve and shyness, as always happened when he spoke of himself--"my +own wages are two or three shillings higher than those paid generally by +the farmers on the estate; and we have a pension fund. But so far, I +have felt the risks of any wholesale disturbance of labour on the +estate, depending, as it must entirely in my case, on the individual +life and will, to be too great to let me go further. I sometimes believe +that it is the farmers who would really benefit most by experiments of +the kind!" + +She protested vehemently, being at the moment, of course, not at all in +love with mankind in general, but only with those members of mankind who +came within the eye of imagination. He was enchanted to see the old self +come out again--positive, obstinate, generous; to see the old confident +pose of the head, the dramatic ease of gesture. + +Meanwhile something that had to be said, that must, indeed, be said, if +he were to give her serious and official advice, pressed uncomfortably +on his tongue. + +"You know," he said, not looking at her, when at last she had for the +moment exhausted argument and prophecy, "you have to think of those who +will succeed you here; still more you have to think--of marriage--before +you pledge yourself to the halving of your income." + +Now he must needs look at her intently, out of sheer nervousness. The +difficulty he had had in compelling himself to make the speech at all +had given a certain hardness and stiffness to his voice. She felt a +sudden shock and chill--resented what he had dismally felt to be an +imperative duty. + +"I do not think I have any need to think of it--in this connection," she +said proudly. And getting up, she began to gather her papers together. + +The spell was broken, the charm gone. He felt that he was dismissed. + +With a new formality and silence, she led the way into the hall, he +following. As they neared the library there was a sound of voices. + +Marcella opened the door in surprise, and there, on either side of the +fire, sat Betty Macdonald and Frank Leven. + +"_That's_ a mercy!" cried Betty, running forward to Marcella and kissing +her. "I really don't know what would have happened if Mr. Leven and I +had been left alone any longer. As for the Kilkenny cats, my dear, don't +mention them!" + +The child was flushed and agitated, and there was an angry light in her +blue eyes. Frank looked simply lumpish and miserable. + +"Yes, here I am," said Betty, holding Marcella, and chattering as fast +as possible. "I made Miss Raeburn bring me over, that I might _just_ +catch a sight of you. She would walk home, and leave the carriage for +me. Isn't it like all the topsy-turvy things nowadays? When _I'm_ her +age I suppose I shall have gone back to dolls. Please to look at those +ponies!--they're pawing your gravel to bits. And as for my watch, just +inspect it!"--She thrust it reproachfully under Marcella's eyes. "You've +been such a time in there talking, that Sir Frank and I have had time to +quarrel for life, and there isn't a minute left for anything rational. +Oh! good-bye, my dear, good-bye. I never kept Miss Raeburn waiting for +lunch yet, did I, Mr. Aldous? and I mustn't begin now. Come along, Mr. +Aldous! You'll have to come home with me. I'm frightened to death of +those ponies. You shan't drive, but if they bolt, I'll give them to you +to pull in. Dear, _dear_ Marcella, let me come again--soon--directly!" + +A few more sallies and kisses, a few more angry looks at Frank and +appeals to Aldous, who was much less responsive than usual, and the +child was seated, very erect and rosy, on the driving seat of the little +pony-carriage, with Aldous beside her. + +"Are you coming, Frank?" said Aldous; "there's plenty of room." + +His strong brow had a pucker of annoyance. As he spoke he looked, not at +Frank, but at Marcella. She was standing a trifle back, among the +shadows of the doorway, and her attitude conveyed to him an impression +of proud aloofness. A sigh that was half pain, half resignation, passed +his lips unconsciously. + +"Thank you, I'll walk," said Frank, fiercely. + + * * * * * + +"Now, will you please explain to me why you look like that, and talk +like that?" said Marcella, with cutting composure, when she was once +more in the library, and Frank, crimson to the roots of his hair, and +saying incoherent things, had followed her there. + +"I should think you might guess," said Frank, in reproachful misery, as +he hung over the fire. + +"Not at all!" said Marcella; "you are rude to Betty, and disagreeable to +me, by which I suppose that you are unhappy. But why should _you_ be +allowed to show your feelings, when other people don't?" + +Frank fairly groaned. + +"Well," he said, making efforts at a tragic calm, and looking for his +hat, "you will, none of you, be troubled with me long. I shall go home +to-morrow, and take my ticket for California the day after." + +_"You,"_ said Marcella, "go to California! What right have you to go to +California?" + +"What right?" Frank stared, then he went on impetuously. "If a girl +torments a man, as Betty has been tormenting me, there is nothing for +it, I should think, but to clear out of the way. I am going to clear out +of the way, whatever anybody says." + +"And shoot big game, I suppose--amuse yourself somehow?" + +Frank hesitated. + +"Well, a fellow can't do nothing," he said helplessly. "I suppose I +shall shoot." + +"And what right have you to do it? Have you any more right than a public +official would have to spend public money in neglecting his duties?" + +Frank stared at her. + +"Well, I don't know what you mean," he said at last, angrily; "give it +up." + +"It's quite simple what I mean. You have inherited your father's +property. Your tenants pay you rent, that comes from their labour. Are +you going to make no return for your income, and your house, and your +leisure?" + +"Ah! that's your Socialism!" cried the young fellow, roused by her tone. +"No return? Why, they have the land." + +"If I were a thorough-going Socialist," said Marcella, steadily, "I +should say to you, Go! The sooner you throw off all ties to your +property, the sooner you prove to the world that you and your class are +mere useless parasites, the sooner we shall be rid of you. But +unfortunately _I_ am not such a good Socialist as that. I waver--I am +not sure of what I wish. But one thing I _am_ sure of, that unless +people like you are going to treat their lives as a profession, to take +their calling seriously, there are no more superfluous drones, no more +idle plunderers than you, in all civilised society!" + +Was she pelting him in this way that she might so get rid of some of her +own inner smart and restlessness? If so, the unlucky Frank could not +guess it. He could only feel himself intolerably ill-used. He had meant +to pour himself out to her on the subject of Betty and his woes, and +here she was rating him as to his _duties_, of which he had hardly as +yet troubled himself to think, being entirely taken up either with his +grievances or his enjoyments. + +"I'm sure you know you're talking nonsense," he said sulkily, though he +shrank from meeting her fiery look. "And if I _am_ idle, there are +plenty of people idler than me--people who live on their money, with no +land to bother about, and nothing to do for it at all." + +"On the contrary, it is they who have an excuse. They have no natural +opening, perhaps--no plain call. You have both, and, as I said before, +you have no _right_ to take holidays before you have earned them. You +have got to learn your business first, and then do it. Give your eight +hours' day like other people! Who are you that you should have all the +cake of the world, and other people the crusts?" + +Frank walked to the window, and stood staring out, with his back turned +to her. Her words stung and tingled; and he was too miserable to fight. + +"I shouldn't care whether it were cake or crusts," he said at last, in a +low voice, turning round to her, "if only Betty would have me." + +"Do you think she is any the more likely to have you," said Marcella, +unrelenting, "if you behave as a loafer and a runaway? Don't you suppose +that Betty has good reasons for hesitating when she sees the difference +between you--and--and other people?" + +Frank looked at her sombrely--a queer mixture of expressions on the +face, in which the maturer man was already to be discerned at war with +the powerful young animal. + +"I suppose you mean Lord Maxwell?" + +There was a pause. + +"You may take what I said," she said at last, looking into the fire, "as +meaning anybody who pays honestly with work and brains for what society +has given him--as far as he can pay, at any rate." + +"Now look here," said Frank, coming dolefully to sit down beside her; +"don't slate me any more. I'm a bad lot, I know--well, an idle lot--I +don't think I am a _bad_ lot--But it's no good your preaching to me +while Betty's sticking pins into me like this. Now just let me tell you +how she's been behaving." + +Marcella succumbed, and heard him. He glanced at her surreptitiously +from time to time, but he could make nothing of her. She sat very quiet +while he described the constant companionship between Aldous and Betty, +and the evident designs of Miss Raeburn. Just as when he made his first +confidences to her in London, he was vaguely conscious that he was doing +a not very gentlemanly thing. But again, he was too unhappy to restrain +himself, and he longed somehow to make an ally of her. + +"Well, I have only one thing to say," she said at last, with an odd +nervous impatience--"go and ask her, and have done with it! She might +have some respect for you then. No, I won't help you; but if you don't +succeed, I'll pity you--I promise you that. And now you must go away." + +He went, feeling himself hardly treated, yet conscious nevertheless of a +certain stirring of the moral waters which had both stimulus and balm in +it. + +She, left behind, sat quiet in the old library for a few lonely minutes. +The boy's plight made her alternately scornful and repentant of her +sharpness to him. As to his report, one moment it plunged her in an +anguish she dared not fathom; the next she was incredulous--could not +simply make herself take the thing as real. + +But one thing had been real--that word from Aldous to her of +"_marriage_"! The nostril dilated, the breast heaved, as she lost all +thought of Frank in a resentful passion that could neither justify nor +calm itself. It seemed still as though he had struck her. Yet she knew +well that she had nothing to forgive. + + * * * * * + +Next morning she went down to the village meaning to satisfy herself on +two or three points connected with the new cottages. On the way she +knocked at the Rectory garden-door, in the hope of finding Mary Harden +and persuading her to come with her. + +She had not seen much of Mary since their return. Still, she had had +time to be painfully struck once or twice with the white and bloodless +look of the Rector's sister, and with a certain patient silence about +her which seemed to Marcella new. Was it the monotony of the life? or +had both of them been overworking and underfeeding as usual? The Rector +had received Marcella with his old gentle but rather distant kindness. +Two years before he had felt strongly about many of her proceedings, and +had expressed himself frankly enough, at least to Mary. Now he had put +his former disapprovals out of his mind, and was only anxious to work +smoothly with the owner of Mellor. He had a great respect for +"dignities," and she, as far as the village was concerned, was to be his +"dignity" henceforward. Moreover, he humbly and truly hoped that she +might be able to enlighten him as to a good many modern conceptions and +ideas about the poor, for which, absorbed as he was, either in +almsgiving of the traditional type, or spiritual ministration, or +sacramental theory, he had little time, and, if the truth were known, +little affinity. + +In answer to her knock Marcella heard a faint "Come in" from the +interior of the house. She walked into the dining-room, and found Mary +sitting by the little table in tears. There were some letters before +her, which she pushed away as Marcella entered, but she did not attempt +to disguise her agitation. + +"What is it, dear? Tell me," said Marcella, sitting down beside her, and +kissing one of the hands she held. + +And Mary told her. It was the story of her life--a simple tale of +ordinary things, such as wring the quiet hearts and train the unnoticed +saints of this world. In her first youth, when Charles Harden was for a +time doing some divinity lecturing in his Oxford college, Mary had gone +up to spend a year with him in lodgings. Their Sunday teas and other +small festivities were frequented by her brother's friends, men of like +type with himself, and most of them either clergymen or about to be +ordained. Between one of them, a young fellow looking out for his first +curacy, and Mary an attachment had sprung up, which Mary could not even +now speak of. She hurried over it, with a trembling voice, to the +tragedy beyond. Mr. Shelton got his curacy, went off to a parish in the +Lincolnshire Fens, and there was talk of their being married in a year +or so. But the exposure of a bitter winter's night, risked in the +struggle across one of the bleakest flats of the district to carry the +Sacrament to a dying parishioner, had brought on a peculiar and +agonising form of neuralgia. And from this pain, so nobly earned, had +sprung--oh! mystery of human fate!--a morphia-habit, with all that such +a habit means for mind and body. It was discovered by the poor fellow's +brother, who brought him up to London and tried to cure him. Meanwhile +he himself had written to Mary to give her up. "I have no will left, and +am no longer a man," he wrote to her. "It would be an outrage on my +part, and a sin on yours, if we did not cancel our promise." Charles, +who took a hard, ascetic view, held much the same language, and Mary +submitted, heart-broken. + +Then came a gleam of hope. The brother's care and affection prevailed; +there were rumours of great improvement, of a resumption of work. "Just +two years ago, when you first came here, I was beginning to +believe"--she turned away her head to hide the rise of tears--"that it +might still come right." But after some six or eight months of clerical +work in London fresh trouble developed, lung mischief showed itself, and +the system, undermined by long and deep depression, seemed to capitulate +at once. + +"He died last December, at Madeira," said Mary, quietly. "I saw him +before he left England. We wrote to each other almost to the end. He was +quite at peace. This letter here was from the chaplain at Madeira, who +was kind to him, to tell me about his grave." + +That was all. It was the sort of story that somehow might have been +expected to belong to Mary Harden--to her round, plaintive face, to her +narrow, refined experience; and she told it in a way eminently +characteristic of her modes of thinking, religious or social, with +old-fashioned or conventional phrases which, whatever might be the case +with other people, had lost none of their bloom or meaning for her. + +Marcella's face showed her sympathy. They talked for half an hour, and +at the end of it Mary flung her arms round her companion's neck. + +"There!" she said, "now we must not talk any more about it. I am glad I +told you. It was a comfort. And somehow--I don't mean to be unkind; but +I couldn't have told you in the old days--it's wonderful how much better +I like you now than I used to do, though perhaps we don't agree much +better." + +Both laughed, though the eyes of both were full of tears. + + * * * * * + +Presently they were in the village together. As they neared the Hurds' +old cottage, which was now empty and to be pulled down, a sudden look of +disgust crossed Marcella's face. + +"Did I tell you my news of Minta Hurd?" she said. + +No; Mary had heard nothing. So Marcella told the grotesque and ugly +news, as it seemed to her, which had reached her at Amalfi. Jim Hurd's +widow was to be married again, to the queer lanky "professor of +elocution," with the Italian name and shifty eye, who lodged on the +floor beneath her in Brown's Buildings, and had been wont to come in of +an evening and play comic songs to her and the children. Marcella was +vehemently sure that he was a charlatan--that he got his living by a +number of small dishonesties, that he had scented Minta's pension. But +apart from the question whether he would make Minta a decent husband, or +live upon her and beat her, was the fact itself of her re-marriage, in +itself hideous to the girl. + +"_Marry_ him!" she said. "Marry any one! Isn't it incredible?" + +They were in front of the cottage. Marcella paused a moment and looked +at it. She saw again in sharp vision the miserable woman fainting on the +settle, the dwarf sitting, handcuffed, under the eye of his captors; +she felt again the rush of that whirlwind of agony through which she had +borne the wife's helpless soul in that awful dawn. + +And after that--exit!--with her "professor of elocution." It made the +girl sick to think of. And Mary, out of a Puseyite dislike of second +marriage, felt and expressed much the same repulsion. + +Well--Minta Hurd was far away, and if she had been there to defend +herself her powers of expression would have been no match for theirs. +Nor does youth understand such pleas as she might have urged. + +"Will Lord Maxwell continue the pension?" said Mary. + +Marcella stopped again, involuntarily. + +"So that was his doing?" she said. "I supposed as much." + +"You did not know?" cried Mary, in distress. "Oh! I believe I ought not +to have said anything about it." + +"I always guessed it," said Marcella, shortly, and they walked on in +silence. + +Presently they found themselves in front of Mrs. Jellison's very trim +and pleasant cottage, which lay farther along the common, to the left of +the road to the Court. There was an early pear-tree in blossom over the +porch, and a swelling greenery of buds in the little garden. + +"Will you come in?" said Mary. "I should like to see Isabella Westall." + +Marcella started at the name. + +"How is she?" she asked. + +"Just the same. She has never been in her right mind since. But she is +quite harmless and quiet." + +They found Mrs. Jellison on one side of the fire, with her daughter on +the other, and the little six-year-old Johnnie playing between them. +Mrs. Jellison was straw-plaiting, twisting the straws with amazing +rapidity, her fingers stained with red from the dye of them. Isabella +was, as usual, doing nothing. She stared when Marcella and Mary came in, +but she took no other notice of them. Her powerful and tragic face had +the look of something originally full of intention, from which spirit +and meaning had long departed, leaving a fine but lifeless outline. +Marcella had seen it last on the night of the execution, in ghastly +apparition at Minta Hurd's window, when it might have been caught by +some sculptor in quest of the secrets of violent expression, fixed in +clay or marble, and labelled "Revenge," or "Passion." + +Its passionless emptiness now filled her with pity and horror. She sat +down beside the widow and took her hand. Mrs. Westall allowed it for a +moment, then drew her own away suddenly, and Marcella saw a curious and +sinister contraction of the eyes. + +"Ah! yo never know how much Isabella unnerstan's, an' how much she +don't," Mrs. Jellison was saying to Mary. "I can't allus make her out, +but she don't give no trouble. An' as for that boy, he's a chirruper, he +is. He gives 'em fine times at school, he do. Miss Barton, she ast him +in class, Thursday, 'bout Ananias and Sappira. 'Johnnie,' says she, +'whatever made 'em do sich a wicked thing?' 'Well, _I_ do'n' know,' says +he; 'it was jus' their nassty good-for-nothink,' says he; 'but they was +great sillies,' says he. Oh! he don't mean no harm!--lor' bless yer, +the men is all born contrary, and they can't help themselves. Oh! thank +yer, miss, my 'ealth is pretty tidy, though I 'ave been plagued this +winter with a something they call the 'flenzy. I wor very bad! 'Yo go to +bed, Mrs. Jellison,' says Dr. Sharpe, 'or yo'll know of it.' But I +worn't goin' to be talked to by 'im. Why, I knowed 'im when he wor no +'igher nor Johnnie. An' I kep' puddlin' along, an' one mornin' I wor +fairly choked, an' I just crawled into that parlour, an' I took a sup o' +brandy out o' the bottle"--she looked complacently at Mary, quite +conscious that the Rector's sister must be listening to her with +disapproving ears--"an', lor' bless yer, it cut the phlegm, it did, that +very moment. My! I did cough. I drawed it up by the yard, I did--and I +crep' back along the wall, and yo cud ha' knocked me down wi' one o' my +own straws. But I've been better iver since, an' beginnin' to eat my +vittles, too, though I'm never no great pecker--I ain't--not at no +time." + +Mary managed to smother her emotions on the subject of the brandy, and +the old woman chattered on, throwing out the news of the village in a +series of humorous fragments, tinged in general with the lowest opinion +of human nature. + +When the girls took leave of her, she said slily to Marcella: + +"An' 'ow about your plaitin', miss?--though I dessay I'm a bold 'un for +astin'." + +Marcella coloured. + +"Well, I've got it to think about, Mrs. Jellison. We must have a meeting +in the village and talk it over one of these days." + +The old woman nodded in a shrewd silence, and watched them depart. + +"Wull, I reckon Jimmy Gedge ull lasst my time," she said to herself with +a chuckle. + + * * * * * + +If Mrs. Jellison had this small belief in the powers of the new mistress +of Mellor over matters which, according to her, had been settled +generations ago by "the Lord and natur'," Marcella certainly was in no +mood to contradict her. She walked through the village on her return +scanning everything about her--the slatternly girls plaiting on the +doorsteps, the children in the lane, the loungers round the various +"publics," the labourers, old and young, who touched their caps to +her--with a moody and passionate eye. + +"Mary!" she broke out as they neared the Rectory, "I shall be +twenty-four directly. How much harm do you think I shall have done here +by the time I am sixty-four?" + +Mary laughed at her, and tried to cheer her. But Marcella was in the +depths of self-disgust. + +"What is wanted, really wanted," she said with intensity, "is not _my_ +help, but _their_ growth. How can I make them _take for +themselves_--take, roughly and selfishly even, if they will only take! +As for my giving, what relation has it to anything real or lasting?" + +Mary was scandalised. + +"I declare you are as bad as Mr. Craven," she said. "He told Charles +yesterday that the curtseys of the old women in the village to him and +Charles--women old enough to be their grandmothers--sickened him of the +whole place, and that he should regard it as the chief object of his +work here to make such things impossible in the future. Or perhaps +you're still of Mr.--Mr. Wharton's opinion--you'll be expecting Charles +and me to give up charity. But it's no good, my dear. We're not +'advanced,' and we never shall be." + +At the mention of Wharton Marcella threw her proud head back; wave after +wave of changing expression passed over the face. + +"I often remember the things Mr. Wharton said in this village," she said +at last. "There was life and salt and power in many of them. It's not +what he said, but what he was, that one wants to forget." + +They parted presently, and Marcella went heavily home. The rising of the +spring, the breath of the April air, had never yet been sad and +oppressive to her as they were to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"Oh! Miss Boyce, may I come in?" + +The voice was Frank Leven's. Marcella was sitting in the old library +alone late on the following afternoon. Louis Craven, who was now her +paid agent and adviser, had been with her, and she had accounts and +estimates before her. + +"Come in," she said, startled a little by Frank's tone and manner, and +looking at him interrogatively. + +Frank shut the heavy old door carefully behind him. Then, as he advanced +to her she saw that his flushed face wore an expression unlike anything +she had yet seen there--of mingled joy and fear. + +She drew back involuntarily. + +"Is there anything--anything wrong?" + +"No," he said impetuously, "no! But I have something to tell you, and I +don't know how. I don't know whether I ought. I have run almost all the +way from the Court." + +And, indeed, he could hardly get his breath. He took a stool she pushed +to him, and tried to collect himself. She heard her heart beat as she +waited for him to speak. + +"It's about Lord Maxwell," he said at last, huskily, turning his head +away from her to the fire. "I've just had a long walk with him. Then he +left me; he had no idea I came on here. But something drove me; I felt +I must come, I must tell. Will you promise not to be angry with me--to +believe that I've thought about it--that I'm doing it for the best?" + +He looked at her nervously. + +"If you wouldn't keep me waiting so long," she said faintly, while her +cheeks and lips grew white. + +"Well,--I was mad this morning! Betty hasn't spoken to me since +yesterday. She's been always about with him, and Miss Raeburn let me see +once or twice last night that she thought I was in the way. I never +slept a wink last night, and I kept out of their sight all the morning. +Then, after lunch, I went up to him, and I asked him to come for a walk +with me. He looked at me rather queerly--I suppose I was pretty savage. +Then he said he'd come. And off we went, ever so far across the park. +And I let out. I don't know what I said; I suppose I made a beast of +myself. But anyway, I asked him to tell me what he meant, and to tell +me, if he could, what Betty meant. I said I knew I was a cool hand, and +he might turn me out of the house, and refuse to have anything more to +do with me if he liked. But I was going to rack and ruin, and should +never be any good till I knew where I stood--and Betty would never be +serious--and, in short, was he in love with her himself? for any one +could see what Miss Raeburn was thinking of." + +The boy gulped down something like a sob, and tried to give himself time +to be coherent again. Marcella sat like a stone. + +"When he heard me say that--'in love with her yourself,' he stopped +dead. I saw that I had made him angry. 'What right have you or any one +else,' he said, very short, 'to ask me such a question?' Then I just +lost my head, and said anything that came handy. I told him everybody +talked about it--which, of course, was rubbish--and at last I said, 'Ask +anybody; ask the Winterbournes, ask Miss Boyce--they all think it as +much as I do.' '_Miss Boyce_!' he said--'Miss Boyce thinks I want to +marry Betty Macdonald?' Then I didn't know what to say--for, of course, +I knew I'd taken your name in vain; and he sat down on the grass beside +a little stream there is in the park, and he didn't speak to me for a +long time--I could see him throwing little stones into the water. And at +last he called me. 'Frank!' he said; and I went up to him. And then--" + +The lad seemed to tremble all over. He bent forward and laid his hand on +Marcella's knee, touching her cold ones. + +"And then he said, 'I can't understand yet, Frank, how you or anybody +else can have mistaken my friendship for Betty Macdonald. At any rate, I +know there's been no mistake on her part. And if you take my advice, +you'll go and speak to her like a man, with all your heart, and see what +she says. You don't deserve her yet, that I can tell you. As for me'--I +can't describe the look of his face; I only know I wanted to go +away--'you and I will be friends for many years, I hope, so perhaps you +may just understand this, once for all. For me there never has been, and +there never will be, but one woman in the world--to love. And you know,' +he said after a bit, 'or you ought to know, very well, who that woman +is.' And then he got up and walked away. He did not ask me to come, and +I felt I dared not go after him. And then I lay and thought. I +remembered being here; I thought of what I had said to you--of what I +had fancied now and then about--about you. I felt myself a brute all +round; for what right had I to come and tell you what he told me? And +yet, there it was--I had to come. And if it was no good my coming, why, +we needn't say anything about it ever, need we? But--but--just look +here, Miss Boyce; if you--if you could begin over again, and make Aldous +happy, then there'd be a good many other people happy too--I can tell +you that." + +He could hardly speak plainly. Evidently there was on him an +overmastering impulse of personal devotion, gratitude, remorse, which +for the moment even eclipsed his young passion. It was but vaguely +explained by anything he had said; it rested clearly on the whole of his +afternoon's experience. + +But neither could Marcella speak, and her pallor began to alarm him. + +"I say!" he cried; "you're not angry with me?" + +She moved away from him, and with her shaking finger began to cut the +pages of a book that lay open on the mantelpiece. The little mechanical +action seemed gradually to restore her to self-control. + +"I don't think I can talk about it," she said at last, with an effort; +"not now." + +"Oh! I know," said Frank, in penitence, looking at her black dress; +"you've been upset, and had such a lot of trouble. But I--" + +She laid her hand on his shoulder. He thought he had never seen her so +beautiful, pale as she was. + +"I'm not the least angry. I'll tell you so--another day. Now, are you +going to Betty?" + +The young fellow sprang up, all his expression changing, answering to +the stimulus of the word. + +"They'll be home directly, Miss Raeburn and Betty," he said steadily, +buttoning his coat; "they'd gone out calling somewhere. Oh! she'll lead +me a wretched life, will Betty, before she's done!" + +A charming little ghost of a smile crossed Marcella's white lips. + +"Probably Betty knows her business," she said; "if she's quite +unmanageable, send her to me." + +In his general turmoil of spirits the boy caught her hand and kissed +it--would have liked, indeed, to kiss her and all the world. But she +laughed, and sent him away, and with a sly, lingering look at her he +departed. + +She sank into her chair and never moved for long. The April sun was just +sinking behind the cedars, and through the open south window of the +library came little spring airs and scents of spring flowers. There was +an endless twitter of birds, and beside her the soft chatter of the wood +fire. An hour before, her mood had been at open war with the spring, and +with all those impulses and yearnings in herself which answered to it. +Now it seemed to her that a wonderful and buoyant life, akin to all the +vast stir, the sweet revivals of Nature, was flooding her whole being. + +She gave herself up to it, in a trance interwoven with all the loveliest +and deepest things she had ever felt--with her memory of Hallin, with +her new gropings after God. Just as the light was going she got up +hurriedly and went to her writing-table. She wrote a little note, sat +over it a while, with her face hidden in her hands, then sealed, +addressed, and stamped it. She went out herself to the hall to put it in +the letter-box. For the rest of the evening she went about in a state of +dream, overcome sometimes by rushes of joy, which yet had in them +exquisite elements of pain; hungering for the passage of the hours, for +sleep that might cancel some of them; picturing the road to the Court +and Widrington, along which the old postman had by now carried her +letter--the bands of moonlight and shade lying across it, the quiet of +the budding woods, and the spot on the hillside where he had spoken to +her in that glowing October. It must lie all night in a dull office--her +letter; she was impatient and sorry for it. And when he got it, it would +tell him nothing, though she thought it would rather surprise him. It +was the merest formal request that he would, if he could, come and see +her again the following morning on business. + +During the evening Mrs. Boyce lay on the sofa and read. It always still +gave the daughter a certain shock of surprise when she saw the slight +form resting in this way. In words Mrs. Boyce would allow nothing, and +her calm composure had been unbroken from the moment of their return +home, though it was not yet two months since her husband's death. In +these days she read enormously, which again was a new trait--especially +novels. She read each through rapidly, laid it down without a word of +comment, and took up another. Once or twice, but very rarely, Marcella +surprised her in absent meditation, her hand covering the page. From the +hard, satiric brightness of her look on these occasions it seemed +probable that she was speculating on the discrepancies between fiction +and real life, and on the falsity of most literary sentiment. + +To-night Marcella sat almost silent--she was making a frock for a +village child she had carried off from its mother, who was very ill--and +Mrs. Boyce read. But as the clock approached ten, the time when they +generally went upstairs, Marcella made a few uncertain movements, and +finally got up, took a stool, and sat down beside the sofa. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Marcella entered her own room. As she closed the door +behind her she gave an involuntary sob, put down her light, and hurrying +up to the bed, fell on her knees beside it and wept long. Yet her mother +had not been unkind to her. Far from it. Mrs. Boyce had praised her--in +few words, but with evident sincerity--for the courage that could, if +necessary, put convention aside; had spoken of her own relief; had said +pleasant things of Lord Maxwell; had bantered Marcella a little on her +social schemes, and wished her the independence to stick to them. +Finally, as they got up to go to bed, she kissed Marcella twice instead +of once, and said: + +"Well, my dear, I shall not be in your way to-morrow morning; I promise +you that." + +The speaker's satisfaction was plain; yet nothing could have been less +maternal. The girl's heart, when she found herself alone, was very sore, +and the depression of a past which had been so much of a failure, so +lacking in any satisfied emotion and the sweet preludes of family +affection, darkened for a while even the present and the future. + +After a time she got up, and leaving her room, went to sit in a passage +outside it. It was the piece of wide upper corridor leading to the +winding stairs she had descended on the night of the ball. It was one of +the loneliest and oddest places in the house, for it communicated only +with her room and the little staircase, which was hardly ever used. It +was, indeed, a small room in itself, and was furnished with a few huge +old chairs with moth-eaten frames and tattered seats. A flowery paper of +last-century date sprawled over the walls, the carpet had many holes in +it, and the shallow, traceried windows, set almost flush in the outer +surface of the wall, were curtainless now, as they had been two years +before. + +She drew one of the old chairs to a window, and softly opened it. There +was a young moon, and many stars, seen uncertainly through the rush of +April cloud. Every now and then a splash of rain moved the creepers and +swept across the lawn, to be followed by a spell of growing and +breathing silence. The scent of hyacinths and tulips mounted through the +wet air. She could see a long ghostly line of primroses, from which rose +the grey base of the Tudor front, checkered with a dim light and shade. +Beyond the garden, with its vague forms of fountain and sun-dial, the +cedars stood watching; the little church slept to her left. + +So, face to face with Nature, the old house, and the night, she took +passionate counsel with herself. After to-night surely, she would be no +more lonely! She was going for ever from her own keeping to that of +another. For she never, from the moment she wrote her letter, had the +smallest doubt as to what his answer to her would be; never the smallest +dread that he would, even in the lightest passing impression, connect +what she was going to do with any thought of blame or wonder. Her pride +and fear were gone out of her; only, she dared not think of how he would +look and speak when the moment came, because it made her sick and faint +with feeling. + +How strange to imagine what, no doubt, would be said and thought about +her return to him by the outside world! His great place in society, his +wealth, would be the obvious solution of it for many--too obvious even +to be debated. Looking back upon her thoughts of this night in after +years, she could not remember that the practical certainty of such an +interpretation had even given her a moment's pain. It was too remote +from all her now familiar ways of thinking--and his. In her early Mellor +days the enormous importance that her feverish youth attached to wealth +and birth might have been seen in her very attacks upon them. Now all +her standards were spiritualised. She had come to know what happiness +and affection are possible in three rooms, or two, on twenty-eight +shillings a week; and, on the other hand, her knowledge of Aldous--a man +of stoical and simple habit, thrust, with a student's tastes, into the +position of a great landowner--had shown her, in the case at least of +one member of the rich class, how wealth may be a true moral burden and +test, the source of half the difficulties and pains--of half the +nobleness also--of a man's life. Not in mere wealth and poverty, she +thought, but in things of quite another order--things of social sympathy +and relation--alterable at every turn, even under existing conditions, +by the human will, lie the real barriers that divide us man from man. + +Had they ever really formed a part of historical time, those eight +months of their engagement? Looking back upon them, she saw herself +moving about in them like a creature without eyes, worked, blindfold, by +a crude inner mechanism that took no account really of impressions from +without. Yet that passionate sympathy with the poor--that hatred of +oppression? Even these seemed to her to-night the blind, spasmodic +efforts of a mind that all through _saw_ nothing--mistook its own +violences and self-wills for eternal right, and was but traitor to what +should have been its own first loyalties, in seeking to save and reform. + +Was _true_ love now to deliver her from that sympathy, to deaden in her +that hatred? Her whole soul cried out in denial. By daily life in +natural relations with the poor, by a fruitful contact with fact, by the +clash of opinion in London, by the influence of a noble friendship, by +the education of awakening passion--what had once been mere tawdry and +violent hearsay had passed into a true devotion, a true thirst for +social good. She had ceased to take a system cut and dried from the +Venturists, or any one else; she had ceased to think of whole classes +of civilised society with abhorrence and contempt; and there had dawned +in her that temper which is in truth implied in all the more majestic +conceptions of the State--the temper that regards the main institutions +of every great civilisation, whether it be property, or law, or +religious custom, as necessarily, in some degree, divine and sacred. For +man has not been their sole artificer! Throughout there has been working +with him "the spark that fires our clay." + +Yes!--but modification, progress, change, there must be, for us as for +our fathers! Would marriage fetter her? It was not the least probable +that he and she, with their differing temperaments, would think alike in +the future, any more than in the past. She would always be for +experiments, for risks, which his critical temper, his larger brain, +would of themselves be slow to enter upon. Yet she knew well enough that +in her hands they would become bearable and even welcome to him. And for +himself, she thought with a craving, remorseful tenderness of that +pessimist temper of his towards his own work and function that she knew +so well. In old days it had merely seemed to her inadequate, if not +hypocritical. She would have liked to drive the dart deeper, to make him +still unhappier! Now, would not a wife's chief function be to reconcile +him with himself and life, to cheer him forward on the lines of his own +nature, to believe, understand, help? + +Yet always in the full liberty to make her own sacrifices, to realise +her own dreamlands! She thought with mingled smiles and tears of her +plans for this bit of earth that fate had brought under her hand; she +pledged herself to every man, woman, and child on it so to live her life +that each one of theirs should be the richer for it; she set out, so far +as in her lay, to "choose equality." And beyond Mellor, in the great +changing world of social speculation and endeavour, she prayed always +for the open mind, the listening heart. + +"There is one conclusion, one cry, I always come back to at last," she +remembered hearing Hallin say to a young Conservative with whom he had +been having a long economic and social argument. "_Never resign +yourself_!--that seems to be the main note of it. Say, if you +will--believe, if you will, that human nature, being what it is, and +what, so far as we can see, it always must be, the motives which work +the present social and industrial system can never be largely +superseded; that property and saving--luck, too!--struggle, success, and +failure, must go on. That is one's intellectual conclusion; and one has +a right to it--you and I are at one in it. But then--on the heels of it +comes the moral imperative! 'Hold what you please about systems and +movements, and fight for what you hold; only, as an individual--_never +say--never think!_--that it is in the order of things, in the purpose of +God, that one of these little ones--this Board-School child, this man +honestly out of work, this woman "sweated" out of her life--should +perish!' A contradiction, or a commonplace, you say? Well and good. The +only truths that burn themselves into the conscience, that work +themselves out through the slow and manifold processes of the personal +will into a pattern of social improvement, are the contradictions and +the commonplaces!" + +So here, in the dark, alone with the haunting, uplifting presences of +"admiration, hope, and love," Marcella vowed, within the limits of her +personal scope and power, never to give up the struggle for a nobler +human fellowship, the lifelong toil to understand, the passionate effort +to bring honour and independence and joy to those who had them not. But +not alone; only, not alone! She had learnt something of the dark +aspects, the crushing complexity of the world. She turned from them +to-night, at last, with a natural human terror, to hide herself in her +own passion, to make of love her guide and shelter. Her whole rich being +was wrought to an intoxication of self-giving. Oh! let the night go +faster! faster! and bring his step upon the road, her cry of repentance +to his ear. + + * * * * * + +"I trust I am not late. Your clocks, I think, are ahead of ours. You +said eleven?" + +Aldous advanced into the room with hand outstretched. He had been +ushered into the drawing-room, somewhat to his surprise. + +Marcella came forward. She was in black as before, and pale, but there +was a knot of pink anemones fastened at her throat, which, in the play +they made with her face and hair, gave him a start of pleasure. + +"I wanted," she said, "to ask you again about those shares--how to +manage the sale of them. Could you--could you give me the name of some +one in the City you trust?" + +He was conscious of some astonishment. + +"Certainly," he said. "If you would rather not entrust it to Mr. French, +I can give you the name of the firm my grandfather and I have always +employed; or I could manage it for you if you would allow me. You have +quite decided?" + +"Yes," she said mechanically,--"quite. And--and I think I could do it +myself. Would you mind writing the address for me, and will you read +what I have written there?" + +She pointed to the little writing-table and the writing materials upon +it, then turned away to the window. He looked at her an instant with +uneasy amazement. + +He walked up to the table, put down his hat and gloves beside it, and +stooped to read what was written. + +_"It was in this room you told me I had done you a great wrong. But +wrongdoers may be pardoned sometimes, if they ask it. Let me know by a +sign, a look, if I may ask it. If not it would be kind to go away +without a word."_ + +She heard a cry. But she did not look up. She only knew that he had +crossed the room, that his arms were round her, her head upon his +breast. + +"Marcella!--wife!" was all he said, and that in a voice so low, so +choked, that she could hardly hear it. + +He held her so for a minute or more, she weeping, his own eyes dim with +tears, her cheek laid against the stormy beating of his heart. + +At last he raised her face, so that he could see it. + +"So this--this was what you had in your mind towards me, while I have +been despairing--fighting with myself, walking in darkness. Oh, my +darling! explain it. How can it be? Am I real? Is this face--these lips +real?"--he kissed both, trembling. "Oh! when a man is raised thus--in a +moment--from torture and hunger to full joy, there are no words--" + +His head sank on hers, and there was silence again, while he wrestled +with himself. + +At last she looked up, smiling. + +"You are to please come over here," she said, and leading him by the +hand, she took him to the other side of the room. "That is the chair you +sat in that morning. Sit down!" + +He sat down, wondering, and before he could guess what she was going to +do she had sunk on her knees beside him. + +"I am going to tell you," she said, "a hundred things I never told you +before. You are to hear me confess; you are to give me penance; you are +to say the hardest things possible to me. If you don't I shall distrust +you." + +She smiled at him again through her tears. "Marcella," he cried in +distress, trying to lift her, to rise himself, "you can't imagine that I +should let _you_ kneel to _me_!" + +"You must," she said steadily; "well, if it will make you happier, I +will take a stool and sit by you. But you are there above me--I am at +your feet--it is the same chair, and you shall not move"--she stooped in +a hasty passion, as though atoning for her "shall," and kissed his +hand--"till I have said it all--every word!" + +So she began it--her long confession, from the earliest days. He winced +often--she never wavered. She carried through the sharpest analysis of +her whole mind with regard to him; of her relations to him and Wharton +in the old days; of the disloyalty and lightness with which she had +treated the bond, that yet she had never, till quite the end, thought +seriously of breaking; of her selfish indifference to, even contempt +for, his life, his interests, his ideals; of her calm forecasts of a +married state in which she was always to take the lead and always to be +in the right--then of the real misery and struggle of the Hurd trial. + +"That was my first true _experience_," she said; "it made me wild and +hard, but it burnt, it purified. I began to live. Then came the day +when--when we parted--the time in hospital--the nursing--the evening on +the terrace. I had been thinking of you--because remorse made me think +of you--solitude--Mr. Hallin--everything. I wanted you to be kind to me, +to behave as though you had forgotten everything, because it would have +made me comfortable and happy; or I thought it would. And then, that +night you wouldn't be kind, you wouldn't forget--instead, you made me +pay my penalty." + +She stared at him an instant, her dark brows drawn together, struggling +to keep her tears back, yet lightening from moment to moment into a +divine look of happiness. He tried to take possession of her, to stop +her, to silence all this self-condemnation on his breast. But she would +not have it; she held him away from her. + +"That night, though I walked up and down the terrace with Mr. Wharton +afterwards, and tried to fancy myself in love with him--that night, for +the first time, I began to love you! It was mean and miserable, wasn't +it, not to be able to appreciate the gift, only to feel when it was +taken away? It was like being good when one is punished, because one +must--" + +She laid down her head against his chair with a long sigh. He could bear +it no longer. He lifted her in his arms, talking to her passionately of +the feelings which had been the counterpart to hers, the longings, +jealousies, renunciations--above all, the agony of that moment at the +Mastertons' party. + +"Hallin was the only person who understood," he said; "he knew all the +time that I should love you to my grave. I could talk to him." + +She gave a little sob of joy, and pushing herself away from him an +instant, she laid a hand on his shoulder. + +"I told him," she said--"I told him, that night he was dying." + +He looked at her with an emotion too deep even for caresses. + +"He never spoke--coherently--after you left him. At the end he motioned +to me, but there were no words. If I could possibly love you more, it +would be because you gave him that joy." + +He held her hand, and there was silence. Hallin stood beside them, +living and present again in the life of their hearts. + +Then, little by little, delight and youth and love stole again upon +their senses. + +"Do you suppose," he exclaimed, "that I yet understand in the least how +it is that I am here, in this chair, with you beside me? You have told +me much ancient history!--but all that truly concerns me this morning +lies in the dark. The last time I saw you, you were standing at the +garden-door, with a look which made me say to myself that I was the same +blunderer I had always been, and had far best keep away. Bridge me the +gap, please, between that hell and this heaven!" + +She held her head high, and changed her look of softness for a frown. + +"You had spoken of '_marriage!_'" she said. "Marriage in the abstract, +with a big _M_. You did it in the tone of my guardian giving me away. +Could I be expected to stand that?" + +He laughed. The joy in the sound almost hurt her. + +"So one's few virtues smite one," he said as he captured her hand again. +"Will you acknowledge that I played my part well? I thought to myself, +in the worst of tempers, as I drove away, that I could hardly have been +more official. But all this is evasion. What I desire to know, +categorically, is, what made you write that letter to me last night, +after--after the day before?" + +She sat with her chin on her hand, a smile dancing. + +"Whom did you walk with yesterday afternoon?" she said slowly. + +He looked bewildered. + +"There!" she cried, with a sudden wild gesture; "when I have told you it +will undo it all. Oh! if Frank had never said a word to me; if I had had +no excuse, no assurance, nothing to go upon, had just called to you in +the dark, as it were, there would be some generosity, some atonement in +that! Now you will think I waited to be meanly sure, instead of--" + +She dropped her dark head upon his hand again with an abandonment which +unnerved him, which he had almost to brace himself against. + +"So it was Frank," he said--"_Frank!_ Two hours ago, from my window, I +saw him and Betty down by the river in the park. They were supposed to +be fishing. As far as I could see they were sifting or walking hand in +hand, in the face of day and the keepers. I prepared wise things to say +to them. None of them will be said now, or listened to. As Frank's +mentor I am undone." + +He held her, looking at her intently. + +"Shall I tell you," he asked, in a lower voice--"shall I show you +something--something that I had on my heart as I was walking here?" + +He slipped his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out a +little plain black leather case. When he opened it she saw that it +contained a pen-and-ink sketch of herself that had been done one evening +by a young artist staying at the Court, and--a bunch of traveller's joy. + +She gazed at it with a mixture of happiness and pain. It reminded her of +cold and selfish thoughts, and set them in relief against his constancy. +But she had given away all rights--even the right to hate herself. +Piteously, childishly, with seeking eyes, she held out her hand to him, +as though mutely asking him for the answer to her outpouring--the last +word of it all. He caught her whisper. + +"Forgive?" he said to her, scorning her for the first and only time in +their history. "Does a man _forgive_ the hand that sets him free, the +voice that recreates him? Choose some better word--my wife!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCELLA*** + + +******* This file should be named 13728-8.txt or 13728-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/7/2/13728 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/13728-8.zip b/old/13728-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dfcfcc6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13728-8.zip diff --git a/old/13728.txt b/old/13728.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b6ae86 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13728.txt @@ -0,0 +1,27527 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marcella, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Marcella + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: October 12, 2004 [eBook #13728] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCELLA*** + + +E-text prepared by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +MARCELLA + +by + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +Author of _Robert Elsmere_, _The History Of David Grieve_, etc. + +In Two Volumes + +1894 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Portrait of Mary A. Ward] + + + +TO MY FATHER I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE + + + +BOOK I. + + +"If nature put not forth her power +About the opening of the flower, +Who is it that could live an hour?" + + + +CHAPTER I. + +"The mists--and the sun--and the first streaks of yellow in the +beeches--beautiful!--_beautiful_!" + + +And with a long breath of delight Marcella Boyce threw herself on her +knees by the window she had just opened, and, propping her face upon her +hands, devoured the scene, before her with that passionate intensity of +pleasure which had been her gift and heritage through life. + +She looked out upon a broad and level lawn, smoothed by the care of +centuries, flanked on either side by groups of old trees--some Scotch +firs, some beeches, a cedar or two--groups where the slow selective hand +of time had been at work for generations, developing here the delightful +roundness of quiet mass and shade, and there the bold caprice of bare +fir trunks and ragged branches, standing black against the sky. Beyond +the lawn stretched a green descent indefinitely long, carrying the eye +indeed almost to the limit of the view, and becoming from the lawn +onwards a wide irregular avenue, bordered by beeches of a splendid +maturity, ending at last in a far distant gap where a gate--and a gate +of some importance--clearly should have been, yet was not. The size of +the trees, the wide uplands of the falling valley to the left of the +avenue, now rich in the tints of harvest, the autumn sun pouring +steadily through the vanishing mists, the green breadth of the vast +lawn, the unbroken peace of wood and cultivated ground, all carried with +them a confused general impression of well-being and of dignity. +Marcella drew it in--this impression--with avidity. Yet at the same +moment she noticed involuntarily the gateless gap at the end of the +avenue, the choked condition of the garden paths on either side of the +lawn, and the unsightly tufts of grass spotting the broad gravel terrace +beneath her window. + +"It _is_ a heavenly place, all said and done," she protested to herself +with a little frown. "But no doubt it would have been better still if +Uncle Robert had looked after it and we could afford to keep the garden +decent. Still--" + +She dropped on a stool beside the open window, and as her eyes steeped +themselves afresh in what they saw, the frown disappeared again in the +former look of glowing content--that content of youth which is never +merely passive, nay, rather, contains an invariable element of covetous +eagerness. + +It was but three months or so since Marcella's father, Mr. Richard +Boyce, had succeeded to the ownership of Mellor Park the old home of the +Boyces, and it was little more than six weeks since Marcella had +received her summons home from the students' boarding-house in +Kensington, where she had been lately living. She had ardently wished +to assist in the June "settling-in," having not been able to apply her +mind to the music or painting she was supposed to be studying, nor +indeed to any other subject whatever, since the news of their +inheritance had reached her. But her mother in a dry little note had let +it be known that she preferred to manage the move for herself. Marcella +had better go on with her studies as long as possible. + +Yet Marcella was here at last. And as she looked round her large bare +room, with its old dilapidated furniture, and then out again to woods +and lawns, it seemed to her that all was now well, and that her +childhood with its squalors and miseries was blotted out--atoned for by +this last kind sudden stroke of fate, which might have been delayed so +deplorably!--since no one could have reasonably expected that an +apparently sound man of sixty would have succumbed in three days to the +sort of common chill a hunter and sportsman must have resisted +successfully a score of times before. + +Her great desire now was to put the past--the greater part of it at any +rate--behind her altogether. Its shabby worries were surely done with, +poor as she and her parents still were, relatively to their present +position. At least she was no longer the self-conscious schoolgirl, paid +for at a lower rate than her companions, stinted in dress, pocket-money, +and education, and fiercely resentful at every turn of some real or +fancied slur; she was no longer even the half-Bohemian student of these +past two years, enjoying herself in London so far as the iron necessity +of keeping her boarding-house expenses down to the lowest possible +figure would allow. She was something altogether different. She was +Marcella Boyce, a "finished" and grown-up young woman of twenty-one, the +only daughter and child of Mr. Boyce of Mellor Park, inheritress of one +of the most ancient names in Midland England, and just entering on a +life which to her own fancy and will, at any rate, promised the highest +possible degree of interest and novelty. + +Yet, in the very act of putting her past away from her, she only +succeeded, so it seemed, in inviting it to repossess her. + +For against her will, she fell straightway--in this quiet of the autumn +morning--into a riot of memory, setting her past self against her +present more consciously than she had done yet, recalling scene after +scene and stage after stage with feelings of sarcasm, or amusement, or +disgust, which showed themselves freely as they came and went, in the +fine plastic face turned to the September woods. + +She had been at school since she was nine years old--there was the +dominant fact in these motley uncomfortable years behind her, which, in +her young ignorance of the irrevocableness of living, she wished so +impatiently to forget. As to the time before her school life, she had a +dim memory of seemly and pleasant things, of a house in London, of a +large and bright nursery, of a smiling mother who took constant notice +of her, of games, little friends, and birthday parties. What had led to +the complete disappearance of this earliest "set," to use a theatrical +phrase, from the scenery of her childhood, Marcella did not yet +adequately know, though she had some theories and many suspicions in +the background of her mind. But at any rate this first image of memory +was succeeded by another precise as the first was vague--the image of a +tall white house, set against a white chalk cliff rising in terraces +behind it and alongside it, where she had spent the years from nine to +fourteen, and where, if she were set down blindfold, now, at twenty-one, +she could have found her way to every room and door and cupboard and +stair with a perfect and fascinated familiarity. + +When she entered that house she was a lanky, black-eyed creature, tall +for her age, and endowed or, as she herself would have put it, cursed +with an abundance of curly unmanageable hair, whereof the brushing and +tending soon became to a nervous clumsy child, not long parted from her +nurse, one of the worst plagues of her existence. During her home life +she had been an average child of the quick and clever type, with average +faults. But something in the bare, ugly rooms, the discipline, the +teaching, the companionship of Miss Frederick's Cliff House School for +Young Ladies, transformed little Marcella Boyce, for the time being, +into a demon. She hated her lessons, though, when she chose, she could +do them in a hundredth part of the time taken by her companions; she +hated getting up in the wintry dark, and her cold ablutions with some +dozen others in the comfortless lavatory; she hated the meals in the +long schoolroom, where, because twice meat was forbidden and twice +pudding allowed, she invariably hungered fiercely for more mutton and +scorned her second course, making a sort of dramatic story to herself +out of Miss Frederick's tyranny and her own thwarted appetite as she sat +black-browed and brooding in her place. She was not a favourite with her +companions, and she was a perpetual difficulty and trouble to her +perfectly well-intentioned schoolmistress. The whole of her first year +was one continual series of sulks, quarrels, and revolts. + +Perhaps her blackest days were the days she spent occasionally in bed, +when Miss Frederick, at her wit's end, would take advantage of one of +the child's perpetual colds to try the effects of a day's seclusion and +solitary confinement, administered in such a form that it could do her +charge no harm, and might, she hoped, do her good. "For I do believe a +great part of it's liver or nerves! No child in her right senses could +behave so," she would declare to the mild and stout French lady who had +been her partner for years, and who was more inclined to befriend and +excuse Marcella than any one else in the house--no one exactly knew why. + +Now the rule of the house when any girl was ordered to bed with a cold +was, in the first place, that she should not put her arms outside the +bedclothes--for if you were allowed to read and amuse yourself in bed +you might as well be up; that the housemaid should visit the patient in +the early morning with a cup of senna-tea, and at long and regular +intervals throughout the day with beef-tea and gruel; and that no one +should come to see and talk with her, unless, indeed, it were the +doctor, quiet being in all cases of sickness the first condition of +recovery, and the natural schoolgirl in Miss Frederick's persuasion +being more or less inclined to complain without cause if illness were +made agreeable. + +For some fourteen hours, therefore, on these days of durance Marcella +was left almost wholly alone, nothing but a wild mass of black hair and +a pair of roving, defiant eyes in a pale face showing above the +bedclothes whenever the housemaid chose to visit her--a pitiable morsel, +in truth, of rather forlorn humanity. For though she had her movements +of fierce revolt, when she was within an ace of throwing the senna-tea +in Martha's face, and rushing downstairs in her nightgown to denounce +Miss Frederick in the midst of an astonished schoolroom, something +generally interposed; not conscience, it is to be feared, or any wish +"to be good," but only an aching, inmost sense of childish loneliness +and helplessness; a perception that she had indeed tried everybody's +patience to the limit, and that these days in bed represented crises +which must be borne with even by such a rebel as Marcie Boyce. + +So she submitted, and presently learnt, under dire stress of boredom, to +amuse herself a good deal by developing a natural capacity for dreaming +awake. Hour by hour she followed out an endless story of which she was +always the heroine. Before the annoyance of her afternoon gruel, which +she loathed, was well forgotten, she was in full fairy-land again, +figuring generally as the trusted friend and companion of the Princess +of Wales--of that beautiful Alexandra, the top and model of English +society whose portrait in the window of the little stationer's shop at +Marswell--the small country town near Cliff House--had attracted the +child's attention once, on a dreary walk, and had ever since governed +her dreams. Marcella had no fairy-tales, but she spun a whole cycle for +herself around the lovely Princess who came to seem to her before long +her own particular property. She had only to shut her eyes and she had +caught her idol's attention--either by some look or act of passionate +yet unobtrusive homage as she passed the royal carriage in the +street--or by throwing herself in front of the divinity's runaway +horses--or by a series of social steps easily devised by an imaginative +child, well aware, in spite of appearances, that she was of an old +family and had aristocratic relations. Then, when the Princess had held +out a gracious hand and smiled, all was delight! Marcella grew up on the +instant: she was beautiful, of course; she had, so people said, the +"Boyce eyes and hair;" she had sweeping gowns, generally of white muslin +with cherry-coloured ribbons; she went here and there with the Princess, +laughing and talking quite calmly with the greatest people in the land, +her romantic friendship with the adored of England making her all the +time the observed of all observers, bringing her a thousand delicate +flatteries and attentions. + +Then, when she was at the very top of ecstasy, floating in the softest +summer sea of fancy, some little noise would startle her into opening +her eyes, and there beside her in the deepening dusk would be the bare +white beds of her two dormitory companions, the ugly wall-paper +opposite, and the uncovered boards with their frugal strips of carpet +stretching away on either hand. The tea-bell would ring perhaps in the +depths far below, and the sound would complete the transformation of +the Princess's maid-of-honour into Marcie Boyce, the plain naughty +child, whom nobody cared about, whose mother never wrote to her, who in +contrast to every other girl in the school had not a single "party +frock," and who would have to choose next morning between another dumb +day of senna-tea and gruel, supposing she chose to plead that her cold +was still obstinate, or getting up at half-past six to repeat half a +page of Ince's "Outlines of English History" in the chilly schoolroom, +at seven. + +Looking back now as from another world on that unkempt fractious Marcie +of Cliff House, the Marcella of the present saw with a mixture of +amusement and self-pity that one great aggravation of that child's daily +miseries had been a certain injured, irritable sense of social +difference between herself and her companions. Some proportion of the +girls at Cliff House were drawn from the tradesman class of two or three +neighbouring towns. Their tradesmen papas were sometimes ready to deal +on favourable terms with Miss Frederick for the supply of her +establishment; in which case the young ladies concerned evidently felt +themselves very much at home, and occasionally gave themselves airs +which alternately mystified and enraged a little spitfire outsider like +Marcella Boyce. Even at ten years old she perfectly understood that she +was one of the Boyces of Brookshire, and that her great-uncle had been a +famous Speaker of the House of Commons. The portrait of this great-uncle +had hung in the dining room of that pretty London house which now seemed +so far away; her father had again and again pointed it out to the +child, and taught her to be proud of it; and more than once her childish +eye had been caught by the likeness between it and an old grey-haired +gentleman who occasionally came to see them, and whom she called +"Grandpapa." Through one influence and another she had drawn the glory +of it, and the dignity of her race generally, into her childish blood. +There they were now--the glory and the dignity--a feverish leaven, +driving her perpetually into the most crude and ridiculous outbreaks, +which could lead to nothing but humiliation. + +"I wish my great-uncle were here! _He'd_ make you remember--you +great--you great--big bully you!"--she shrieked on one occasion when she +had been defying a big girl in authority, and the big girl--the stout +and comely daughter of a local ironmonger--had been successfully +asserting herself. + +The big girl opened her eyes wide and laughed. + +"_Your_ great-uncle! Upon my word! And who may he be, miss? If it comes +to that, I'd like to show _my_ great-uncle David how you've scratched my +wrist. He'd give it you. He's almost as strong as father, though he is +so old. You get along with you, and behave yourself, and don't talk +stuff to me." + +Whereupon Marcella, choking with rage and tears, found herself pushed +out of the schoolroom and the door shut upon her. She rushed up to the +top terrace, which was the school playground, and sat there in a hidden +niche of the wall, shaking and crying,--now planning vengeance on her +conqueror, and now hot all over with the recollection of her own +ill-bred and impotent folly. + +No--during those first two years the only pleasures, so memory +declared, were three: the visits of the cake-woman on Saturday--Marcella +sitting in her window could still taste the three-cornered puffs and +small sweet pears on which, as much from a fierce sense of freedom and +self-assertion as anything else, she had lavished her tiny weekly +allowance; the mad games of "tig," which she led and organised in the +top playground; and the kindnesses of fat Mademoiselle Renier, Miss +Frederick's partner, who saw a likeness in Marcella to a long-dead small +sister of her own, and surreptitiously indulged "the little wild-cat," +as the school generally dubbed the Speaker's great-niece, whenever she +could. + +But with the third year fresh elements and interests had entered in. +Romance awoke, and with it certain sentimental affections. In the first +place, a taste for reading had rooted itself--reading of the adventurous +and poetical kind. There were two or three books which Marcella had +absorbed in a way it now made her envious to remember. For at twenty-one +people who take interest in many things, and are in a hurry to have +opinions, must skim and "turn over" books rather than read them, must +use indeed as best they may a scattered and distracted mind, and suffer +occasional pangs of conscience as pretenders. But at thirteen--what +concentration! what devotion! what joy! One of these precious volumes +was Bulwer's "Rienzi"; another was Miss Porter's "Scottish Chiefs"; a +third was a little red volume of "Marmion" which an aunt had given her. +She probably never read any of them through--she had not a particle of +industry or method in her composition--but she lived in them. The parts +which it bored her to read she easily invented for herself, but the +scenes and passages which thrilled her she knew by heart; she had no +gift for verse-making, but she laboriously wrote a long poem on the +death of Rienzi, and she tried again and again with a not inapt hand to +illustrate for herself in pen and ink the execution of Wallace. + +But all these loves for things and ideas were soon as nothing in +comparison with a friendship, and an adoration. + +To take the adoration first. When Marcella came to Cliff House she was +recommended by the same relation who gave her "Marmion" to the kind +offices of the clergyman of the parish, who happened to be known to some +of the Boyce family. He and his wife--they had no children--did their +duty amply by the odd undisciplined child. They asked her to tea once or +twice; they invited her to the school-treat, where she was only +self-conscious and miserably shy; and Mr. Ellerton had at least one +friendly and pastoral talk with Miss Frederick as to the difficulties of +her pupil's character. For a long time little came of it. Marcella was +hard to tame, and when she went to tea at the Rectory Mrs. Ellerton, who +was refined and sensible, did not know what to make of her, though in +some unaccountable way she was drawn to and interested by the child. But +with the expansion of her thirteenth year there suddenly developed in +Marcie's stormy breast an overmastering absorbing passion for these two +persons. She did not show it to them much, but for herself it raised +her to another plane of existence, gave her new objects and new +standards. She who had hated going to church now counted time entirely +by Sundays. To see the pulpit occupied by any other form and face than +those of the rector was a calamity hardly to be borne; if the exit of +the school party were delayed by any accident so that Mr. and Mrs. +Ellerton overtook them in the churchyard, Marcella would walk home on +air, quivering with a passionate delight, and in the dreary afternoon of +the school Sunday she would spend her time happily in trying to write +down the heads of Mr. Ellerton's sermon. In the natural course of things +she would, at this time, have taken no interest in such things at all, +but whatever had been spoken by him had grace, thrill, meaning. + +Nor was the week quite barren of similar delights. She was generally +sent to practise on an old square piano in one of the top rooms. The +window in front of her overlooked the long white drive and the distant +high road into which it ran. Three times a week on an average Mrs. +Ellerton's pony carriage might be expected to pass along that road. +Every day Marcella watched for it, alive with expectation, her fingers +strumming as they pleased. Then with the first gleam of the white pony +in the distance, over would go the music stool, and the child leapt to +the window, remaining fixed there, breathing quick and eagerly till the +trees on the left had hidden from her the graceful erect figure of Mrs. +Ellerton. Then her moment of Paradise was over; but the afterglow of it +lasted for the day. + +So much for romance, for feelings as much like love as childhood can +know them, full of kindling charm and mystery. Her friendship had been +of course different, but it also left deep mark. A tall, consumptive +girl among the Cliff House pupils, the motherless daughter of a +clergyman-friend of Miss Frederick's, had for some time taken notice of +Marcella, and at length won her by nothing else, in the first instance, +than a remarkable gift for story-telling. She was a parlour-boarder, had +a room to herself, and a fire in it when the weather was cold. She was +not held strictly to lesson hours; many delicacies in the way of food +were provided for her, and Miss Frederick watched over her with a quite +maternal solicitude. When winter came she developed a troublesome cough, +and the doctor recommended that a little suite of rooms looking south +and leading out on the middle terrace of the garden should be given up +to her. There was a bedroom, an intermediate dressing-room, and then a +little sitting-room built out upon the terrace, with a window-door +opening upon it. + +Here Mary Lant spent week after week. Whenever lesson hours were done +she clamoured for Marcie Boyce, and Marcella was always eager to go to +her. She would fly up stairs and passages, knock at the bedroom door, +run down the steps to the queer little dressing-room where the roof +nearly came on your head, and down more steps again to the sitting-room. +Then when the door was shut, and she was crooning over the fire with her +friend, she was entirely happy. The tiny room was built on the edge of +the terrace, the ground fell rapidly below it, and the west window +commanded a broad expanse of tame arable country, of square fields and +hedges, and scattered wood. Marcella, looking back upon that room, +seemed always to see it flooded with the rays of wintry sunset, a kettle +boiling on the fire, her pale friend in a shawl crouching over the +warmth, and the branches of a snowberry tree, driven by the wind, +beating against the terrace door. + +But what a story-teller was Mary Lant! She was the inventor of a story +called "John and Julia," which went on for weeks and months without ever +producing the smallest satiety in Marcella. Unlike her books of +adventure, this was a domestic drama of the purest sort; it was +extremely moral and evangelical, designed indeed by its sensitively +religious author for Marcie's correction and improvement. There was in +it a sublime hero, who set everybody's faults to rights and lectured the +heroine. In real life Marcella would probably before long have been +found trying to kick his shins--a mode of warfare of which in her demon +moods she was past mistress. But as Mary Lant described him, she not +only bore with and trembled before him--she adored him. The taste for +him and his like, as well as for the story-teller herself--a girl of a +tremulous, melancholy fibre, sweet-natured, possessed by a Calvinist +faith, and already prescient of death--grew upon her. Soon her absorbing +desire was to be altogether shut up with Mary, except on Sundays and at +practising times. For this purpose she gave herself the worst cold she +could achieve, and cherished diligently what she proudly considered to +be a racking cough. But Miss Frederick was deaf to the latter, and only +threatened the usual upstairs seclusion and senna-tea for the former, +whereupon Marcella in alarm declared that her cold was much better and +gave up the cough in despair. It was her first sorrow and cost her some +days of pale brooding and silence, and some nights of stifled tears, +when during an Easter holiday a letter from Miss Frederick to her mother +announced the sudden death of Mary Lant. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Friendship and love are humanising things, and by her fourteenth year +Marcella was no longer a clever little imp, but a fast-maturing and in +some ways remarkable girl, with much of the woman in her already. She +had begun even to feel an interest in her dress, to speculate +occasionally on her appearance. At the fourth breaking-up party after +her arrival at Cliff House, Marcella, who had usually figured on these +occasions in a linsey-woolsey high to the throat, amid the frilled and +sashed splendours of her companions, found lying on her bed, when she +went up with the others to dress, a plain white muslin dress with blue +ribbons. It was the gift of old Mademoiselle Renier, who affectionately +wished her queer, neglected favourite to look well. Marcella examined it +and fingered it with an excited mixture of feelings. First of all there +was the sore and swelling bitterness that she should owe such things to +the kindness of the French governess, whereas finery for the occasion +had been freely sent to all the other girls from "home." She very nearly +turned her back upon the bed and its pretty burden. But then the mere +snowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, and the +burning curiosity to see herself decked therein, overcame a nature +which, in the midst of its penury, had been always really possessed by +a more than common hunger for sensuous beauty and seemliness. Marcella +wore it, was stormily happy in it, and kissed Mademoiselle Renier for it +at night with an effusion, nay, some tears, which no one at Cliff House +had ever witnessed in her before except with the accompaniments of rage +and fury. + +A little later her father came to see her, the first and only visit he +paid to her at school. Marcella, to whom he was by now almost a +stranger, received him demurely, making no confidences, and took him +over the house and gardens. When he was about to leave her a sudden +upswell of paternal sentiment made him ask her if she was happy and if +she wanted anything. + +"Yes!" said Marcella, her large eyes gleaming; "tell mamma I want a +'fringe.' Every other girl in the school has got one." + +And she pointed disdainfully to her plainly parted hair. Her father, +astonished by her unexpected vehemence, put up his eyeglass and studied +the child's appearance. Three days later, by her mother's permission, +Marcella was taken to the hairdresser at Marswell by Mademoiselle +Renier, returned in all the glories of a "fringe," and, in +acknowledgment thereof, wrote her mother a letter which for the first +time had something else than formal news in it. + +Meanwhile new destinies were preparing for her. For a variety of small +reasons Mr. Boyce, who had never yet troubled himself about the matter +from a distance, was not, upon personal inspection, very favourably +struck with his daughter's surroundings. His wife remarked shortly, when +he complained to her, that Marcella seemed to her as well off as the +daughter of persons of their means could expect to be. But Mr. Boyce +stuck to his point. He had just learnt that Harold, the only son of his +widowed brother Robert, of Mellor Park, had recently developed a deadly +disease, which might be long, but must in the end be sure. If the young +man died and he outlived Robert, Mellor Park would be his; they would +and must return, in spite of certain obstacles, to their natural rank in +society, and Marcella must of course be produced as his daughter and +heiress. When his wife repulsed him, he went to his eldest sister, an +old maid with a small income of her own, who happened to be staying with +them, and was the only member of his family with whom he was now on +terms. She was struck with his remarks, which bore on family pride, a +commodity not always to be reckoned on in the Boyces, but which she +herself possessed in abundance; and when he paused she slowly said that +if an ideal school of another type could be found for Marcella, she +would be responsible for what it might cost over and above the present +arrangement. Marcella's manners were certainly rough; it was difficult +to say what she was learning, or with whom she was associating; +accomplishments she appeared to have none. Something should certainly be +done for her--considering the family contingencies. But being a strong +evangelical, the aunt stipulated for "religious influences," and said +she would write to a friend. + +The result was that a month or two later Marcella, now close on her +fourteenth birthday, was transferred from Cliff House to the charge of a +lady who managed a small but much-sought-after school for young ladies +at Solesby, a watering place on the east coast. + + * * * * * + +But when in the course of reminiscence Marcella found herself once more +at Solesby, memory began to halt and wander, to choose another tone and +method. At Solesby the rough surroundings and primitive teaching of +Cliff House, together with her own burning sense of inferiority and +disadvantage, had troubled her no more. She was well taught there, and +developed quickly from the troublesome child into the young lady duly +broken in to all social proprieties. But it was not her lessons or her +dancing masters that she remembered. She had made for herself agitations +at Cliff House, but what were they as compared to the agitations of +Solesby! Life there had been one long Wertherish romance in which there +were few incidents, only feelings, which were themselves events. It +contained humiliations and pleasures, but they had been all matters of +spiritual relation, connected with one figure only--the figure of her +schoolmistress, Miss Pemberton; and with one emotion only--a passion, an +adoration, akin to that she had lavished on the Ellertons, but now much +more expressive and mature. A tall slender woman with brown, +grey-besprinkled hair falling in light curls after the fashion of our +grandmothers on either cheek, and braided into a classic knot +behind--the face of a saint, an enthusiast--eyes overflowing with +feeling above a thin firm mouth--the mouth of the obstinate saint, yet +sweet also: this delicate significant picture was stamped on Marcella's +heart. What tremors of fear and joy could she not remember in +connection with it? what night-vigils when a tired girl kept herself +through long hours awake that she might see at last the door open and a +figure with a night-lamp standing an instant in the doorway?--for Miss +Pemberton, who slept little and read late, never went to rest without +softly going the rounds of her pupils' rooms. What storms of contest, +mainly provoked by Marcella for the sake of the emotions, first of +combat, then of reconciliation to which they led! What a strange +development on the pupil's side of a certain histrionic gift, a turn for +imaginative intrigue, for endless small contrivances such as might rouse +or heighten the recurrent excitements of feeling! What agitated moments +of religious talk! What golden days in the holidays, when +long-looked-for letters arrived full of religious admonition, letters +which were carried about and wept over till they fell to pieces under +the stress of such a worship--what terrors and agonies of a stimulated +conscience--what remorse for sins committed at school--what zeal to +confess them in letters of a passionate eloquence--and what indifference +meanwhile to anything of the same sort that might have happened at home! + +Strange faculty that women have for thus lavishing their heart's blood +from their very cradles! Marcella could hardly look back now, in the +quiet of thought, to her five years with Miss Pemberton without a shiver +of agitation. Yet now she never saw her. It was two years since they +parted; the school was broken up; her idol had gone to India to join a +widowed brother. It was all over--for ever. Those precious letters had +worn themselves away; so, too, had Marcella's religious feelings; she +was once more another being. + + * * * * * + +But these two years since she had said good-bye to Solesby and her +school days? Once set thinking of bygones by the stimulus of Mellor and +its novelty, Marcella must needs think, too, of her London life, of all +that it had opened to her, and meant for her. Fresh agitations!--fresh +passions!--but this time impersonal, passions of the mind and +sympathies. + +At the time she left Solesby her father and mother were abroad, and it +was apparently not convenient that she should join them. Marcella, +looking back, could not remember that she had ever been much desired at +home. No doubt she had been often moody and tiresome in the holidays; +but she suspected--nay, was certain--that there had been other and more +permanent reasons why her parents felt her presence with them a burden. +At any rate, when the moment came for her to leave Miss Pemberton, her +mother wrote from abroad that, as Marcella had of late shown decided +aptitude both for music and painting, it would be well that she should +cultivate both gifts for a while more seriously than would be possible +at home. Mrs. Boyce had made inquiries, and was quite willing that her +daughter should go, for a time, to a lady whose address she enclosed, +and to whom she herself had written--a lady who received girl-students +working at the South Kensington art classes. + +So began an experience, as novel as it was strenuous. Marcella soon +developed all the airs of independence and all the jargon of two +professions. Working with consuming energy and ambition, she pushed her +gifts so far as to become at least a very intelligent, eager, and +confident critic of the art of other people--which is much. But though +art stirred and trained her, gave her new horizons and new standards, it +was not in art that she found ultimately the chief excitement and +motive-power of her new life--not in art, but in the birth of social and +philanthropic ardour, the sense of a hitherto unsuspected social power. + +One of her girl-friends and fellow-students had two brothers in London, +both at work at South Kensington, and living not far from their sister. +The three were orphans. They sprang from a nervous, artistic stock, and +Marcella had never before come near any one capable of crowding so much +living into the twenty-four hours. The two brothers, both of them +skilful and artistic designers in different lines, and hard at work all +day, were members of a rising Socialist society, and spent their +evenings almost entirely on various forms of social effort and Socialist +propaganda. They seemed to Marcella's young eyes absolutely sincere and +quite unworldly. They lived as workmen; and both the luxuries and the +charities of the rich were equally odious to them. That there could be +any "right" in private property or private wealth had become incredible +to them; their minds were full of lurid images or resentments drawn from +the existing state of London; and though one was humorous and handsome, +the other, short, sickly, and pedantic, neither could discuss the +Socialist ideal without passion, nor hear it attacked without anger. +And in milder measure their sister, who possessed more artistic gift +than either of them, was like unto them. + +Marcella saw much of these three persons, and something of their +friends. She went with them to Socialist lectures, or to the public +evenings of the Venturist Society, to which the brothers belonged. Edie, +the sister, assaulted the imagination of her friend, made her read the +books of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love and +dreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day," now seer and prophet, the +herald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shall +enjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason, +brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle, +together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; they +flattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance of +women to the new doctrine and the new era. + +The handsome brother was certainly in love with her; the other, +probably. Marcella was not in love with either of them, but she was +deeply interested in all three, and for the sickly brother she felt at +that time a profound admiration--nay, reverence--which influenced her +vitally at a critical moment of life. "Blessed are the poor"--"Woe unto +you, rich men"--these were the only articles of his scanty creed, but +they were held with a fervour, and acted upon with a conviction, which +our modern religion seldom commands. His influence made Marcella a +rent-collector under a lady friend of his in the East End; because of +it, she worked herself beyond her strength in a joint attempt made by +some members of the Venturist Society to organise a Tailoresses' Union; +and, to please him, she read articles and blue-books on Sweating and +Overcrowding. It was all very moving and very dramatic; so, too, was the +persuasion Marcella divined in her friends, that she was destined in +time, with work and experience, to great things and high place in the +movement. + +The wholly unexpected news of Mr. Boyce's accession to Mellor had very +various effects upon this little band of comrades. It revived in +Marcella ambitions, instincts and tastes wholly different from those of +her companions, but natural to her by temperament and inheritance. The +elder brother, Anthony Craven, always melancholy and suspicious, divined +her immediately. + +"How glad you are to be done with Bohemia!" he said to her ironically +one day, when he had just discovered her with the photographs of Mellor +about her. "And how rapidly it works!" + +"What works?" she asked him angrily. + +"The poison of possession. And what a mean end it puts to things! A week +ago you were all given to causes not your own; now, how long will it +take you to think of us as 'poor fanatics!'--and to be ashamed you ever +knew us?" + +"You mean to say that I am a mean hypocrite!" she cried. "Do you think +that because I delight in--in pretty things and old associations, I must +give up all my convictions? Shall I find no poor at Mellor--no work to +do? It is unkind--unfair. It is the way all reform breaks down--through +mutual distrust!" + +He looked at her with a cold smile in his dark, sunken eyes, and she +turned from him indignantly. + +When they bade her good-bye at the station, she begged them to write to +her. + +"No, no!" said Louis, the handsome younger brother. "If ever you want +us, we are there. If you write, we will answer. But you won't need to +think about us yet awhile. Good-bye!" + +And he pressed her hand with a smile. + +The good fellow had put all his own dreams and hopes out of sight with a +firm hand since the arrival of her great news. Indeed, Marcella realised +in them all that she was renounced. Louis and Edith spoke with affection +and regret. As to Anthony, from the moment that he set eyes upon the +maid sent to escort her to Mellor, and the first-class ticket that had +been purchased for her, Marcella perfectly understood that she had +become to him as an enemy. + +"They shall see--I will show them!" she said to herself with angry +energy, as the train whirled her away. And her sense of their +unwarrantable injustice kept her tense and silent till she was roused to +a childish and passionate pleasure by a first sight of the wide lawns +and time-stained front of Mellor. + + * * * * * + +Of such elements, such memories of persons, things, and events, was +Marcella's reverie by the window made up. One thing, however, which, +clearly, this report of it has not explained, is that spirit of +energetic discontent with her past in which she had entered on her +musings. Why such soreness of spirit? Her childhood had been pinched and +loveless; but, after all, it could well bear comparison with that of +many another child of impoverished parents. There had been compensations +all through--and were not the great passion of her Solesby days, +together with the interest and novelty of her London experience, enough +to give zest and glow to the whole retrospect? Ah! but it will be +observed that in this sketch of Marcella's schooldays nothing has been +said of Marcella's holidays. In this omission the narrative has but +followed the hasty, half-conscious gaps and slurs of the girl's own +thought. For Marcella never thought of those holidays and all that was +connected with them _in detail_, if she could possibly avoid it. But it +was with them, in truth, and with what they implied, that she was so +irritably anxious to be done when she first began to be reflective by +the window; and it was to them she returned with vague, but still +intense consciousness when the rush of active reminiscence died away. + + * * * * * + +That surely was the breakfast bell ringing, and with the dignified +ancestral sound which was still so novel and attractive to Marcella's +ear. Recalled to Mellor Park and its circumstances, she went +thoughtfully downstairs, pondering a little on the shallow steps of the +beautiful Jacobean staircase. _Could_ she ever turn her back upon those +holidays? Was she not rather, so to speak, just embarked upon their +sequel, or second volume? + +But let us go downstairs also. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Breakfast was laid in the "Chinese room," a room which formed part of +the stately "garden front," added to the original structure of the house +in the eighteenth century by a Boyce whose wife had money. The +decorations, especially of the domed and vaulted roof, were supposed by +their eighteenth century designer to be "Oriental"; they were, at any +rate, intricate and overladen; and the figures of mandarins on the worn +and discoloured wall-paper had, at least, top-knots, pigtails, and +petticoats to distinguish them from the ordinary Englishmen of 1760, +besides a charming mellowness of colour and general effect bestowed on +them by time and dilapidation. The marble mantelpiece was elaborately +carved in Chinamen and pagodas. There were Chinese curiosities of a +miscellaneous kind on the tables, and the beautiful remains of an Indian +carpet underfoot. Unluckily, some later Boyce had thrust a crudely +Gothic sideboard, with an arched and pillared front, adapted to the +purposes of a warming apparatus, into the midst of the mandarins, which +disturbed the general effect. But with all its original absurdities, and +its modern defacements, the room was a beautiful and stately one. +Marcella stepped into it with a slight unconscious straightening of her +tall form. It seemed to her that she had never breathed easily till +now, in the ample space of these rooms and gardens. + +Her father and mother were already at table, together with Mrs. Boyce's +brown spaniel Lynn. + +Mr. Boyce was employed in ordering about the tall boy in a worn and +greasy livery coat, who represented the men-service of the +establishment; his wife was talking to her dog, but from the lift of her +eyebrows, and the twitching of her thin lips, it was plain to Marcella +that her mother was as usual of opinion that her father was behaving +foolishly. + +"There, for goodness' sake, cut some bread on the sideboard," said the +angry master, "and hand it round instead of staring about you like a +stuck pig. What they taught you at Sir William Jute's I can't conceive. +_I_ didn't undertake to make a man-servant of you, sir." + +The pale, harassed lad flew at the bread, cut it with a vast scattering +of crumbs, handed it clumsily round, and then took glad advantage of a +short supply of coffee to bolt from the room to order more. + +"Idiot!" said Mr. Boyce, with an angry frown, as he disappeared. + +"If you would allow Ann to do her proper parlour work again," said his +wife blandly, "you would, I think, be less annoyed. And as I believe +William was boot boy at the Jutes', it is not surprising that he did not +learn waiting." + +"I tell you, Evelyn, that our position _demands_ a man-servant!" was the +hot reply. "None of my family have ever attempted to run this house with +women only. It would be unseemly--unfitting--incon--" + +"Oh, I am no judge of course of what a Boyce may do!" said his wife +carelessly. "I leave that to you and the neighbourhood." + +Mr. Boyce looked uncomfortable, cooled down, and presently when the +coffee came back asked his wife for a fresh supply in tones from which +all bellicosity had for the time departed. He was a small and singularly +thin man, with blue wandering eyes under the blackest possible eyebrows +and hair. The cheeks were hollow, the complexion as yellow as that of +the typical Anglo-Indian. The special character of the mouth was hidden +by a fine black moustache, but his prevailing expression varied between +irritability and a kind of plaintiveness. The conspicuous blue eyes were +as a rule melancholy; but they could be childishly bright and +self-assertive. There was a general air of breeding about Richard Boyce, +of that air at any rate which our common generalisations connect with +the pride of old family; his dress was careful and correct to the last +detail; and his hands with their long fingers were of an excessive +delicacy, though marred as to beauty by a thinness which nearly amounted +to emaciation. + +"The servants say they must leave unless the ghost does, Marcella," said +Mrs. Boyce, suddenly, laying a morsel of toast as she spoke on Lynn's +nose. "Someone from the village of course has been talking--the cook +says she heard _something_ last night, though she will not condescend to +particulars--and in general it seems to me that you and I may be left +before long to do the house work." + +"What do they say in the village?" asked Marcella eagerly. + +"Oh! they say there was a Boyce two hundred years ago who fled down +here from London after doing something he shouldn't--I really forget +what. The sheriff's officers were advancing on the house. Their approach +displeased him, and he put an end to himself at the head of the little +staircase leading from the tapestry-room down to my sitting-room. Why +did he choose the _staircase_?" said Mrs. Boyce with light +reflectiveness. + +"It won't do," said Marcella, shaking her head. "I know the Boyce they +mean. He was a ruffian, but he shot himself in London; and, any way, he +was dead long before that staircase was built." + +"Dear me, how well up you are!" said her mother. "Suppose you give a +little lecture on the family in the servants' hall. Though I never knew +a ghost yet that was undone by dates." + +There was a satiric detachment in her tone which contrasted sharply with +Marcella's amused but sympathetic interest. _Detachment_ was perhaps the +characteristic note of Mrs. Boyce's manner,--a curious separateness, as +it were, from all the things and human beings immediately about her. + +Marcella pondered. + +"I shall ask Mr. Harden about the stories," she said presently. "He will +have heard them in the village. I am going to the church this morning." + +Her mother looked at her--a look of quiet examination--and smiled. The +Lady Bountiful airs that Marcella had already assumed during the six +weeks she had been in the house entertained Mrs. Boyce exceedingly. + +"Harden!" said Mr. Boyce, catching the name. "I wish that man would +leave me alone. What have I got to do with a water-supply for the +village? It will be as much as ever I can manage to keep a water-tight +roof over our heads during the winter after the way in which Robert has +behaved." + +Marcella's cheek flushed. + +"The village water-supply is a _disgrace_," she said with low emphasis. +"I never saw such a crew of unhealthy, wretched-looking children in my +life as swarm about those cottages. We take the rent, and we ought to +look after them. I believe you could be _forced_ to do something, +papa--if the local authority were of any use." + +She looked at him defiantly. + +"Nonsense," said Mr. Boyce testily. "They got along in your Uncle +Robert's days, and they can get along now. Charity, indeed! Why, the +state of this house and the pinch for money altogether is enough, I +should think, to take a man's mind. Don't you go talking to Mr. Harden +in the way you do, Marcella. I don't like it, and I won't have it. You +have the interests of your family and your home to think of first." + +"Poor starved things!" said Marcella sarcastically--"living in such a +_den_!" + +And she swept her white hand round, as though calling to witness the +room in which they sat. + +"I tell you," said Mr. Boyce, rising and standing before the fire, +whence he angrily surveyed the handsome daughter who was in truth so +little known to him, and whose nature and aims during the close contact +of the last few weeks had become something of a perplexity and +disturbance to him,--"I tell you our great effort, the effort of us all, +must be to keep up the family position!--_our_ position. Look at that +library, and its condition; look at the state of these wall-papers; look +at the garden; look at the estate books if it comes to that. Why, it +will be years before, even with all my knowledge of affairs, I can pull +the thing through--years!" + +Mrs. Boyce gave a slight cough--she had pushed back her chair, and was +alternately studying her husband and daughter. They might have been +actors performing for her amusement. And yet, amusement is not precisely +the word. For that hazel eye, with its frequent smile, had not a spark +of geniality. After a time those about her found something scathing in +its dry light. + +Now, as soon as her husband became aware that she was watching him, his +look wavered, and his mood collapsed. He threw her a curious furtive +glance, and fell silent. + +"I suppose Mr. Harden and his sister remind you of your London Socialist +friends, Marcella?" asked Mrs. Boyce lightly, in the pause that +followed. "You have, I see, taken a great liking for them." + +"Oh! well--I don't know," said Marcella, with a shrug, and something of +a proud reticence. "Mr. Harden is very kind--but--he doesn't seem to +have thought much about things." + +She never talked about her London friends to her mother, if she could +help it. The sentiments of life generally avoided Mrs. Boyce when they +could. Marcella being all sentiment and impulse, was constantly her +mother's victim, do what she would. But in her quiet moments she stood +on the defensive. + +"So the Socialists are the only people who think?" said Mrs. Boyce, who +was now standing by the window, pressing her dog's head against her +dress as he pushed up against her. "Well, I am sorry for the Hardens. +They tell me they give all their substance away--already--and every one +says it is going to be a particularly bad winter. The living, I hear, is +worth nothing. All the same, I should wish them to look more cheerful. +It is the first duty of martyrs." + +Marcella looked at her mother indignantly. It seemed to her often that +she said the most heartless things imaginable. + +"Cheerful!" she said--"in a village like this--with all the young men +drifting off to London, and all the well-to-do people dissenters--no one +to stand by him--no money and no helpers--the people always ill--wages +eleven and twelve shillings a week--and only the old wrecks of men left +to do the work! He might, I think, expect the people in _this_ house to +back him up a little. All he asks is that papa should go and satisfy +himself with his own eyes as to the difference between our property and +Lord Maxwell's--" + +"Lord Maxwell's!" cried Mr. Boyce, rousing himself from a state of +half-melancholy, half-sleepy reverie by the fire, and throwing away his +cigarette--"Lord Maxwell! Difference! I should think so. Thirty thousand +a year, if he has a penny. By the way, I wish he would just have the +civility to answer my note about those coverts over by Willow Scrubs!" + +He had hardly said the words when the door opened to admit William the +footman, in his usual tremor of nervousness, carrying a salver and a +note. + +"The man says, please sir, is there any answer, sir?" + +"Well, that's odd!" said Mr. Boyce, his look brightening. "Here _is_ +Lord Maxwell's answer, just as I was talking of it." + +His wife turned sharply and watched him take it; her lips parted, a +strange expectancy in her whole attitude. He tore it open, read it, and +then threw it angrily under the grate. + +"No answer. Shut the door." The lad retreated. Mr. Boyce sat down and +began carefully to put the fire together. His thin left hand shook upon +his knee. + +There was a moment's pause of complete silence. Mrs. Boyce's face might +have been seen by a close observer to quiver and then stiffen as she +stood in the light of the window, a tall and queenly figure in her +sweeping black. But she said not a word, and presently left the room. + +Marcella watched her father. + +"Papa--_was_ that a note from Lord Maxwell?" + +Mr. Boyce looked round with a start, as though surprised that any one +was still there. It struck Marcella that he looked yellow and +shrunken--years older than her mother. An impulse of tenderness, joined +with anger and a sudden sick depression--she was conscious of them all +as she got up and went across to him, determined to speak out. Her +parents were not her friends, and did not possess her confidence; but +her constant separation from them since her childhood had now sometimes +the result of giving her the boldness with them that a stranger might +have had. She had no habitual deference to break through, and the +hindering restraints of memory, though strong, were still less strong +than they would have been if she had lived with them day by day and year +by year, and had known their lives in close detail instead of guessing +at them, as was now so often the case with her. + +"Papa, is Lord Maxwell's note an uncivil one?" + +Mr. Boyce stooped forward and began to rub his chilly hand over the +blaze. + +"Why, that man's only son and I used to loaf and shoot and play cricket +together from morning till night when we were boys. Henry Raeburn was a +bit older than I, and he lent me the gun with which I shot my first +rabbit. It was in one of the fields over by Soleyhurst, just where the +two estates join. After that we were always companions--we used to go +out at night with the keepers after poachers; we spent hours in the snow +watching for wood-pigeons; we shot that pair of kestrels over the inner +hall door, in the Windmill Hill fields--at least I did--I was a better +shot than he by that time. He didn't like Robert--he always wanted me." + +"Well, papa, but what does he say?" asked Marcella, impatiently. She +laid her hand, however, as she spoke, on her father's shoulder. + +Mr. Boyce winced and looked up at her. He and her mother had originally +sent their daughter away from home that they might avoid the daily +worry of her awakening curiosities, and one of his resolutions in coming +to Mellor Park had been to keep up his dignity with her. But the sight +of her dark face bent upon him, softened by a quick and womanly +compassion, seemed to set free a new impulse in him. + +"He writes in the third person, if you want to know, my dear, and refers +me to his agent, very much as though I were some London grocer who had +just bought the place. Oh, it is quite evident what he means. They were +here without moving all through June and July, and it is now three weeks +at least since he and Miss Raeburn came back from Scotland, and not a +card nor a word from either of them! Nor from the Winterbournes, nor the +Levens. Pleasant! Well, my dear, you must make up your mind to it. I did +think--I was fool enough to think--that when I came back to the old +place, my father's old friends would let bygones be bygones. I never did +_them_ any harm. Let them 'gang their gait,' confound them!"--the little +dark man straightened himself fiercely--"I can get my pleasure out of +the land; and as for your mother, she'd not lift a finger to propitiate +one of them!" + +In the last words, however, there was not a fraction of that sympathetic +pride which the ear expected, but rather fresh bitterness and grievance. + +Marcella stood thinking, her mind travelling hither and thither with +lightning speed, now over the social events of the last six weeks--now +over incidents of those long-past holidays. Was this, indeed, the second +volume beginning--the natural sequel to those old mysterious histories +of shrinking, disillusion, and repulse? + +"What was it you wanted about those coverts, papa?" she asked presently, +with a quick decision. + +"What the deuce does it matter? If you want to know, I proposed to him +to exchange my coverts over by the Scrubs, which work in with his +shooting, for the wood down by the Home Farm. It was an exchange made +year after year in my father's time. When I spoke to the keeper, I found +it had been allowed to lapse. Your uncle let the shooting go to rack and +ruin after Harold's death. It gave me something to write about, and I +was determined to know where I stood--Well! the old Pharisee can go his +way: I'll go mine." + +And with a spasmodic attempt to play the squire of Mellor on his native +heath, Richard Boyce rose, drew his emaciated frame to its full height, +and stood looking out drearily to his ancestral lawns--a picturesque and +elegant figure, for all its weakness and pitiableness. + +"I shall ask Mr. Aldous Raeburn about it, if I see him in the village +to-day," said Marcella, quietly. + +Her father started, and looked at her with some attention. + +"What have you seen of Aldous Raeburn?" he inquired. "I remember hearing +that you had come across him." + +"Certainly I have come across him. I have met him once or twice at the +Vicarage--and--oh! on one or two other occasions," said Marcella, +carelessly. "He has always made himself agreeable. Mr. Harden says his +grandfather is devoted to him, and will hardly ever let him go away from +home. He does a great deal for Lord Maxwell now: writes for him, and +helps to manage the estate; and next year, when the Tories come back and +Lord Maxwell is in office again--" + +"Why, of course, there'll be plums for the grandson," said Mr. Boyce +with a sneer. "That goes without saying--though we are such a virtuous +lot." + +"Oh yes, he'll get on--everybody says so. And he'll deserve it too!" she +added, her eye kindling combatively as she surveyed her father. "He +takes a lot of trouble down here, about the cottages and the board of +guardians and the farms. The Hardens like him very much, but he is not +exactly popular, according to them. His manners are sometimes shy and +awkward, and the poor people think he's proud." + +"Ah! a prig I dare say--like some of his uncles before him," said Mr. +Boyce, irritably. "But he was civil to you, you say?" + +And again he turned a quick considering eye on his daughter. + +"Oh dear! yes," said Marcella, with a little proud smile. There was a +pause; then she spoke again. "I must go off to the church; the Hardens +have hard work just now with the harvest festival, and I promised to +take them some flowers." + +"Well"--said her father, grudgingly, "so long as you don't promise +anything on my account! I tell you, I haven't got sixpence to spend on +subscriptions to anything or anybody. By the way, if you see Reynolds +anywhere about the drive, you can send him to me. He and I are going +round the Home Farm to pick up a few birds if we can, and see what the +coverts look like. The stock has all run down, and the place has been +poached to death. But he thinks if we take on an extra man in the +spring, and spend a little on rearing, we shall do pretty decently next +year." + +The colour leapt to Marcella's cheek as she tied on her hat. + +"You will set up another keeper, and you won't do anything for the +village?" she cried, her black eyes lightening, and without another word +she opened the French window and walked rapidly away along the terrace, +leaving her father both angered and amazed. + +A man like Richard Boyce cannot get comfortably through life without a +good deal of masquerading in which those in his immediate neighbourhood +are expected to join. His wife had long since consented to play the +game, on condition of making it plain the whole time that she was no +dupe. As to what Marcella's part in the affair might be going to be, her +father was as yet uneasily in the dark. What constantly astonished him, +as she moved and talked under his eye, was the girl's beauty. Surely she +had been a plain child, though a striking one. But now she had not only +beauty, but the air of beauty. The self-confidence given by the +possession of good looks was very evident in her behaviour. She was very +accomplished, too, and more clever than was always quite agreeable to a +father whose self-conceit was one of the few compensations left him by +misfortune. Such a girl was sure to be admired. She would have +lovers--friends of her own. It seemed that already, while Lord Maxwell +was preparing to insult the father, his grandson had discovered that the +daughter was handsome. Richard Boyce fell into a miserable reverie, +wherein the Raeburns' behaviour and Marcella's unexpected gifts played +about equal parts. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Marcella was gathering flowers in the "Cedar garden," the most +adorable corner of Mellor Park, where the original Tudor house, grey, +mullioned and ivy-covered, ran at right angles into the later "garden +front," which projected beyond it to the south, making thereby a sunny +and sheltered corner where roses, clematis, hollyhocks, and sunflowers +grew with a more lavish height and blossom than elsewhere, as though +conscious they must do their part in a whole of beauty. The grass indeed +wanted mowing, and the first autumn leaves lay thickly drifted upon it; +the flowers were untied and untrimmed. But under the condition of two +gardeners to ten acres of garden, nature does very much as she pleases, +and Mr. Boyce when he came that way grumbled in vain. + +As for Marcella, she was alternately moved to revolt and tenderness by +the ragged charm of the old place. + +On the one hand, it angered her that anything so plainly meant for +beauty and dignity should go so neglected and unkempt. On the other, if +house and gardens had been spick and span like the other houses of the +neighbourhood, if there had been sound roofs, a modern water-supply, +shutters, greenhouses, and weedless paths,--in short, the general +self-complacent air of a well-kept country house,--where would have been +that thrilling intimate appeal, as for something forlornly lovely, +which the old place so constantly made upon her? It seemed to depend +even upon _her_, the latest born of all its children--to ask for +tendance and cherishing even from _her_. She was always planning +how--with a minimum of money to spend--it could be comforted and healed, +and in the planning had grown in these few weeks to love it as though +she had been bred there. + +But this morning Marcella picked her roses and sunflowers in tumult and +depression of spirit. What _was_ this past which in these new +surroundings was like some vainly fled tyrant clutching at them again? +She energetically decided that the time had come for her to demand the +truth. Yet, of whom? Marcella knew very well that to force her mother to +any line of action Mrs. Boyce was unwilling to follow, was beyond her +power. And it was not easy to go to her father directly and say, "Tell +me exactly how and why it is that society has turned its back upon you." +All the same, it _was_ due to them all, due to herself especially, now +that she was grown up and at home, that she should not be kept in the +dark any longer like a baby, that she should be put in possession of the +facts which, after all, threatened to stand here at Mellor Park, as +untowardly in their, in _her_ way, as they had done in the shabby school +and lodging-house existence of all those bygone years. + +Perhaps the secret of her impatience was that she did not, and could +not, believe that the facts, if faced, would turn out to be +insurmountable. Her instinct told her as she looked back that their +relation toward society in the past, though full of discomforts and +humiliations, had not been the relation of outcasts. Their poverty and +the shifts to which poverty drives people had brought them the +disrespect of one class; and as to the acquaintances and friends of +their own rank, what had been mainly shown them had been a sort of cool +distaste for their company, an insulting readiness to forget the +existence of people who had so to speak lost their social bloom, and +laid themselves open to the contemptuous disapproval or pity of the +world. Everybody, it seemed, knew their affairs, and knowing them saw no +personal advantage and distinction in the Boyces' acquaintance, but +rather the contrary. + +As she put the facts together a little, she realised, however, that the +breach had always been deepest between her father and his relations, or +his oldest friends. A little shiver passed through her as she reflected +that here, in his own country, where his history was best known, the +feeling towards him, whatever it rested upon, might very probably be +strongest. Well, it _was_ hard upon them!--hard upon her mother--hard +upon her. In her first ecstasy over the old ancestral house and the +dignities of her new position, how little she had thought of these +things! And there they were all the time--dogging and thwarting. + +She walked slowly along, with her burden of flowers, through a laurel +path which led straight to the drive, and so, across it, to the little +church. The church stood all alone there under the great limes of the +Park, far away from parsonage and village--the property, it seemed, of +the big house. When Marcella entered, the doors on the north and south +sides were both standing open, for the vicar and his sister had been +already at work there, and had but gone back to the parsonage for a bit +of necessary business, meaning to return in half an hour. + +It was the unpretending church of a hamlet, girt outside by the humble +graves of toiling and forgotten generations, and adorned, or, at any +rate, diversified within by a group of mural monuments, of various +styles and dates, but all of them bearing, in some way or another, the +name of Boyce--conspicuous amongst them a florid cherub-crowned tomb in +the chancel, marking the remains of that Parliamentarian Boyce who +fought side by side with Hampden, his boyish friend, at Chalgrove Field, +lived to be driven out of Westminster by Colonel Pryde, and to spend his +later years at Mellor, in disgrace, first with the Protector, and then +with the Restoration. From these monuments alone a tolerably faithful +idea of the Boyce family could have been gathered. Clearly not a family +of any very great pretensions--a race for the most part of frugal, +upright country gentlemen--to be found, with scarcely an exception, on +the side of political liberty, and of a Whiggish religion; men who had +given their sons to die at Quebec, and Plassy, and Trafalgar, for the +making of England's Empire; who would have voted with Fox, but that the +terrors of Burke, and a dogged sense that the country must be carried +on, drove them into supporting Pitt; who, at home, dispensed alternate +justice and doles, and when their wives died put up inscriptions to them +intended to bear witness at once to the Latinity of a Boyce's +education, and the pious strength of his legitimate affections--a +tedious race perhaps and pig-headed, tyrannical too here and there, but +on the whole honourable English stuff--the stuff which has made, and +still in new forms sustains, the fabric of a great state. + +Only once was there a break in the uniform character of the monuments--a +break corresponding to the highest moment of the Boyce fortunes, a +moment when the respectability of the family rose suddenly into +brilliance, and the prose of generations broke into a few years of +poetry. Somewhere in the last century an earlier Richard Boyce went +abroad to make the grand tour. He was a man of parts, the friend of +Horace Walpole and of Gray, and his introductions opened to him whatever +doors he might wish to enter, at a time when the upper classes of the +leading European nations were far more intimately and familiarly +acquainted with each other than they are now. He married at Rome an +Italian lady of high birth and large fortune. Then he brought her home +to Mellor, where straightway the garden front was built with all its +fantastic and beautiful decoration, the great avenue was planted, +pictures began to invade the house, and a musical library was collected +whereof the innumerable faded volumes, bearing each of them the entwined +names of Richard and Marcella Boyce, had been during the last few weeks +mines of delight and curiosity to the Marcella of to-day. + +The Italian wife bore her lord two sons, and then in early middle life +she died--much loved and passionately mourned. Her tomb bore no +long-winded panegyric. Her name only, her parentage and birthplace--for +she was Italian to the last, and her husband loved her the better for +it--the dates of her birth and death, and then two lines from Dante's +_Vita Nuova_. + +The portrait of this earlier Marcella hung still in the room where her +music-books survived,--a dark blurred picture by an inferior hand; but +the Marcella of to-day had long since eagerly decided that her own +physique and her father's were to be traced to its original, as well, no +doubt, as the artistic aptitudes of both--aptitudes not hitherto +conspicuous in her respectable race. + +In reality, however, she loved every one of them--these Jacobean and +Georgian squires with their interminable epitaphs. Now, as she stood in +the church, looking about her, her flowers lying beside her in a tumbled +heap on the chancel step, cheerfulness, delight, nay, the indomitable +pride and exultation of her youth, came back upon her in one great +lifting wave. The depression of her father's repentances and +trepidations fell away; she felt herself in her place, under the shelter +of her forefathers, incorporated and redeemed, as it were, into their +guild of honour. + +There were difficulties in her path, no doubt--but she had her +vantage-ground, and would use it for her own profit and that of others. +_She_ had no cause for shame; and in these days of the developed +individual the old solidarity of the family has become injustice and +wrong. Her mind filled tumultuously with the evidence these last two +years had brought her of her natural power over men and things. She knew +perfectly well that she could do and dare what other girls of her age +could never venture--that she had fascination, resource, brain. + +Already, in these few weeks--Smiles played about her lips as she thought +of that quiet grave gentleman of thirty she had been meeting at the +Hardens'. His grandfather might write what he pleased. It did not alter +the fact that during the last few weeks Mr. Aldous Raeburn, clearly one +of the _partis_ most coveted, and one of the men most observed, in the +neighbourhood, had taken and shown a very marked interest in Mr. Boyce's +daughter--all the more marked because of the reserved manner with which +it had to contend. + +No! whatever happened, she would carve her path, make her own way, and +her parents' too. At twenty-one, nothing looks irrevocable. A woman's +charm, a woman's energy should do it all. + +Ay, and something else too. She looked quickly round the church, her +mind swelling with the sense of the Cravens' injustice and distrust. +Never could she be more conscious than here--on this very spot--of +mission, of an urging call to the service of man. In front of her was +the Boyces' family pew, carved and becushioned, but behind it stretched +bench after bench of plain and humble oak, on which the village sat when +it came to church. Here, for the first time, had Marcella been brought +face to face with the agricultural world as it is--no stage ruralism, +but the bare fact in one of its most pitiful aspects. Men of sixty and +upwards, grey and furrowed like the chalk soil into which they had +worked their lives; not old as age goes, but already the refuse of their +generation, and paid for at the rate of refuse; with no prospect but the +workhouse, if the grave should be delayed, yet quiet, impassive, +resigned, now showing a furtive childish amusement if a schoolboy +misbehaved, or a dog strayed into church, now joining with a stolid +unconsciousness in the tremendous sayings of the Psalms; women coarse, +or worn, or hopeless; girls and boys and young children already blanched +and emaciated beyond even the normal Londoner from the effects of +insanitary cottages, bad water, and starvation food--these figures and +types had been a ghastly and quickening revelation to Marcella. In +London the agricultural labourer, of whom she had heard much, had been +to her as a pawn in the game of discussion. Here he was in the flesh; +and she was called upon to live with him, and not only to talk about +him. Under circumstances of peculiar responsibility too. For it was very +clear that upon the owner of Mellor depended, and had always depended, +the labourer of Mellor. + +Well, she had tried to live with them ever since she came--had gone in +and out of their cottages in flat horror and amazement at them and their +lives and their surroundings; alternately pleased and repelled by their +cringing; now enjoying her position among them with the natural +aristocratic instinct of women, now grinding her teeth over her father's +and uncle's behaviour and the little good she saw any prospect of doing +for her new subjects. + +What, _their_ friend and champion, and ultimately their redeemer too? +Well, and why not? Weak women have done greater things in the world. As +she stood on the chancel step, vowing herself to these great things, she +was conscious of a dramatic moment--would not have been sorry, +perhaps, if some admiring eye could have seen and understood her. + +But there was a saving sincerity at the root of her, and her strained +mood sank naturally into a girlish excitement. + +"We shall see!--We shall see!" she said aloud, and was startled to hear +her words quite plainly in the silent church. As she spoke she stooped +to separate her flowers and see what quantities she had of each. + +But while she did so a sound of distant voices made her raise herself +again. She walked down the church and stood at the open south door, +looking and waiting. Before her stretched a green field path leading +across the park to the village. The vicar and his sister were coming +along it towards the church, both flower-laden, and beside walked a tall +man in a brown shooting suit, with his gun in his hand and his dog +beside him. + +The excitement in Marcella's eyes leapt up afresh for a moment as she +saw the group, and then subsided into a luminous and steady glow. She +waited quietly for them, hardly responding to the affectionate signals +of the vicar's sister; but inwardly she was not quiet at all. For the +tall man in the brown shooting coat was Mr. Aldous Raeburn. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"How kind of you!" said the rector's sister, enthusiastically; "but I +thought you would come and help us." + +And as Marcella took some of her burdens from her, Miss Harden kissed +Marcella's cheek with a sort of timid eagerness. She had fallen in love +with Miss Boyce from the beginning, was now just advanced to this +privilege of kissing, and being entirely convinced that her new friend +possessed all virtues and all knowledge, found it not difficult to hold +that she had been divinely sent to sustain her brother and herself in +the disheartening task of civilising Mellor. Mary Harden was naturally a +short, roundly made girl, neither pretty nor plain, with grey-blue eyes, +a shy manner, and a heart all goodness. Her brother was like unto +her--also short, round, and full-faced, with the same attractive eyes. +Both were singularly young in aspect--a boy and girl pair. Both had the +worn, pinched look which Mrs. Boyce complained of, and which, indeed, +went oddly with their whole physique. It was as though creatures built +for a normal life of easy give and take with their fellows had fallen +upon some unfitting and jarring experience. One striking difference, +indeed, there was between them, for amid the brother's timidity and +sweetness there lay, clearly to be felt and seen, the consciousness of +the priest--nascent and immature, but already urging and characteristic. + +Only one face of the three showed any other emotion than quick pleasure +at the sight of Marcella Boyce. Aldous Raeburn was clearly embarrassed +thereby. Indeed, as he laid down his gun outside the low churchyard +wall, while Marcella and the Hardens were greeting, that generally +self-possessed though modest person was conscious of a quite disabling +perturbation of mind. Why in the name of all good manners and decency +had he allowed himself to be discovered in shooting trim, on that +particular morning, by Mr. Boyce's daughter on her father's land, and +within a stone's throw of her father's house? Was he not perfectly well +aware of the curt note which his grandfather had that morning despatched +to the new owner of Mellor? Had he not ineffectually tried to delay +execution the night before, thereby puzzling and half-offending his +grandfather? Had not the incident weighed on him ever since, wounding an +admiration and sympathy which seemed to have stolen upon him in the +dark, during these few weeks since he had made Miss Boyce's +acquaintance, so strong and startling did he all in a moment feel them +to be? + +And then to intrude upon her thus, out of nothing apparently but sheer +moth-like incapacity to keep away! The church footpath indeed was public +property, and Miss Harden's burdens had cried aloud to any passing male +to help her. But why in this neighbourhood at all?--why not rather on +the other side of the county? He could have scourged himself on the +spot for an unpardonable breach of manners and feeling. + +However, Miss Boyce certainly made no sign. She received him without any +_empressement_, but also without the smallest symptom of offence. They +all moved into the church together, Mr. Raeburn carrying a vast bundle +of ivy and fern, the rector and his sister laden with closely-packed +baskets of cut flowers. Everything was laid down on the chancel steps +beside Marcella's contribution, and then the Hardens began to plan out +operations. Miss Harden ran over on her fingers the contributions which +had been sent in to the rectory, or were presently coming over to the +church in a hand-cart. "Lord Maxwell has sent the most _beautiful_ pots +for the chancel," she said, with a grateful look at young Raeburn. "It +will be quite a show." To which the young rector assented warmly. It was +very good, indeed, of Lord Maxwell to remember them always so liberally +at times like these, when they had so little direct claim upon him. They +were not his church or his parish, but he never forgot them all the +same, and Mellor was grateful. The rector had all his sister's gentle +effusiveness, but a professional dignity besides, even in his thanks, +which made itself felt. + +Marcella flushed as he was speaking. + +"I went to see what I could get in the way of greenhouse things," she +said in a sudden proud voice. "But we have nothing. There are the +houses, but there is nothing in them. But you shall have all our +out-of-door flowers, and I think a good deal might be done with autumn +leaves and wild things if you will let me try." + +A speech, which brought a flush to Mr. Raeburn's cheek as he stood in +the background, and led Mary Harden into an eager asking of Marcella's +counsels, and an eager praising of her flowers. + +Aldous Raeburn said nothing, but his discomfort increased with every +moment. Why had his grandfather been so officious in this matter of the +flowers? All very well when Mellor was empty, or in the days of a miser +and eccentric, without womankind, like Robert Boyce. But now--the act +began to seem to him offensive, a fresh affront offered to an +unprotected girl, whose quivering sensitive look as she stood talking to +the Hardens touched him profoundly. Mellor church might almost be +regarded as the Boyces' private chapel, so bound up was it with the +family and the house. He realised painfully that he ought to be +gone--yet could not tear himself away. Her passionate willingness to +spend herself for the place and people she had made her own at first +sight, checked every now and then by a proud and sore reserve--it was +too pretty, too sad. It stung and spurred him as he watched her; one +moment his foot moved for departure, the next he was resolving that +somehow or other he must make speech with her--excuse--explain. +Ridiculous! How was it possible that he should do either! + +He had met her--perhaps had tried to meet her--tolerably often since +their first chance encounter weeks ago in the vicarage drawing-room. All +through there had been on his side the uncomfortable knowledge of his +grandfather's antipathy to Richard Boyce, and of the social steps to +which that antipathy would inevitably lead. But Miss Boyce had never +shown the smallest consciousness, so far, of anything untoward or +unusual in her position. She had been clearly taken up with the interest +and pleasure of this new spectacle upon which she had entered. The old +house, its associations, its history, the beautiful country in which it +lay, the speech and characteristics of rural labour as compared with +that of the town,--he had heard her talk of all these things with a +freshness, a human sympathy, a freedom from conventional phrase, and, no +doubt, a touch of egotism and extravagance, which rivetted attention. +The egotism and extravagance, however, after a first moment of critical +discomfort on his part, had not in the end repelled him at all. The +girl's vivid beauty glorified them; made them seem to him a mere special +fulness of life. So that in his new preoccupation with herself, and by +contact with her frank self-confidence, he had almost forgotten her +position, and his own indirect relation to it. Then had come that +unlucky note from Mellor; his grandfather's prompt reply to it; his own +ineffective protest; and now this tongue-tiedness--this clumsy +intrusion--which she must feel to be an indelicacy--an outrage. + +Suddenly he heard Miss Harden saying, with penitent emphasis, "I _am_ +stupid! I have left the scissors and the wire on the table at home; we +can't get on without them; it is really too bad of me." + +"I will go for them," said Marcella promptly. "Here is the hand-cart +just arrived and some people come to help; you can't be spared. I will +be back directly." + +And, gathering up her black skirt in a slim white hand, she sped down +the church, and was out of the south door before the Hardens had time to +protest, or Aldous Raeburn understood what she was doing. + +A vexed word from Miss Harden enlightened him, and he went after the +fugitive, overtaking her just where his gun and dog lay, outside the +churchyard. + +"Let me go, Miss Boyce," he said, as he caught her up. "My dog and I +will run there and back." + +But Marcella hardly looked at him, or paused. + +"Oh no!" she said quickly, "I should like the walk." + +He hesitated; then, with a flush which altered his usually quiet, +self-contained expression, he moved on beside her. + +"Allow me to go with you then. You are sure to find fresh loads to bring +back. If it's like our harvest festival, the things keep dropping in all +day." + +Marcella's eyes were still on the ground. + +"I thought you were on your way to shoot, Mr. Raeburn?" + +"So I was, but there is no hurry; if I can be useful. Both the birds and +the keeper can wait." + +"Where are you going?" + +"To some outlying fields of ours on the Windmill Hill. There is a tenant +there who wants to see me. He is a prosy person with a host of +grievances. I took my gun as a possible means of escape from him." + +"Windmill Hill? I know the name. Oh! I remember: it was there--my father +has just been telling me--that your father and he shot the pair of +kestrels, when they were boys together." + +Her tone was quite light, but somehow it had an accent, an emphasis, +which made Aldous Raeburn supremely uncomfortable. In his disquiet, he +thought of various things to say; but he was not ready, nor naturally +effusive; the turn of them did not please him; and he remained silent. + +Meantime Marcella's heart was beating fast. She was meditating a _coup_. + +"Mr. Raeburn!" + +"Yes!" + +"Will you think me a very extraordinary person if I ask you a question? +Your father and mine were great friends, weren't they, as boys?--your +family and mine were friends, altogether?" + +"I believe so--I have always heard so," said her companion, flushing +still redder. + +"You knew Uncle Robert--Lord Maxwell did?" + +"Yes--as much as anybody knew him--but--" + +"Oh, I know: he shut himself up and hated his neighbours. Still you knew +him, and papa and your father were boys together. Well then, if you +won't mind telling me--I know it's bold to ask, but I have reasons--why +does Lord Maxwell write to papa in the third person, and why has your +aunt, Miss Raeburn, never found time in all these weeks to call on +mamma?" + +She turned and faced him, her splendid eyes one challenge. The glow and +fire of the whole gesture--the daring of it, and yet the suggestion of +womanish weakness in the hand which trembled against her dress and in +the twitching lip--if it had been fine acting, it could not have been +more complete. And, in a sense, acting there was in it. Marcella's +emotions were real, but her mind seldom deserted her. One half of her +was impulsive and passionate; the other half looked on and put in +finishing touches. + +Acting or no, the surprise of her outburst swept the man beside her off +his feet. He found himself floundering in a sea of excuses--not for his +relations, but for himself. He ought never to have intruded; it was +odious, unpardonable; he had no business whatever to put himself in her +way! Would she please understand that it was an accident? It should not +happen again. He quite understood that she could not regard him with +friendliness. And so on. He had never so lost his self-possession. + +Meanwhile Marcella's brows contracted. She took his excuses as a fresh +offence. + +"You mean, I suppose, that I have no right to ask such questions!" she +cried; "that I am not behaving like a lady--as one of your relations +would? Well, I dare say! I was not brought up like that. I was not +brought up at all; I have had to make myself. So you must avoid me if +you like. Of course you will. But I resolved there--in the church--that +I would make just one effort, before everything crystallises, to break +through. If we must live on here hating our neighbours and being cut by +them, I thought I would just ask you why, first. There is no one else to +ask. Hardly anybody has called, except the Hardens, and a few new people +that don't matter. And _I_ have nothing to be ashamed of," said the girl +passionately, "nor has mamma. Papa, I suppose, did some bad things long +ago. I have never known--I don't know now--what they were. But I should +like to understand. Is everybody going to cut us because of that?" + +With a great effort Aldous Raeburn pulled himself together, certain fine +instincts both of race and conduct coming to his help. He met her +excited look by one which had both dignity and friendliness. + +"I will tell you what I can, Miss Boyce. If you ask me, it is right I +should. You must forgive me if I say anything that hurts you. I will try +not--I will try not!" he repeated earnestly. "In the first place, I know +hardly anything in detail. I do not remember that I have ever wished to +know. But I gather that some years ago--when I was still a +lad--something in Mr. Boyce's life--some financial matters, I +believe--during the time that he was member of Parliament, made a +scandal, and especially among his family and old friends. It was the +effect upon his old father, I think, who, as you know, died soon +afterwards--" + +Marcella started. + +"I didn't know," she said quickly. + +Aldous Raeburn's distress grew. + +"I really oughtn't to speak of these things," he said, "for I don't know +them accurately. But I want to answer what you said--I do indeed. It was +that, I think, chiefly. Everybody here respected and loved your +grandfather--my grandfather did--and there was great feeling for him--" + +"I see! I see!" said Marcella, her chest heaving; "and against papa." + +She walked on quickly, hardly seeing where she was going, her eyes dim +with tears. There was a wretched pause. Then Aldous Raeburn broke out-- + +"But after all it is very long ago. And there may have been some harsh +judgment. My grandfather may have been misinformed as to some of the +facts. And I--" + +He hesitated, struck with the awkwardness of what he was going to say. +But Marcella understood him. + +"And you will try and make him alter his mind?" she said, not +ungratefully, but still with a touch of sarcasm in her tone. "No, Mr. +Raeburn, I don't think that will succeed." + +They walked on in silence for a little while. At last he said, turning +upon her a face in which she could not but see the true feeling of a +just and kindly man-- + +"I meant that if my grandfather could be led to express himself in a way +which Mr. Boyce could accept, even if there were no great friendship as +there used to be, there might be something better than this--this, +which--which--is so painful. And any way, Miss Boyce, whatever happens, +will you let me say this once, that there is no word, no feeling in this +neighbourhood--how could there be?--towards you and your mother, but one +of respect and admiration? Do believe that, even if you feel that you +can never be friendly towards me and mine again--or forget the things I +have said!" + +"Respect and admiration!" said Marcella, wondering, and still scornful. +"Pity, perhaps. There might be that. But any way mamma goes with papa. +She always has done. She always will. So shall I, of course. But I am +sorry--_horribly_ sore and sorry! I was so delighted to come here. I +have been very little at home, and understood hardly anything about +this worry--not how serious it was, nor what it meant. Oh! I _am_ +sorry--there was so much I wanted to do here--if anybody could only +understand what it means to me to come to this place!" + +They had reached the brow of a little rising ground. Just below them, +beyond a stubble field in which there were a few bent forms of gleaners, +lay the small scattered Tillage, hardly seen amid its trees, the curls +of its blue smoke ascending steadily on this calm September morning +against a great belt of distant beechwood which begirt the hamlet and +the common along which it lay. The stubble field was a feast of shade +and tint, of apricots and golds shot with the subtlest purples and +browns; the flame of the wild-cherry leaf and the deeper crimson of the +haws made every hedge a wonder; the apples gleamed in the cottage +garden; and a cloudless sun poured down on field and hedge, and on the +half-hidden medley of tiled roofs, sharp gables, and jutting dormers +which made the village. + +Instinctively both stopped. Marcella locked her hands behind her in a +gesture familiar to her in moments of excitement; the light wind blew +back her dress in soft, eddying folds; for the moment, in her tall +grace, she had the air of some young Victory poised upon a height, till +you looked at her face, which was, indeed, not exultant at all, but +tragic, extravagantly tragic, as Aldous Raeburn, in his English reserve, +would perhaps have thought in the case of any woman with tamer eyes and +a less winning mouth. + +"I don't want to talk about myself," she began. "But you know, Mr. +Raeburn--you must know--what a state of things there is here--you know +what a _disgrace_ that village is. Oh! one reads books, but I never +thought people could actually _live_ like that--here in the wide +country, with room for all. It makes me lie awake at night. We are not +rich--we are very poor--the house is all out of repair, and the estate, +as of course you know, is in a wretched condition. But when I see these +cottages, and the water, and the children, I ask what right we have to +anything we get. I had some friends in London who were Socialists, and I +followed and agreed with them, but here one _sees_! Yes, indeed!--it +_is_ too great a risk to let the individual alone when all these lives +depend upon him. Uncle Robert was an eccentric and a miser; and look at +the death-rate of the village--look at the children; you can see how it +has crushed the Hardens already. No, we have no right to it!--it ought +to be taken from us; some day it will be taken from us!" + +Aldous Raeburn smiled, and was himself again. A woman's speculations +were easier to deal with than a woman's distress. + +"It is not so hopeless as that, I think," he said kindly. "The Mellor +cottages are in a bad state certainly. But you have no idea how soon a +little energy and money and thought sets things to rights." + +"But we have no money!" cried Marcella. "And if he is miserable here, my +father will have no energy to do anything. He will not care what +happens. He will defy everybody, and just spend what he has on himself. +And it will make me wretched--_wretched_. Look at that cottage to the +right, Mr. Raeburn. It is Jim Hurd's--a man who works mainly on the +Church Farm, when he is in work. But he is deformed, and not so strong +as others. The farmers too seem to be cutting down labour everywhere--of +course I don't understand--I am so new to it. Hurd and his family had an +_awful_ winter, last winter--hardly kept body and soul together. And now +he is out of work already--the man at the Church Farm turned him off +directly after harvest. He sees no prospect of getting work by the +winter. He spends his days tramping to look for it; but nothing turns +up. Last winter they parted with all they could sell. This winter it +must be the workhouse! It's _heart-breaking_. And he has a mind; he can +_feel_! I lend him the Labour paper I take in, and get him to talk. He +has more education than most, and oh! the _bitterness_ at the bottom of +him. But not against persons--individuals. It is like a sort of blind +patience when you come to that--they make excuses even for Uncle Robert, +to whom they have paid rent all these years for a cottage which is a +crime--yes, a _crime_! The woman must have been such a pretty +creature--and refined too. She is consumptive, of course--what else +could you expect with that cottage and that food? So is the eldest +boy--a little white atomy! And the other children. Talk of London--I +never saw such sickly objects as there are in this village. Twelve +shillings a week, and work about half the year! Oh! they _ought_ to hate +us!--I try to make them," cried Marcella, her eyes gleaming. "They ought +to hate all of us landowners, and the whole wicked system. It keeps them +from the land which they ought to be sharing with us; it makes one man +master, instead of all men brothers. And who is fit to be master? Which +of us? Everybody is so ready to take the charge of other people's lives, +and then look at the result!" + +"Well, the result, even in rural England, is not always so bad," said +Aldous Raeburn, smiling a little, but more coldly. Marcella, glancing at +him, understood in a moment that she had roused a certain family and +class pride in him--a pride which was not going to assert itself, but +none the less implied the sudden opening of a gulf between herself and +him. In an instant her quick imagination realised herself as the +daughter and niece of two discredited members of a great class. When she +attacked the class, or the system, the man beside her--any man in +similar circumstances--must naturally think: "Ah, well, poor girl--Dick +Boyce's daughter--what can you expect?" Whereas--Aldous Raeburn!--she +thought of the dignity of the Maxwell name, of the width of the Maxwell +possessions, balanced only by the high reputation of the family for +honourable, just and Christian living, whether as amongst themselves or +towards their neighbours and dependents. A shiver of passionate vanity, +wrath, and longing passed through her as her tall frame stiffened. + +"There are model squires, of course," she said slowly, striving at least +for a personal dignity which should match his. "There are plenty of +landowners who do their duty as they understand it--no one denies that. +But that does not affect the system; the grandson of the best man may be +the worst, but his one-man power remains the same. No! the time has come +for a wider basis. Paternal government and charity were very well in +their way--democratic self-government will manage to do without them!" + +She flung him a gay, quivering, defiant look. It delighted her to pit +these wide and threatening generalisations against the Maxwell power--to +show the heir of it that she at least--father or no father--was no +hereditary subject of his, and bound to no blind admiration of the +Maxwell methods and position. + +Aldous Raeburn took her onslaught very calmly, smiling frankly back at +her indeed all the time. Miss Boyce's opinions could hardly matter to +him intellectually, whatever charm and stimulus he might find in her +talk. This subject of the duties, rights, and prospects of his class +went, as it happened, very deep with him--too deep for chance +discussion. What she said, if he ever stopped to think of it in itself, +seemed to him a compound of elements derived partly from her personal +history, partly from the random opinions that young people of a generous +type pick up from newspapers and magazines. She had touched his family +pride for an instant; but only for an instant. What he was abidingly +conscious of, was of a beautiful wild creature struggling with +difficulties in which he was somehow himself concerned, and out of +which, in some way or other, he was becoming more and more +determined--absurdly determined--to help her. + +"Oh! no doubt the world will do very well without us some day," he said +lightly, in answer to her tirade; "no one is indispensable. But are you +so sure, Miss Boyce, you believe in your own creed? I thought I had +observed--pardon me for saying it--on the two or three occasions we have +met, some degenerate signs of individualism? You take pleasure in the +old place, you say; you were delighted to come and live where your +ancestors lived before you; you are full of desires to pull these poor +people out of the mire in your own way. No! I don't feel that you are +thorough-going!" + +Marcella paused a frowning moment, then broke suddenly into a delightful +laugh--a laugh of humorous confession, which changed her whole look and +mood. + +"Is that all you have noticed? If you wish to know, Mr. Raeburn, I love +the labourers for touching their hats to me. I love the school children +for bobbing to me. I love my very self--ridiculous as _you_ may think +it--for being Miss Boyce of Mellor!" + +"Don't say things like that, please!" he interrupted; "I think I have +not deserved them." + +His tone made her repent her gibe. "No, indeed, you have been most kind +to me," she cried. "I don't know how it is. I am bitter and personal in +a moment--when I don't mean to be. Yes! you are quite right. I am proud +of it all. If nobody comes to see us, and we are left all alone out in +the cold, I shall still have room enough to be proud in--proud of the +old house and our few bits of pictures, and the family papers, and the +beeches! How absurd it would seem to other people, who have so much +more! But I have had so little--so _little_!" Her voice had a hungry +lingering note. "And as for the people, yes, I am proud too that they +like me, and that already I can influence them. Oh, I will do my best +for them, my _very best_! But it will be hard, very hard, if there is +no one to help me!" + +She heaved a long sigh. In spite of the words, what she had said did not +seem to be an appeal for his pity. Rather there was in it a sweet +self-dedicating note as of one going sadly alone to a painful task, a +note which once more left Aldous Raeburn's self-restraint tottering. She +was walking gently beside him, her pretty dress trailing lightly over +the dry stubble, her hand in its white ruffles hanging so close beside +him--after all her prophetess airs a pensive womanly thing, that must +surely hear how his strong man's heart was beginning to beat! + +He bent over to her. + +"Don't talk of there being no one to help! There may be many ways out of +present difficulties. Meanwhile, however things go, could you be +large-minded enough to count one person here your friend?" + +She looked up at him. Tall as she was, he was taller--she liked that; +she liked too the quiet cautious strength of his English expression and +bearing. She did not think him handsome, and she was conscious of no +thrill. But inwardly her quick dramatising imagination was already +constructing her own future and his. The ambition to rule leapt in her, +and the delight in conquest. It was with a delicious sense of her own +power, and of the general fulness of her new life, that she said, "I +_am_ large-minded enough! You have been very kind, and I have been very +wild and indiscreet. But I don't regret: I am sure, if you can help me, +you will." + +There was a little pause. They were standing at the last gate before +the miry village road began, and almost in sight of the little vicarage. +Aldous Raeburn, with his hand on the gate, suddenly gathered a spray of +travellers'-joy out of the hedge beside him. + +"That was a promise, I think, and I keep the pledge of it," he said, and +with a smile put the cluster of white seed-tufts and green leaves into +one of the pockets of his shooting jacket. + +"Oh, don't tie me down!" said Marcella, laughing, but flushing also. +"And don't you think, Mr. Raeburn, that you might open that gate? At +least, we can't get the scissors and the wire unless you do." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The autumn evening was far advanced when Aldous Raeburn, after his day's +shooting, passed again by the gates of Mellor Park on his road home. He +glanced up the ill-kept drive, with its fine overhanging limes, caught a +glimpse to the left of the little church, and to the right, of the long +eastern front of the house; lingered a moment to watch the sunset light +streaming through the level branches of two distant cedars, standing +black and sharp against the fiery west, and then walked briskly forwards +in the mood of a man going as fast as may be to an appointment he both +desires and dreads. + +He had given his gun to the keeper, who had already sped far ahead of +him, in the shooting-cart which his master had declined. His dog, a +black retriever, was at his heels, and both dog and man were somewhat +weary and stiff with exercise. But for the privilege of solitude, Aldous +Raeburn would at that moment have faced a good deal more than the two +miles of extra walking which now lay between him and Maxwell Court. + +About him, as he trudged on, lay a beautiful world of English woodland. +After he had passed through the hamlet of Mellor, with its +three-cornered piece of open common, and its patches of +arable--representing the original forest-clearing made centuries ago by +the primitive fathers of the village in this corner of the Chiltern +uplands--the beech woods closed thickly round him. Beech woods of all +kinds--from forest slopes, where majestic trees, grey and soaring +pillars of the woodland roof, stood in stately isolation on the +dead-leaf carpet woven by the years about their carved and polished +bases, to the close plantations of young trees, where the saplings +crowded on each other, and here and there amid the airless tangle of +leaf and branch some long pheasant-drive, cut straight through the green +heart of the wood, refreshed the seeking eye with its arched and +far-receding path. Two or three times on his walk Aldous heard from far +within the trees the sounds of hatchet and turner's wheel, which told +him he was passing one of the wood-cutter's huts that in the hilly parts +of this district supply the first simple steps of the chairmaking +industry, carried on in the little factory towns of the more populous +valleys. And two or three times also he passed a string of the great +timber carts which haunt the Chiltern lanes; the patient team of brown +horses straining at the weight behind them, the vast prostrate trunks +rattling in their chains, and the smoke from the carters' pipes rising +slowly into the damp sunset air. But for the most part the road along +which he walked was utterly forsaken of human kind. Nor were there any +signs of habitation--no cottages, no farms. He was scarcely more than +thirty miles from London; yet in this solemn evening glow it would have +been hardly possible to find a remoter, lonelier nature than that +through which he was passing. + +And presently the solitude took a grander note. He was nearing the edge +of the high upland along which he had been walking. In front of him the +long road with its gleaming pools bent sharply to the left, showing pale +and distinct against a darkening heaven and the wide grey fields which +had now, on one side of his path, replaced the serried growth of young +plantations. Night was fast advancing from south and east over the +upland. But straight in front of him and on his right, the forest trees, +still flooded with sunset, fell in sharp steeps towards the plain. +Through their straight stems glowed the blues and purples of that lower +world; and when the slopes broke and opened here and there, above the +rounded masses of their red and golden leaf the level distances of the +plain could be seen stretching away, illimitable in the evening dusk, to +a west of glory, just vacant of the sun. The golden ball had sunk into +the mists awaiting it, but the splendour of its last rays was still on +all the western front of the hills, bathing the beech woods as they rose +and fell with the large undulations of the ground. + +Insensibly Raeburn, filled as he was with a new and surging emotion, +drew the solemnity of the forest glades and of the rolling distances +into his heart. When he reached the point where the road diverged to the +left, he mounted a little grassy ridge, whence he commanded the whole +sweep of the hill rampart from north to west, and the whole expanse of +the low country beneath, and there stood gazing for some minutes, lost +in many thoughts, while the night fell. + +He looked over the central plain of England--the plain which stretches +westward to the Thames and the Berkshire hills, and northward through +the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire lowlands to the basin of the Trent. +An historic plain--symbolic, all of it, to an English eye. There in the +western distance, amid the light-filled mists, lay Oxford; in front of +him was the site of Chalgrove Field, where Hampden got his clumsy death +wound, and Thame, where he died; and far away, to his right, where the +hills swept to the north, he could just discern, gleaming against the +face of the down, the vast scoured cross, whereby a Saxon king had +blazoned his victory over his Danish foes to all the plain beneath. + +Aldous Raeburn was a man to feel these things. He had seldom stood on +this high point, in such an evening calm, without the expansion in him +of all that was most manly, most English, most strenuous. If it had not +been so, indeed, he must have been singularly dull of soul. For the +great view had an interest for him personally it could hardly have +possessed to the same degree for any other man. On his left hand Maxwell +Court rose among its woods on the brow of the hill--a splendid pile +which some day would be his. Behind him; through all the upland he had +just traversed; beneath the point where he stood; along the sides of the +hills, and far into the plain, stretched the land which also would be +his--which, indeed, practically was already his--for his grandfather was +an old man with a boundless trust in the heir on whom, his affections +and hopes were centred. The dim churches scattered over the immediate +plain below; the villages clustered round them, where dwelt the toilers +in these endless fields; the farms amid their trees; the cottages +showing here and there on the fringes of the wood--all the equipment and +organisation of popular life over an appreciable part of the English +midland at his feet, depended to an extent hardly to be exaggerated, +under the conditions of the England of to-day, upon him--upon his one +man's brain and conscience, the degree of his mental and moral capacity. + +In his first youth, of course, the thought had often roused a boy's +tremulous elation and sense of romance. Since his Cambridge days, and of +late years, any more acute or dramatic perception than usual of his lot +in life had been wont to bring with it rather a consciousness of weight +than of inspiration. Sensitive, fastidious, reflective, he was disturbed +by remorses and scruples which had never plagued his forefathers. During +his college days, the special circumstances of a great friendship had +drawn him into the full tide of a social speculation which, as it +happened, was destined to go deeper with him than with most men. The +responsibilities of the rich, the disadvantages of the poor, the +relation of the State to the individual--of the old Radical dogma of +free contract to the thwarting facts of social inequality; the Tory +ideal of paternal government by the few as compared with the Liberal +ideal of self-government by the many: these commonplaces of economical +and political discussion had very early become living and often sore +realities in Aldous Raeburn's mind, because of the long conflict in him, +dating from his Cambridge life, between the influences of birth and +early education and the influences of an admiring and profound affection +which had opened to him the gates of a new moral world. + +Towards the close of his first year at Trinity, & young man joined the +college who rapidly became, in spite of various practical disadvantages, +a leader among the best and keenest of his fellows. He was poor and held +a small scholarship; but it was soon plain that his health was not equal +to the Tripos routine, and that the prizes of the place, brilliant as +was his intellectual endowment, were not for him. After an inward +struggle, of which none perhaps but Aldous Raeburn had any exact +knowledge, he laid aside his first ambitions and turned himself to +another career. A couple of hours' serious brainwork in the day was all +that was ever possible to him henceforward. He spent it, as well as the +thoughts and conversation of his less strenuous moments, on the study of +history and sociology, with a view to joining the staff of lecturers for +the manufacturing and country towns which the two great Universities, +touched by new and popular sympathies, were then beginning to organise. +He came of a stock which promised well for such a pioneer's task. His +father had been an able factory inspector, well-known for his share in +the inauguration and revision of certain important factory reforms; the +son inherited a passionate humanity of soul; and added to it a magnetic +and personal charm which soon made him a remarkable power, not only in +his own college, but among the finer spirits of the University +generally. He had the gift which enables a man, sitting perhaps after +dinner in a mixed society of his college contemporaries, to lead the way +imperceptibly from the casual subjects of the hour--the river, the dons, +the schools--to arguments "of great pith and moment," discussions that +search the moral and intellectual powers of the men concerned to the +utmost, without exciting distrust or any but an argumentative +opposition, Edward Hallin could do this without a pose, without a false +note, nay, rather by the natural force of a boyish intensity and +simplicity. To many a Trinity man in after life the memory of his slight +figure and fair head, of the eager slightly parted mouth, of the eyes +glowing with some inward vision, and of the gesture with which he would +spring up at some critical point to deliver himself, standing amid his +seated and often dissentient auditors, came back vivid and ineffaceable +as only youth can make the image of its prophets. + +Upon Aldous Raeburn, Edward Hallin produced from the first a deep +impression. The interests to which Hallin's mind soon became exclusively +devoted--such as the systematic study of English poverty, or of the +relation of religion to social life, reforms of the land and of the +Church--overflowed upon Raeburn with a kindling and disturbing force. +Edward Hallin was his gad-fly; and he had no resource, because he loved +his tormentor. + +Fundamentally, the two men were widely different. Raeburn was a true son +of his fathers, possessed by natural inheritance of the finer instincts +of aristocratic rule, including a deep contempt for mob-reason and all +the vulgarities of popular rhetoric; steeped, too, in a number of subtle +prejudices, and in a silent but intense pride of family of the nobler +sort. He followed with disquiet and distrust the quick motions and +conclusions of Hallin's intellect. Temperament and the Cambridge +discipline made him a fastidious thinker and a fine scholar; his mind +worked slowly, yet with a delicate precision; and his generally cold +manner was the natural protection of feelings which had never yet, +except in the case of his friendship with Edward Hallin, led him to much +personal happiness. + +Hallin left Cambridge after a pass degree to become lecturer on +industrial and economical questions in the northern English towns. +Raeburn stayed on a year longer, found himself third classic and the +winner of a Greek verse prize, and then, sacrificing the idea of a +fellowship, returned to Maxwell Court to be his grandfather's companion +and helper in the work of the estate, his family proposing that, after a +few years' practical experience of the life and occupations of a country +gentleman, he should enter Parliament and make a career in politics. +Since then five or six years had passed, during which he had learned to +know the estate thoroughly, and to take his normal share in the business +and pleasures of the neighbourhood. For the last two years he had been +his grandfather's sole agent, a poor-law guardian and magistrate +besides, and a member of most of the various committees for social and +educational purposes in the county. He was a sufficiently keen sportsman +to save appearances with his class; enjoyed a walk after the partridges +indeed, with a friend or two, as much as most men; and played the host +at the two or three great battues of the year with a propriety which his +grandfather however no longer mistook for enthusiasm. There was nothing +much to distinguish him from any other able man of his rank. His +neighbours felt him to be a personality, but thought him reserved and +difficult; he was respected, but he was not popular like his +grandfather; people speculated as to how he would get on in Parliament, +or whom he was to marry; but, except to the dwellers in Maxwell Court +itself, or of late to the farmers and labourers on the estate, it would +not have mattered much to anybody if he had not been there. Nobody ever +connected any romantic thought with him. There was something in his +strong build, pale but healthy aquiline face, his inconspicuous brown +eyes and hair, which seemed from the beginning to mark him out as the +ordinary earthy dweller in an earthy world. + +Nevertheless, these years had been to Aldous Raeburn years marked by an +expansion and deepening of the whole man, such as few are capable of. +Edward Hallin's visits to the Court, the walking tours which brought the +two friends together almost every year in Switzerland or the Highlands, +the course of a full and intimate correspondence, and the various calls +made for public purposes by the enthusiast and pioneer upon the pocket +and social power of the rich man--these things and influences, together, +of course, with the pressure of an environing world, ever more real, +and, on the whole, ever more oppressive, as it was better understood, +had confronted Aldous Raeburn before now with a good many teasing +problems of conduct and experience. His tastes, his sympathies, his +affinities were all with the old order; but the old faiths--economical, +social, religious--were fermenting within him in different stages of +disintegration and reconstruction; and his reserved habit and often +solitary life tended to scrupulosity and over-refinement. His future +career as a landowner and politician was by no means clear to him. One +thing only was clear to him--that to dogmatise about any subject under +heaven, at the present day, more than the immediate practical occasion +absolutely demanded, was the act of an idiot. + +So that Aldous Raeburn's moments of reflection had been constantly mixed +with struggle of different kinds. And the particular point of view where +he stood on this September evening had been often associated in his +memory with flashes of self-realisation which were, on the whole, more +of a torment to him than a joy. If he had not been Aldous Raeburn, or +any other person, tied to a particular individuality, with a particular +place and label in the world, the task of the analytic mind, in face of +the spectacle of what is, would have been a more possible one!--so it +had often seemed to him. + +But to-night all this cumbering consciousness, all these self-made +doubts and worries, had for the moment dropped clean away! A +transfigured man it was that lingered at the old spot--a man once more +young, divining with enchantment the approach of passion, feeling at +last through all his being the ecstasy of a self-surrender, long missed, +long hungered for. + +Six weeks was it since he had first seen her--this tall, straight, +Marcella Boyce? He shut his eyes impatiently against the disturbing +golds and purples of the sunset, and tried to see her again as she had +walked beside him across the church fields, in that thin black dress, +with, the shadow of the hat across her brow and eyes--the small white +teeth flashing as she talked and smiled, the hand so ready with its +gesture, so restless, so alive! What a presence--how absorbing, +troubling, preoccupying! No one in her company could forget her--nay, +could fail to observe her. What ease and daring, and yet no hardness +with it--rather deep on deep of womanly weakness, softness, passion, +beneath it all! + +How straight she had flung her questions at him!--her most awkward +embarrassing questions. What other woman would have dared such +candour--unless perhaps as a stroke of fine art--he had known women +indeed who could have done it so. But where could be the art, the +policy, he asked himself indignantly, in the sudden outburst of a young +girl pleading with her companion's sense of truth and good feeling in +behalf of those nearest to her? + +As to her dilemma itself, in his excitement he thought of it with +nothing but the purest pleasure! She had let him see that she did not +expect him to be able to do much for her, though she was ready to +believe him her friend. Ah well--he drew a long breath. For once, +Raeburn, strange compound that he was of the man of rank and the +philosopher, remembered his own social power and position with an +exultant satisfaction. No doubt Dick Boyce had misbehaved himself +badly--the strength of Lord Maxwell's feeling was sufficient proof +thereof. No doubt the "county," as Raeburn himself knew, in some detail, +were disposed to leave Mellor Park severely alone. What of that? Was it +for nothing that the Maxwells had been for generations at the head of +the "county," i.e. of that circle of neighbouring families connected by +the ties of ancestral friendship, or of intermarriage, on whom in this +purely agricultural and rural district the social pleasure and comfort +of Miss Boyce and her mother must depend? + +He, like Marcella, did not believe that Richard Boyce's offences were of +the quite unpardonable order; although, owing to a certain absent and +preoccupied temper, he had never yet taken the trouble to enquire into +them in detail. As to any real restoration of cordiality between the +owner of Mellor and his father's old friends and connections, that of +course was not to be looked for; but there should be decent social +recognition, and--in the case of Mrs. Boyce and her daughter--there +should be homage and warm welcome, simply because she wished it, and it +was absurd she should not have it! Raeburn, whose mind was ordinarily +destitute of the most elementary capacity for social intrigue, began to +plot in detail how it should be done. He relied first upon winning his +grandfather--his popular distinguished grandfather, whose lightest word +had weight in Brookshire. And then, he himself had two or three women +friends in the county--not more, for women had not occupied much place +in his thoughts till now. But they were good friends, and, from the +social point of view, important. He would set them to work at once. +These things should be chiefly managed by women. + +But no patronage! She would never bear that, the glancing proud +creature. She must guess, indeed, let him tread as delicately as he +might, that he and others were at work for her. But oh! she should be +softly handled; as far as he could achieve it, she should, in a very +little while, live and breathe compassed with warm airs of good-will and +consideration. + +He felt himself happy, amazingly happy, that at the very beginning of +his love, it should thus be open to him, in these trivial, foolish ways, +to please and befriend her. Her social dilemma and discomfort one +moment, indeed, made him sore for her; the next, they were a kind of +joy, since it was they gave him this opportunity to put out a strong +right arm. + +Everything about her at this moment was divine and lovely to him; all +the qualities of her rich uneven youth which she had shown in their +short intercourse--her rashness, her impulsiveness, her generosity. Let +her but trust herself to him, and she should try her social experiments +as she pleased--she should plan Utopias, and he would be her hodman to +build them. The man perplexed with too much thinking remembered the +girl's innocent, ignorant readiness to stamp the world's stuff anew +after the forms of her own pitying thought, with a positive thirst of +sympathy. The deep poetry and ideality at the root of him under all the +weight of intellectual and critical debate leapt towards her. He thought +of the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact of +friendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for her +Socialist friends and their ideals,--with a momentary madness of +self-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like Aldous +Raeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like Marcella +Boyce. But the illusion of passion may deal as disturbingly with moral +rank as with social. + +It was his first love. Years before, in the vacation before he went to +college, his boyish mind had been crossed, by a fancy for a pretty +cousin a little older than himself, who had been very kind indeed to +Lord Maxwell's heir. But then came Cambridge, the flow of a new mental +life, his friendship for Edward Hallin, and the beginnings of a moral +storm and stress. When he and the cousin next met, he was quite cold to +her. She seemed to him a pretty piece of millinery, endowed with a trick +of parrot phrases. She, on her part, thought him detestable; she married +shortly afterwards, and often spoke to her husband in private of her +"escape" from that queer fellow Aldous Raeburn. + +Since then he had known plenty of pretty and charming women, both in +London and in the country, and had made friends with some of them in his +quiet serious way. But none of them had roused in him even a passing +thrill of passion. He had despised himself for it; had told himself +again and again that he was but half a man-- + +Ah! he had done himself injustice--he had done himself injustice! + +His heart was light as air. When at last the sound of a clock striking +in the plain roused him with a start, and he sprang up from the heap of +stones where he had been sitting in the dusk, he bent down a moment to +give a gay caress to his dog, and then trudged off briskly home, +whistling under the emerging stars. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +By the time, however, that Aldous Raeburn came within sight of the +windows of Maxwell Court his first exaltation had sobered down. The +lover had fallen, for the time, into the background, and the capable, +serious man of thirty, with a considerable experience of the world +behind him, was perfectly conscious that there were many difficulties in +his path. He could not induce his grandfather to move in the matter of +Richard Boyce without a statement of his own feelings and aims. Nor +would he have avoided frankness if he could. On every ground it was his +grandfather's due. The Raeburns were reserved towards the rest of the +world, but amongst themselves there had always been a fine tradition of +mutual trust; and Lord Maxwell amply deserved that at this particular +moment his grandson should maintain it. + +But Raeburn could not and did not flatter himself that his grandfather +would, to begin with, receive his news even with toleration. The grim +satisfaction with which that note about the shooting had been +despatched, was very clear in the grandson's memory. At the same time it +said much for the history of those long years during which the old man +and his heir had been left to console each other for the terrible +bereavements which had thrown them together, that Aldous Raeburn never +for an instant feared the kind of violent outburst and opposition that +other men in similar circumstances might have looked forward to. The +just living of a life-time makes a man incapable of any mere selfish +handling of another's interests--a fact on which the bystander may +reckon. + +It was quite dark by the time he entered the large open-roofed hall of +the Court. + +"Is his lordship in?" he asked of a passing footman. + +"Yes, sir--in the library. He has been asking for you, sir." + +Aldous turned to the right along the fine corridor lighted with Tudor +windows to an inner quadrangle, and filled with Graeco-Roman statuary +and sarcophagi, which made one of the principal features of the Court. +The great house was warm and scented, and the various open doors which +he passed on his way to the library disclosed large fire-lit rooms, with +panelling, tapestry, pictures, books everywhere. The colour of the whole +was dim and rich; antiquity, refinement reigned, together with an +exquisite quiet and order. No one was to be seen, and not a voice was to +be heard; but there was no impression of solitude. These warm, +darkly-glowing rooms seemed to be waiting for the return of guests just +gone out of them; not one of them but had an air of cheerful company. +For once, as he walked through it, Aldous Raeburn spared the old house +an affectionate possessive thought. Its size and wealth, with all that +both implied, had often weighed upon him. To-night his breath quickened +as he passed the range of family portraits leading to the library door. +There was a vacant space here and there--"room for your missus, too, my +boy, when you get her!" as his grandfather had once put it. + +"Why, you've had a long day, Aldous, all by yourself," said Lord +Maxwell, turning sharply round at the sound of the opening door. "What's +kept you so late?" + +His spectacles fell forward as he spoke, and the old man shut them in +his hand, peering at his grandson through the shadows of the room. He +was sitting by a huge fire, an "Edinburgh Review" open on his knee. Lamp +and fire-light showed a finely-carried head, with a high wave of snowy +hair thrown back, a long face delicately sharp in the lines, and an +attitude instinct with the alertness of an unimpaired bodily vigour. + +"The birds were scarce, and we followed them a good way," said Aldous, +as he came up to the fire. "Rickman kept me on the farm, too, a good +while, with interminable screeds about the things he wants done for +him." + +"Oh, there is no end to Rickman," said Lord Maxwell, good-humouredly. +"He pays his rent for the amusement of getting it back again. Landowning +will soon be the most disinterested form of philanthropy known to +mankind. But I have some news for you! Here is a letter from Barton by +the second post"--he named an old friend of his own, and a Cabinet +Minister of the day. "Look at it. You will see he says they can't +possibly carry on beyond January. Half their men are becoming +unmanageable, and S----'s bill, to which they are committed, will +certainly dish them. Parliament will meet in January, and he thinks an +amendment to the Address will finish it. All this confidential, of +course; but he saw no harm in letting me know. So now, my boy, you will +have your work cut out for you this winter! Two or three evenings a +week--you'll not get off with less. Nobody's plum drops into his mouth +nowadays. Barton tells me, too, that he hears young Wharton will +certainly stand for the Durnford division, and will be down upon us +directly. He will make himself as disagreeable to us and the Levens as +he can--that we may be sure of. We may be thankful for one small mercy, +that his mother has departed this life! otherwise you and I would have +known _furens quid femina posset_!" + +The old man looked up at his grandson with a humorous eye. Aldous was +standing absently before the fire, and did not reply immediately. + +"Come, come, Aldous!" said Lord Maxwell with a touch of impatience, +"don't overdo the philosopher. Though I am getting old, the next +Government can't deny me a finger in the pie. You and I between us will +be able to pull through two or three of the things we care about in the +next House, with ordinary luck. It is my firm belief that the next +election will give our side the best chance we have had for half a +generation. Throw up your cap, sir! The world may be made of green +cheese, but we have got to live in it!" + +Aldous smiled suddenly--uncontrollably--with a look which left his +grandfather staring. He had been appealing to the man of maturity +standing on the threshold of a possibly considerable career, and, as he +did so, it was as though he saw the boy of eighteen reappear! + +"_Je ne demands pas mieux_!" said Aldous with a quick lift of the voice +above its ordinary key. "The fact is, grandfather, I have come home with +something in my mind very different from politics--and you must give me +time to change the focus. I did not come home as straight as I +might--for I wanted to be sure of myself before I spoke to you. During +the last few weeks--" + +"Go on!" cried Lord Maxwell. + +But Aldous did not find it easy to go on. It suddenly struck him that it +was after all absurd that he should be confiding in any one at such a +stage, and his tongue stumbled. + +But he had gone too far for retreat. Lord Maxwell sprang up and seized +him by the arms. + +"You are in love, sir! Out with it!" + +"I have seen the only woman in the world I have ever wished to marry," +said Aldous, flushing, but with deliberation. "Whether she will ever +have me, I have no idea. But I can conceive no greater happiness than to +win her. And as I want _you_, grandfather, to do something for her and +for me, it seemed to me I had no right to keep my feelings to myself. +Besides, I am not accustomed to--to--" His voice wavered a little. "You +have treated me as more than a son!" + +Lord Maxwell pressed his arm affectionately. + +"My dear boy! But don't keep me on tenterhooks like this--tell me the +name!--the name!" + +And two or three long meditated possibilities flashed through the old +man's mind. + +Aldous replied with a certain slow stiffness-- + +"Marcella Boyce!--Richard Boyce's daughter. I saw her first six weeks +ago." + +"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Lord Maxwell, falling back a step or two, +and staring at his companion. Aldous watched him with anxiety. + +"You know that fellow's history, Aldous?" + +"Richard Boyce? Not in detail. If you will tell me now all you know, it +will be a help. Of course, I see that you and the neighbourhood mean to +cut him,--and--for the sake of--of Miss Boyce and her mother, I should +be glad to find a way out." + +"Good heavens!" said Lord Maxwell, beginning to pace the room, hands +pressed behind him, head bent. "Good heavens! what a business! what an +extraordinary business!" + +He stopped short in front of Aldous. "Where have you been meeting +her--this young lady?" + +"At the Hardens'--sometimes in Mellor village. She goes about among the +cottages a great deal." + +"You have not proposed to her?" + +"I was not certain of myself till to-day. Besides it would have been +presumption so far. She has shown me nothing but the merest +friendliness." + +"What, you can suppose she would refuse you!" cried Lord Maxwell, and +could not for the life of him keep the sarcastic intonation out of his +voice. + +Aldous's look showed distress. "You have not seen her, grandfather," he +said quietly. + +Lord Maxwell began to pace again, trying to restrain the painful emotion +that filled him. Of course, Aldous had been entrapped; the girl had +played upon his pity, his chivalry--for obvious reasons. + +Aldous tried to soothe him, to explain, but Lord Maxwell hardly +listened. At last he threw himself into his chair again with a long +breath. + +"Give me time, Aldous--give me time. The thought of marrying my heir to +that man's daughter knocks me over a little." + +There was silence again. Then Lord Maxwell looked at his watch with +old-fashioned precision. + +"There is half an hour before dinner. Sit down, and let us talk this +thing out." + + * * * * * + +The conversation thus started, however, was only begun by dinner-time; +was resumed after Miss Raeburn--the small, shrewd, bright-eyed person +who governed Lord Maxwell's household--had withdrawn; and was continued +in the library some time beyond his lordship's usual retiring hour. It +was for the most part a monologue on the part of the grandfather, broken +by occasional words from his companion; and for some time Marcella Boyce +herself--the woman whom Aldous desired to marry--was hardly mentioned in +it. Oppressed and tormented by a surprise which struck, or seemed to +strike, at some of his most cherished ideals and just resentments, Lord +Maxwell was bent upon letting his grandson know, in all their fulness, +the reasons why no daughter of Richard Boyce could ever be, in the true +sense, fit wife for a Raeburn. + +Aldous was, of course, perfectly familiar with the creed implied in it +all. A Maxwell should give himself no airs whatever, should indeed feel +no pride whatever, towards "men of goodwill," whether peasant, +professional, or noble. Such airs or such feeling would be both vulgar +and unchristian. But when it came to _marriage_, then it behoved him to +see that "the family"--that carefully grafted and selected stock to +which he owed so much--should suffer no loss or deterioration through +him. Marriage with the fit woman meant for a Raeburn the preservation of +a pure blood, of a dignified and honourable family habit, and moreover +the securing to his children such an atmosphere of self-respect within, +and of consideration from without, as he had himself grown up in. And a +woman could not be fit, in this sense, who came either of an +insignificant stock, untrained to large uses and opportunities, or of a +stock which had degenerated, and lost its right of equal mating with the +vigorous owners of unblemished names. Money was of course important and +not to be despised, but the present Lord Maxwell, at any rate, +large-minded and conscious of wealth he could never spend, laid +comparatively little stress upon it; whereas, in his old age, the other +instinct had but grown the stronger with him, as the world waxed more +democratic, and the influence of the great families waned. + +Nor could Aldous pretend to be insensible to such feelings and beliefs. +Supposing the daughter could be won, there was no doubt whatever that +Richard Boyce would be a cross and burden to a Raeburn son-in-law. But +then! After all! Love for once made philosophy easy--made class +tradition sit light. Impatience grew; a readiness to believe Richard +Boyce as black as Erebus and be done with it,--so that one might get to +the point--the real point. + +As to the story, it came to this. In his youth, Richard Boyce had been +the younger and favourite son of his father. He possessed some ability, +some good looks, some manners, all of which were wanting in his loutish +elder brother. Sacrifices were accordingly made for him. He was sent to +the bar. When he stood for Parliament his election expenses were +jubilantly paid, and his father afterwards maintained him with as +generous a hand as the estate could possibly bear, often in the teeth of +the grudging resentment of Robert his firstborn. Richard showed signs of +making a rapid success, at any rate on the political platform. He spoke +with facility, and grappled with the drudgery of committees during his +first two years at Westminster in a way to win him the favourable +attention of the Tory whips. He had a gift for modern languages, and +spoke chiefly on foreign affairs, so that when an important Eastern +Commission had to be appointed, in connection with some troubles in the +Balkan States, his merits and his father's exertions with certain old +family friends sufficed to place him upon it. + +The Commission was headed by a remarkable man, and was able to do +valuable work at a moment of great public interest, under the eyes of +Europe. Its members came back covered with distinction, and were much +feted through the London season. Old Mr. Boyce came up from Mellor to +see Dick's success for himself, and his rubicund country gentleman's +face and white head might have been observed at many a London party +beside the small Italianate physique of his son. + +And love, as he is wont, came in the wake of fortune. A certain fresh +west-country girl, Miss Evelyn Merritt, who had shown her stately beauty +at one of the earliest drawing-rooms of the season, fell across Mr. +Richard Boyce at this moment when he was most at ease with the world, +and the world was giving him every opportunity. She was very young, as +unspoilt as the daffodils of her Somersetshire valleys, and her +character--a character of much complexity and stoical strength--was +little more known to herself than it was to others. She saw Dick Boyce +through a mist of romance; forgot herself absolutely in idealising him, +and could have thanked him on her knees when he asked her to marry him. + +Five years of Parliament and marriage followed, and then--a crash. It +was a common and sordid story, made tragic by the quality of the wife, +and the disappointment of the father, if not by the ruined possibilities +of Dick Boyce himself. First, the desire to maintain a "position," to +make play in society with a pretty wife, and, in the City, with a +marketable reputation; then company-promoting of a more and more +doubtful kind; and, finally, a swindle more energetic and less skilful +than the rest, which bomb-like went to pieces in the face of the public, +filling the air with noise, lamentations, and unsavoury odours. Nor was +this all. A man has many warnings of ruin, and when things were going +badly in the stock market, Richard Boyce, who on his return from the +East had been elected by acclamation a member of several fashionable +clubs, tried to retrieve himself at the gaming-table. Lastly, when money +matters at home and abroad, when the anxieties of his wife and the +altered manners of his acquaintance in and out of the House of Commons +grew more than usually disagreeable, a certain little chorus girl came +upon the scene and served to make both money and repentance scarcer even +than they were before. No story could be more commonplace or more +detestable. + +"Ah, how well I remember that poor old fellow--old John Boyce," said +Lord Maxwell, slowly, shaking his stately white head over it, as he +leant talking and musing against the mantelpiece. "I saw him the day he +came back from the attempt to hush up the company business. I met him in +the road, and could not help pulling up to speak to him. I was so sorry +for him. We had been friends for many years, he and I. 'Oh, good God!' +he said, when he saw me. 'Don't stop me--don't speak to me!' And he +lashed his horse up--as white as a sheet--fat, fresh-coloured man that +he was in general--and was off. I never saw him again till after his +death. First came the trial, and Dick Boyce got three months' +imprisonment, on a minor count, while several others of the precious lot +he was mixed up with came in for penal servitude. There was some +technical flaw in the evidence with regard to him, and the clever +lawyers they put on made the most of it; but we all thought, and society +thought, that Dick was morally as bad as any of them. Then the papers +got hold of the gambling debts and the woman. She made a disturbance at +his club, I believe, during the trial, while he was out on bail--anyway +it all came out. Two or three other people were implicated in the +gambling business--men of good family. Altogether it was one of the +biggest scandals I remember in my time." + +The old man paused, the long frowning face sternly set. Aldous gazed at +him in silence. It was certainly pretty bad--worse than he had thought. + +"And the wife and child?" he said presently. + +"Oh, poor things!"--said Lord Maxwell, forgetting everything for the +moment but his story--"when Boyce's imprisonment was up they disappeared +with him. His constituents held indignation meetings, of course. He gave +up his seat, and his father allowed him a small fixed income--she had +besides some little money of her own--which was secured him afterwards, +I believe, on the estate during his brother's lifetime. Some of her +people would have gladly persuaded her to leave him, for his behaviour +towards her had been particularly odious,--and they were afraid, too, I +think, that he might come to worse grief yet and make her life +unbearable. But she wouldn't. And she would have no sympathy and no +talk. I never saw her after the first year of their marriage, when she +was a most radiant and beautiful creature. But, by all accounts of her +behaviour at the time, she must be a remarkable woman. One of her family +told me that she broke with all of them. She would know nobody who would +not know him. Nor would she take money, though they were wretchedly +poor; and Dick Boyce was not squeamish. She went off to little lodgings +in the country or abroad with him without a word. At the same time, it +was plain that her life was withered. She could make one great effort; +but, according to my informant, she had no energy left for anything +else--not even to take interest in her little girl--" + +Aldous made a movement. + +"Suppose we talk about her?" he said rather shortly. + +Lord Maxwell started and recollected himself. After a pause he said, +looking down under his spectacles at his grandson with an expression in +which discomfort strove with humour-- + +"I see. You think we are beating about the bush. Perhaps we are. It is +the difference between being old and being young, Aldous, my boy. +Well--now then--for Miss Boyce. How much have you seen of her?--how deep +has it gone? You can't wonder that I am knocked over. To bring that man +amongst us! Why, the hound!" cried the old man, suddenly, "we could not +even get him to come and see his father when he was dying. John had lost +his memory mostly--had forgotten, anyway, to be angry--and just _craved_ +for Dick, for the only creature he had ever loved. With great difficulty +I traced the man, and tried my utmost. No good! He came when his father +no longer knew him, an hour before the end. His nerves, I understood, +were delicate--not so delicate, however, as to prevent his being present +at the reading of the will! I have never forgiven him that cruelty to +the old man, and never will!" + +And Lord Maxwell began to pace the library again, by way of working off +memory and indignation. + +Aldous watched him rather gloomily. They had now been discussing Boyce's +criminalities in great detail for a considerable time, and nothing else +seemed to have any power to touch--or, at any rate, to hold--Lord +Maxwell's attention. A certain deep pride in Aldous--the pride of +intimate affection--felt itself wounded. + +"I see that you have grave cause to think badly of her father," he said +at last, rising as he spoke. "I must think how it concerns me. And +to-morrow you must let me tell you something about her. After all, she +has done none of these things. But I ought not to keep you up like this. +You will remember Clarke was very emphatic about your not exhausting +yourself at night, last time he was here." + +Lord Maxwell turned and stared. + +"Why--why, what is the matter with you, Aldous? Offended? +Well--well--There--I _am_ an old fool!" + +And, walking up to his grandson, he laid an affectionate and rather +shaking hand on the younger's shoulder. + +"You have a great charge upon you, Aldous--a charge for the future. It +has upset me--I shall be calmer to-morrow. But as to any quarrel between +us! Are you a youth, or am I a three-tailed bashaw? As to money, you +know, I care nothing. But it goes against me, my boy, it goes against +me, that _your_ wife should bring such a story as that with her into +this house!" + +"I understand," said Aldous, wincing. "But you must see her, +grandfather. Only, let me say it again--don't for one moment take it for +granted that she will marry me. I never saw any one so free, so +unspoilt, so unconventional." + +His eyes glowed with the pleasure of remembering her looks, her tones. + +Lord Maxwell withdrew his hand and shook his head slowly. + +"You have a great deal to offer. No woman, unless she were either +foolish or totally unexperienced, could overlook that. Is she about +twenty?" + +"About twenty." + +Lord Maxwell waited a moment, then, bending over the fire, shrugged his +shoulders in mock despair. + +"It is evident you are out of love with me, Aldous. Why, I don't know +yet whether she is dark or fair!" + +The conversation jarred on both sides. Aldous made an effort. + +"She is very dark," he said; "like her mother in many ways, only quite +different in colour. To me she seems the most beautiful--the only +beautiful woman I have ever seen. I should think she was very clever in +some ways--and very unformed--childish almost--in others. The Hardens +say she has done everything she could--of course it isn't much--for that +miserable village in the time she has been there. Oh! by the way, she is +a Socialist. She thinks that all we landowners should be done away +with." + +Aldous looked round at his grandfather, so soon probably to be one of +the lights of a Tory Cabinet, and laughed. So, to his relief, did Lord +Maxwell. + +"Well, don't let her fall into young Wharton's clutches, Aldous, or he +will be setting her to canvas. So, she is beautiful and she is +clever--and _good_, my boy? If she comes here, she will have to fill +your mother's and your grandmother's place." + +Aldous tried to reply once or twice, but failed. + +"If I did not feel that she were everything in herself to be loved and +respected"--he said at last with some formality--"I should not long, as +I do, to bring you and her together." + +Silence fell again. But instinctively Aldous felt that his grandfather's +mood had grown gentler--his own task easier. He seized on the moment at +once. + +"In the whole business," he said, half smiling, "there is only one thing +clear, grandfather, and that is, that, if you will, you can do me a +great service with Miss Boyce." + +Lord Maxwell turned quickly and was all sharp attention, the keen +commanding eyes under their fine brows absorbing, as it were, expression +and life from the rest of the blanched and wrinkled face. + +"You could, if you would, make matters easy for her and her mother in +the county," said Aldous, anxious to carry it off lightly. "You could, +if you would, without committing yourself to any personal contact with +Boyce himself, make it possible for me to bring her here, so that you +and my aunt might see her and judge." + +The old man's expression darkened. + +"What, take back that note, Aldous! I never wrote anything with greater +satisfaction in my life!" + +"Well,--more or less," said Aldous, quietly. "A very little would do it. +A man in Richard Boyce's position will naturally not claim very +much--will take what he can get." + +"And you mean besides," said his grandfather, interrupting him, "that I +must send your aunt to call?" + +"It will hardly be possible to ask Miss Boyce here unless she does!" +said Aldous. + +"And you reckon that I am not likely to go to Mellor, even to see her? +And you want me to say a word to other people--to the Winterbournes and +the Levens, for instance?" + +"Precisely," said Aldous. + +Lord Maxwell meditated; then rose. + +"Let me now appease the memory of Clarke by going to bed!" (Clarke was +his lordship's medical attendant and autocrat.) "I must sleep upon this, +Aldous." + +"I only hope I shall not have tired you out." + +Aldous moved to extinguish a lamp standing on a table near. + +Suddenly his grandfather called him. + +"Aldous!" + +"Yes." + +But, as no words followed, Aldous turned. He saw his grandfather +standing erect before the fire, and was startled by the emotion he +instantly perceived in eye and mouth. + +"You understand, Aldous, that for twenty years--it is twenty years last +month since your father died--you have been the blessing of my life? Oh! +don't say anything, my boy; I don't want any more agitation. I have +spoken strongly; it was hardly possible but that on such a matter I +should feel strongly. But don't go away misunderstanding me--don't +imagine for one instant that there is anything in the world that really +matters to me in comparison with your happiness and your future!" + +The venerable old man wrung the hand he held, walked quickly to the +door, and shut it behind him. + + * * * * * + +An hour later, Aldous was writing in his own sitting-room, a room on the +first floor, at the western corner of the house, and commanding by +daylight the falling slopes of wood below the Court, and all the wide +expanses of the plain. To-night, too, the blinds were up, and the great +view drawn in black and pearl, streaked with white mists in the ground +hollows and overarched by a wide sky holding a haloed moon, lay spread +before the windows. On a clear night Aldous felt himself stifled by +blinds and curtains, and would often sit late, reading and writing, with +a lamp so screened that it threw light upon his book or paper, while not +interfering with the full range of his eye over the night-world without. +He secretly believed that human beings see far too little of the night, +and so lose a host of august or beautiful impressions, which might be +honestly theirs if they pleased, without borrowing or stealing from +anybody, poet or painter. + +The room was lined with books, partly temporary visitors from the great +library downstairs, partly his old college books and prizes, and partly +representing small collections for special studies. Here were a large +number of volumes, blue books, and pamphlets, bearing on the condition +of agriculture and the rural poor in England and abroad; there were some +shelves devoted to general economics, and on a little table by the fire +lay the recent numbers of various economic journals, English and +foreign. Between the windows stood a small philosophical bookcase, the +volumes of it full of small reference slips, and marked from end to end; +and on the other side of the room was a revolving book-table crowded +with miscellaneous volumes of poets, critics, and novelists--mainly, +however, with the first two. Aldous Raeburn read few novels, and those +with a certain impatience. His mind was mostly engaged in a slow wrestle +with difficult and unmanageable fact; and for that transformation and +illumination of fact in which the man of idealist temper must sometimes +take refuge and comfort, he went easily and eagerly to the poets and to +natural beauty. Hardly any novel writing, or reading, seemed to him +worth while. A man, he thought, might be much better employed than in +doing either. + +Above the mantelpiece was his mother's picture--the picture of a young +woman in a low dress and muslin scarf, trivial and empty in point of +art, yet linked in Aldous's mind with a hundred touching recollections, +buried all of them in the silence of an unbroken reserve. She had died +in childbirth when he was nine; her baby had died with her, and her +husband, Lord Maxwell's only son and surviving child, fell a victim two +years later to a deadly form of throat disease, one of those ills which +come upon strong men by surprise, and excite in the dying a sense of +helpless wrong which even religious faith can only partially soothe. + +Aldous remembered his mother's death; still more his father's, that +father who could speak no last message to his son, could only lie dumb +upon his pillows, with those eyes full of incommunicable pain, and the +hand now restlessly seeking, now restlessly putting aside the small and +trembling hand of the son. His boyhood had been spent under the shadow +of these events, which had aged his grandfather, and made him too early +realise himself as standing alone in the gap of loss, the only hope left +to affection and to ambition. This premature development, amid the most +melancholy surroundings, of the sense of personal importance--not in any +egotistical sense, but as a sheer matter of fact--had robbed a nervous +and sensitive temperament of natural stores of gaiety and elasticity +which it could ill do without. Aldous Raeburn had been too much thought +for and too painfully loved. But for Edward Hallin he might well have +acquiesced at manhood in a certain impaired vitality, in the scholar's +range of pleasures, and the landowner's customary round of duties. + +It was to Edward Hallin he was writing to-night, for the stress and stir +of feeling caused by the events of the day, and not least by his +grandfather's outburst, seemed to put sleep far off. On the table before +him stood a photograph of Hallin, besides a miniature of his mother as a +girl. He had drawn the miniature closer to him, finding sympathy and joy +in its youth, in the bright expectancy of the eyes, and so wrote, as it +were, having both her and his friend in mind and sight. + +To Hallin he had already spoken of Miss Boyce, drawing her in light, +casual, and yet sympathetic strokes as the pretty girl in a difficult +position whom one would watch with curiosity and some pity. To-night his +letter, which should have discussed a home colonisation scheme of +Hallin's, had but one topic, and his pen flew. + +"Would you call her beautiful? I ask myself again and again, trying to +put myself behind your eyes. She has nothing, at any rate, in common +with the beauties we have down here, or with those my aunt bade me +admire in London last May. The face has a strong Italian look, but not +Italian of to-day. Do you remember the Ghirlandajo frescoes in Santa +Maria Novella, or the side groups in Andrea's frescoes at the +Annunziata? Among them, among the beautiful tall women of them, there +are, I am sure, noble, freely-poised, suggestive heads like hers--hair, +black wavy hair, folded like hers in large simple lines, and faces +with the same long, subtle curves. It is a face of the Renaissance, +extraordinarily beautiful, as it seems to me, in colour and expression; +imperfect in line, as the beauty which marks the meeting point +between antique perfection and modern character must always be. It +has _morbidezza_--unquiet melancholy charm, then passionate +gaiety--everything that is most modern grafted on things Greek and old. +I am told that Burne Jones drew her several times while she was in +London, with delight. It is the most _artistic_ beauty, having both the +harmonies and the dissonances that a full-grown art loves. + +"She may be twenty or rather more. The mind has all sorts of ability; +comes to the right conclusion by a divine instinct, ignoring the how and +why. What does such a being want with the drudgery of learning? to such +keenness life will be master enough. Yet she has evidently read a good +deal--much poetry, some scattered political economy, some modern +socialistic books, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Carlyle. She takes everything +dramatically, imaginatively, goes straight from it to life, and back +again. Among the young people with whom she made acquaintance while she +was boarding in London and working at South Kensington, there seem to +have been two brothers, both artists, and both Socialists; ardent young +fellows, giving all their spare time to good works, who must have +influenced her a great deal. She is full of angers and revolts, which +you would delight in. And first of all, she is applying herself to her +father's wretched village, which will keep her hands full. A large and +passionate humanity plays about her. What she says often seems to me +foolish--in the ear; but the inner sense, the heart of it, command me. + +"Stare as you please, Ned! Only write to me, and come down here as soon +as you can. I can and will hide nothing from you, so you will believe me +when I say that all is uncertain, that I know nothing, and, though I +hope everything, may just as well fear everything too. But somehow I am +another man, and the world shines and glows for me by day and night." + +Aldous Raeburn rose from his chair and, going to the window, stood +looking out at the splendour of the autumn moon. Marcella moved across +the whiteness of the grass; her voice was still speaking to his inward +ear. His lips smiled; his heart was in a wild whirl of happiness. + +Then he walked to the table, took up his letter, read it, tore it +across, and locked the fragments in a drawer. + +"Not yet, Ned--not yet, dear old fellow, even to you," he said to +himself, as he put out his lamp. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Three days passed. On the fourth Marcella returned late in the afternoon +from a round of parish visits with Mary Harden. As she opened the oak +doors which shut off the central hall of Mellor from the outer +vestibule, she saw something white lying on the old cut and disused +billiard table, which still occupied the middle of the floor till +Richard Boyce, in the course of his economies and improvements, could +replace it by a new one. + +She ran forward and took up a sheaf of cards, turning them over in a +smiling excitement. "Viscount Maxwell," "Mr. Raeburn," "Miss Raeburn," +"Lady Winterbourne and the Misses Winterbourne," two cards of Lord +Winterbourne's--all perfectly in form. + +Then a thought flashed upon her. "Of course it is his doing--and I asked +him!" + +The cards dropped from her hand on the billiard table, and she stood +looking at them, her pride fighting with her pleasure. There was +something else in her feeling too--the exultation of proved power over a +person not, as she guessed, easily influenced, especially by women. + +"Marcella, is that you?" + +It was her mother's voice. Mrs. Boyce had come in from the garden +through the drawing-room, and was standing at the inner door of the +hall, trying with shortsighted eyes to distinguish her daughter among +the shadows of the great bare place. A dark day was drawing to its +close, and there was little light left in the hall, except in one corner +where a rainy sunset gleam struck a grim contemporary portrait of Mary +Tudor, bringing out the obstinate mouth and the white hand holding a +jewelled glove. + +Marcella turned, and by the same gleam her mother saw her flushed and +animated look. + +"Any letters?" she asked. + +"No; but there are some cards. Oh yes, there is a note," and she pounced +upon an envelope she had overlooked. "It is for you, mother--from the +Court." + +Mrs. Boyce came up and took note and cards from her daughter's hand. +Marcella watched her with quick breath. + +Her mother looked through the cards, slowly putting them down one by one +without remark. + +"Oh, mother! do read the note!" Marcella could not help entreating. + +Mrs. Boyce drew herself together with a quick movement as though her +daughter jarred upon her, and opened the note. Marcella dared not look +over her. There was a dignity about her mother's lightest action, about +every movement of her slender fingers and fine fair head, which had +always held the daughter in check, even while she rebelled. + +Mrs. Boyce read it, and then handed it to Marcella. + +"I must go and make the tea," she said, in a light, cold tone, and +turning, she went back to the drawing-room, whither afternoon tea had +just been carried. + +Marcella followed, reading. The note was from Miss Raeburn, and it +contained an invitation to Mrs. Boyce and her daughter to take luncheon +at the Court on the following Friday. The note was courteously and +kindly worded. "We should be so glad," said the writer, "to show you and +Miss Boyce our beautiful woods while they are still at their best, in +the way of autumn colour." + +"How will mamma take it?" thought Marcella anxiously. "There is not a +word of papa!" + +When she entered the drawing-room, she caught her mother standing +absently at the tea-table. The little silver caddy was still in her hand +as though she had forgotten to put it down; and her eyes, which +evidently saw nothing, were turned to the window, the brows frowning. +The look of suffering for an instant was unmistakable; then she started +at the sound of Marcella's step, and put down the caddy amid the +delicate china crowded on the tray, with all the quiet precision of her +ordinary manner. + +"You will have to wait for your tea," she said, "the water doesn't +nearly boil." + +Marcella went up to the fire and, kneeling before it, put the logs with +which it was piled together. But she could not contain herself for long. + +"Will you go to the Court, mamma?" she asked quickly, without turning +round. + +There was a pause. Then Mrs. Boyce said drily-- + +"Miss Raeburn's proceedings are a little unexpected. We have been here +four months, within two miles of her, and it has never occurred to her +to call. Now she calls and asks us to luncheon in the same afternoon. +Either she took too little notice of us before, or she takes too much +now--don't you think so?" + +Marcella was silent a moment. Should she confess? It began to occur to +her for the first time that in her wild independence she had been taking +liberties with her mother. + +"Mamma!" + +"Yes." + +"I asked Mr. Aldous Raeburn the other day whether everybody here was +going to cut us! Papa told me that Lord Maxwell had written him an +uncivil letter and--" + +"You--asked--Mr. Raeburn--" said Mrs. Boyce, quickly. "What do you +mean?" + +Marcella turned round and met the flash of her mother's eyes. + +"I couldn't help it," she said in a low hurried voice. "It seemed so +horrid to feel everybody standing aloof--we were walking together--he +was very kind and friendly--and I asked him to explain." + +"I see!" said Mrs. Boyce. "And he went to his aunt--and she went to Lady +Winterbourne--they were compassionate--and there are the cards. You have +certainly taken us all in hand, Marcella!" + +Marcella felt an instant's fear--fear of the ironic power in the +sparkling look so keenly fixed on her offending self; she shrank before +the proud reserve expressed in every line of her mother's fragile +imperious beauty. Then a cry of nature broke from the girl. + +"You have got used to it, mamma! I feel as if it would kill me to live +here, shut off from everybody--joining with nobody--with no friendly +feelings or society. It was bad enough in the old lodging-house days; +but here--why _should_ we?" + +Mrs. Boyce had certainly grown pale. + +"I supposed you would ask sooner or later," she said in a low determined +voice, with what to Marcella was a quite new note of reality in it. +"Probably Mr. Raeburn told you--but you must of course have guessed it +long ago--that society does not look kindly on us--and has its reasons. +I do not deny in the least that it has its reasons. I do not accuse +anybody, and resent nothing. But the question with me has always been, +Shall I accept pity? I have always been able to meet it with a No! You +are very different from me--but for you also I believe it would be the +happiest answer." + +The eyes of both met--the mother's full of an indomitable fire which had +for once wholly swept away her satiric calm of every day; the daughter's +troubled and miserable. + +"I want friends!" said Marcella, slowly. "There are so many things I +want to do here, and one can do nothing if every one is against you. +People would be friends with you and me--and with papa too,--through us. +Some of them wish to be kind"--she added insistently, thinking of Aldous +Raeburn's words and expression as he bent to her at the gate--"I know +they do. And if we can't hold our heads high because--because of things +in the past--ought we to be so proud that we won't take their hands when +they stretch them out--when they write so kindly and nicely as this?" + +And she laid her fingers almost piteously on the note upon her knee. + +Mrs. Boyce tilted the silver urn and replenished the tea-pot. Then with +a delicate handkerchief she rubbed away a spot from the handle of a +spoon near her. + +"You shall go," she said presently--"you wish it--then go--go by all +means. I will write to Miss Raeburn and send you over in the carriage. +One can put a great deal on health--mine is quite serviceable in the way +of excuses. I will try and do you no harm, Marcella. If you have chosen +your line and wish to make friends here--very well--I will do what I can +for you so long as you do not expect me to change my life--for which, my +dear, I am grown too crotchety and too old." + +Marcella looked at her with dismay and a yearning she had never felt +before. + +"And you will never go out with me, mamma?" + +There was something childlike and touching in the voice, something which +for once suggested the normal filial relation. But Mrs. Boyce did not +waver. She had long learnt perhaps to regard Marcella as a girl +singularly well able to take care of herself; and had recognised the +fact with relief. + +"I will not go to the Court with you anyway," she said, daintily sipping +her tea--"in your interests as well as mine. You will make all the +greater impression, my dear, for I have really forgotten how to behave. +Those cards shall be properly returned, of course. For the rest--let no +one disturb themselves till they must. And if I were you, Marcella, I +would hardly discuss the family affairs any more--with Mr. Raeburn or +anybody else." + +And again her keen glance disconcerted the tall handsome girl, whose +power over the world about her had never extended to her mother. +Marcella flushed and played with the fire. + +"You see, mamma," she said after a moment, still looking at the logs and +the shower of sparks they made as she moved them about, "you never let +me discuss them with you." + +"Heaven forbid!" said Mrs. Boyce, quickly; then, after a pause: "You +will find your own line in a little while, Marcella, and you will see, +if you so choose it, that there will be nothing unsurmountable in your +way. One piece of advice let me give you. Don't be too _grateful_ to +Miss Raeburn, or anybody else! You take great interest in your Boyce +belongings, I perceive. You may remember too, perhaps, that there is +other blood in you--and that no Merritt has ever submitted quietly to +either patronage or pity." + +Marcella started. Her mother had never named her own kindred to her +before that she could remember. She had known for many years that there +was a breach between the Merritts and themselves. The newspapers had +told her something at intervals of her Merritt relations, for they were +fashionable and important folk, but no one of them had crossed the +Boyces' threshold since the old London days, wherein Marcella could +still dimly remember the tall forms of certain Merritt uncles, and even +a stately lady in a white cap whom she knew to have been her mother's +mother. The stately lady had died while she was still a child at her +first school; she could recollect her own mourning frock; but that was +almost the last personal remembrance she had, connected with the +Merritts. + +And now this note of intense personal and family pride, under which Mrs. +Boyce's voice had for the first time quivered a little! Marcella had +never heard it before, and it thrilled her. She sat on by the fire, +drinking her tea and every now and then watching her companion with a +new and painful curiosity. The tacit assumption of many years with her +had been that her mother was a dry limited person, clever and determined +in small ways, that affected her own family, but on the whole +characterless as compared with other people of strong feelings and +responsive susceptibilities. But her own character had been rapidly +maturing of late, and her insight sharpening. During these recent weeks +of close contact, her mother's singularity had risen in her mind to the +dignity at least of a problem, an enigma. + +Presently Mrs. Boyce rose and put the scones down by the fire. + +"Your father will be in, I suppose. Yes, I hear the front door." + +As she spoke she took off her velvet cloak, put it carefully aside on a +sofa, and sat down again, still in her bonnet, at the tea-table. Her +dress was very different from Marcella's, which, when they were not in +mourning, was in general of the ample "aesthetic" type, and gave her a +good deal of trouble out of doors. Marcella wore "art serges" and +velveteens; Mrs. Boyce attired herself in soft and costly silks, +generally black, closely and fashionably made, and completed by various +fanciful and distinguished trifles--rings, an old chatelaine, a diamond +brooch--which Marcella remembered, the same, and worn in the same way, +since her childhood. Mrs. Boyce, however, wore her clothes so daintily, +and took such scrupulous and ingenious care of them, that her dress +cost, in truth, extremely little--certainly less than Marcella's. + +There were sounds first of footsteps in the hall, then of some scolding +of William, and finally Mr. Boyce entered, tired and splashed from +shooting, and evidently in a bad temper. + +"Well, what are you going to do about those cards?" he asked his wife +abruptly when she had supplied him with tea, and he was beginning to dry +by the fire. He was feeling ill and reckless; too tired anyway to +trouble himself to keep up appearances with Marcella. + +"Return them," said Mrs. Boyce, calmly, blowing out the flame of her +silver kettle. + +"_I_ don't want any of their precious society," he said irritably. "They +should have done their calling long ago. There's no grace in it now; I +don't know that one isn't inclined to think it an intrusion." + +But the women were silent. Marcella's attention was diverted from her +mother to the father's small dark head and thin face. There was a great +repulsion and impatience in her heart, an angry straining against +circumstance and fate; yet at the same time a mounting voice of natural +affection, an understanding at once sad and new, which paralysed and +silenced her. He stood in her way--terribly in her way--and yet it +strangely seemed to her, that never before till these last few weeks had +she felt herself a daughter. + +"You are very wet, papa," she said to him as she took his cup; "don't +you think you had better go at once and change?" + +"I'm all right," he said shortly--"as right as I'm likely to be, anyway. +As for the shooting, it's nothing but waste of time and shoe leather. I +shan't go out any more. The place has been clean swept by some of those +brutes in the village--your friends, Marcella. By the way, Evelyn, I +came across young Wharton in the road just now." + +"Wharton?" said his wife, interrogatively. "I don't remember--ought I?" + +"Why, the Liberal candidate for the division, of course," he said +testily. "I wish you would inform yourself of what goes on. He is +working like a horse, he tells me. Dodgson, the Raeburns' candidate, has +got a great start; this young man will want all his time to catch him +up. I like him. I won't vote for him; but I'll see fair play. I've asked +him to come to tea here on Saturday, Evelyn. He'll be back again by the +end of the week. He stays at Dell's farm when he comes--pretty bad +accommodation, I should think. We must show him some civility." + +He rose and stood with his back to the fire, his spare frame stiffening +under his nervous determination to assert himself--to hold up his head +physically and morally against those who would repress him. + +Richard Boyce took his social punishment badly. He had passed his first +weeks at Mellor in a tremble of desire that his father's old family and +country friends should recognise him again and condone his +"irregularities." All sorts of conciliatory ideas had passed through +his head. He meant to let people see that he would be a good neighbour +if they would give him the chance--not like that miserly fool, his +brother Robert. The past was so much past; who now was more respectable +or more well intentioned than he? He was an impressionable imaginative +man in delicate health; and the tears sometimes came into his eyes as he +pictured himself restored to society--partly by his own efforts, +partly, no doubt, by the charms and good looks of his wife and +daughter--forgiven for their sake, and for the sake also of that store +of virtue he had so laboriously accumulated since that long-past +catastrophe. Would not most men have gone to the bad altogether, after +such a lapse? He, on the contrary, had recovered himself, had neither +drunk nor squandered, nor deserted his wife and child. These things, if +the truth were known, were indeed due rather to a certain lack of +physical energy and vitality, which age had developed in him, than to +self-conquest; but he was no doubt entitled to make the most of them. +There were signs indeed that his forecast had been not at all +unreasonable. His womenkind _were_ making their way. At the very moment +when Lord Maxwell had written him a quelling letter, he had become aware +that Marcella was on good terms with Lord Maxwell's heir. Had he not +also been stopped that morning in a remote lane by Lord Winterbourne and +Lord Maxwell on their way back from the meet, and had not both +recognised and shaken hands with him? And now there were these cards. + +Unfortunately, in spite of Raeburn's opinion to the contrary, no man in +such a position and with such a temperament ever gets something without +claiming more--and more than he can conceivably or possibly get. +Startled and pleased at first by the salutation which Lord Maxwell and +his companion had bestowed upon him, Richard Boyce had passed his +afternoon in resenting and brooding over the cold civility of it. So +these were the terms he was to be on with them--the deuce take them and +their pharisaical airs! If all the truth were known, most men would look +foolish; and the men who thanked God that they were not as other men, +soonest of all. He wished he had not been taken by surprise; he wished +he had not answered them; he would show them in the future that he would +eat no dirt for them or anybody else. + +So on the way home there had been a particular zest in his chance +encounter with the young man who was likely to give the Raeburns and +their candidate--so all the world said--a very great deal of trouble. +The seat had been held to be an entirely safe one for the Maxwell +nominee. Young Wharton, on the contrary, was making way every day, and, +what with securing Aldous's own seat in the next division, and helping +old Dodgson in this, Lord Maxwell and his grandson had their hands full. +Dick Boyce was glad of it. He was a Tory; but all the same he wished +every success to this handsome, agreeable young man, whose deferential +manners to him at the end of the day had come like ointment to a wound. + +The three sat on together for a little while in silence. Marcella kept +her seat by the fire on the old gilt fenderstool, conscious in a +dreamlike way of the room in front of her--the stately room with its +stucco ceiling, its tall windows, its Prussian-blue wall-paper behind +the old cabinets and faded pictures, and the chair covers in Turkey-red +twill against the blue, which still remained to bear witness at once to +the domestic economies and the decorative ideas of old Robert +Boyce--conscious also of the figures on either side of her, and of her +own quick-beating youth betwixt them. She was sore and unhappy; yet, on +the whole, what she was thinking most about was Aldous Raeburn. What had +he said to Lord Maxwell?--and to the Winterbournes? She wished she could +know. She wished with leaping pulse that she could see him again +quickly. Yet it would be awkward too. + + * * * * * + +Presently she got up and went away to take off her things. As the door +closed behind her, Mrs. Boyce held out Miss Raeburn's note, which +Marcella had returned to her, to her husband. + +"They have asked Marcella and me to lunch," she said. "I am not going, +but I shall send her." + +He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the most +contradictory effects upon him. + +"Why don't you go?" he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for a +moment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour. + +"I have lost the habit of going out," she said quietly, "and am too old +to begin again." + +"What! you mean to say," he asked her angrily, raising his voice, "that +you have never _meant_ to do your duties here--the duties of your +position?" + +"I did not foresee many, outside this house and land. Why should we +change our ways? We have done very well of late. I have no mind to risk +what I have got." + +He glanced round at her in a quick nervous way, and then looked back +again at the fire. The sight of her delicate blanched face had in some +respects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on. +His anger sank into moroseness. + +"Then why do you let Marcella go? What good will it do her to go about +without her parents? People will only despise her for a girl of no +spirit--as they ought." + +"It depends upon how it is done. I can arrange it, I think," said Mrs. +Boyce. "A woman has always convenient limitations to plead in the way of +health. She need never give offence if she has decent wits. It will be +understood that I do not go out, and then someone--Miss Raeburn or Lady +Winterbourne--will take up Marcella and mother her." + +She spoke with her usual light gentleness, but he was not appeased. + +"If you were to talk of _my_ health, it would be more to the purpose," +he said, with grim inconsequence. And raising his heavy lids he looked +at her full. + +She got up and went over to him. + +"Do you feel worse again? Why will you not change your things directly +you come in? Would you like Dr. Clarke sent for?" + +She was standing close beside him; her beautiful hand, for which in +their young days it had pleased his pride to give her rings, almost +touched him. A passionate hunger leapt within him. She would stoop and +kiss him if he asked her; he knew that. But he would not ask her; he did +not want it; he wanted something that never on this earth would she give +him again. + +Then moral discomfort lost itself in physical. + +"Clarke does me no good--not an atom," he said, rising. "There--don't +you come. I Can look after myself." + +He went, and Mrs. Boyce remained alone in the great fire-lit room. She +put her hands on the mantelpiece, and dropped her head upon them, and so +stood silent for long. There was no sound audible in the room, or from +the house outside. And in the silence a proud and broken heart once more +nerved itself to an endurance that brought it peace with neither man nor +God. + + * * * * * + +"I shall go, for all our sakes," thought Marcella, as she stood late +that night brushing her hair before her dimly-lighted and rickety +dressing-table. "We have, it seems, no right to be proud." + +A rush of pain and bitterness filled her heart--pain, new-born and +insistent, for her mother, her father, and herself. Ever since Aldous +Raeburn's hesitating revelations, she had been liable to this sudden +invasion of a hot and shamed misery. And to-night, after her talk with +her mother, it could not but overtake her afresh. + +But her strong personality, her passionate sense of a moral independence +not to be undone by the acts of another, even a father, made her soon +impatient of her own distress, and she flung it from her with decision. + +"No, we have no right to be proud," she repeated to herself. "It must be +all true what Mr. Raeburn said--probably a great deal more. Poor, poor +mamma! But, all the same, there is nothing to be got out of empty +quarrelling and standing alone. And it was so long ago." + +Her hand fell, and she stood absently looking at her own black and white +reflection in the old flawed glass. + +She was thinking, of course, of Mr. Raeburn. He had been very prompt in +her service. There could be no question but that he was specially +interested in her. + +And he was not a man to be lightly played upon--nay, rather a singularly +reserved and scrupulous person. So, at least, it had been always held +concerning him. Marcella was triumphantly conscious that he had not from +the beginning given _her_ much trouble. But the common report of him +made his recent manner towards her, this last action of his, the more +significant. Even the Hardens--so Marcella gathered from her friend and +admirer Mary--unworldly dreamy folk, wrapt up in good works, and in the +hastening of Christ's kingdom, were on the alert and beginning to take +note. + +It was not as though he were in the dark as to her antecedents. He knew +all--at any rate, more than she did--and yet it might end in his asking +her to marry him. What then? + +Scarcely a quiver in the young form before the glass! _Love_, at such a +thought, must have sunk upon its knees and hid its face for tender +humbleness and requital. Marcella only looked quietly at the beauty +which might easily prove to be so important an arrow in her quiver. + +What was stirring in her was really a passionate ambition--ambition to +be the queen and arbitress of human lives--to be believed in by her +friends, to make a mark for herself among women, and to make it in the +most romantic and yet natural way, without what had always seemed to her +the sordid and unpleasant drudgeries of the platform, of a tiresome +co-operation with, or subordination to others who could not understand +your ideas. + +Of course, if it happened, people would say that she had tried to +capture Aldous Raeburn for his money and position's sake. Let them say +it. People with base minds must think basely; there was no help for it. +Those whom she would make her friends would know very well for what +purpose she wanted money, power, and the support of such a man, and such +a marriage. Her modern realism played with the thought quite freely; her +maidenliness, proud and pure as it was, being nowise ashamed. Oh! for +something to carry her _deep_ into life; into the heart of its widest +and most splendid opportunities! + +She threw up her hands, clasping them above her head amid her clouds of +curly hair--a girlish excited gesture. + +"I could revive the straw-plaiting; give them better teaching and better +models. The cottages should be rebuilt. Papa would willingly hand the +village over to me if I found the money! We would have a parish +committee to deal with the charities--oh! the Hardens would come in. The +old people should have their pensions as of right. No hopeless old age, +no cringing dependence! We would try co-operation on the land, and pull +it through. And not in Mellor only. One might be the ruler, the +regenerator of half a county!" + +Memory brought to mind in vivid sequence the figures and incidents of +the afternoon, of her village round with Mary Harden. + +"_As the eyes of servants towards the hand of their mistress_"--the old +words occurred to her as she thought of herself stepping in and out of +the cottages. Then she was ashamed of herself and rejected the image +with vehemence. Dependence was the curse of the poor. Her whole aim, of +course, should be to teach them to stand on their own feet, to know +themselves as men. But naturally they would be grateful, they would let +themselves be led. Intelligence and enthusiasm give power, and ought to +give it--power for good. No doubt, under Socialism, there will be less +scope for either, because there will be less need. But Socialism, as a +system, will not come in our generation. What we have to think for is +the transition period. The Cravens had never seen that, but Marcella saw +it. She began to feel herself a person of larger experience than they. + +As she undressed, it seemed to her as though she still felt the clinging +hands of the Hurd children round her knees, and through them, symbolised +by them, the suppliant touch of hundreds of other helpless creatures. + +She was just dropping to sleep when her own words to Aldous Raeburn +flashed across her,-- + +"Everybody is so ready to take charge of other people's lives, and look +at the result!" + +She must needs laugh at herself, but it made little matter. She fell +asleep cradled in dreams. Aldous Raeburn's final part in them was not +great! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Mrs. Boyce wrote her note to Miss Raeburn, a note containing cold though +civil excuses as to herself, while accepting the invitation for +Marcella, who should be sent to the Court, either in the carriage or +under the escort of a maid who could bring her back. Marcella found her +mother inclined to insist punctiliously on conventions of this kind. It +amused her, in submitting to them, to remember the free and easy ways of +her London life. But she submitted--and not unwillingly. + +On the afternoon of the day which intervened between the Maxwells' call +and her introduction to the Court, Marcella walked as usual down to the +village. She was teeming with plans for her new kingdom, and could not +keep herself out of it. And an entry in one of the local papers had +suggested to her that Hurd might possibly find work in a parish some +miles from Mellor. She must go and send him off there. + +When Mrs. Hurd opened the door to her, Marcella was astonished to +perceive behind her the forms of several other persons filling up the +narrow space of the usually solitary cottage--in fact, a tea-party. + +"Oh, come in, miss," said Mrs. Hurd, with some embarrassment, as though +it occurred to her that her visitor might legitimately wonder to find a +person of her penury entertaining company. Then, lowering her voice, +she hurriedly explained: "There's Mrs. Brunt come in this afternoon to +help me wi' the washin' while I finished my score of plait for the woman +who takes 'em into town to-morrow. And there's old Patton an' his +wife--you know 'em, miss?--them as lives in the parish houses top o' the +common. He's walked out a few steps to-day. It's not often he's able, +and when I see him through the door I said to 'em, 'if you'll come in +an' take a cheer, I dessay them tea-leaves 'ull stan' another wettin'. I +haven't got nothink else.' And there's Mrs. Jellison, she came in along +o' the Pattons. You can't say her no, she's a queer one. Do you know +her, miss?" + +"Oh, bless yer, yes, yes. She knows me!" said a high, jocular voice, +making Mrs. Hurd start; "she couldn't be long hereabouts without makkin' +eeaste to know me. You coom in, miss. We're not afraid o' you--Lor' +bless you!" + +Mrs. Hurd stood aside for her visitor to pass in, looking round her the +while, in some perplexity, to see whether there was a spare chair and +room to place it. She was a delicate, willowy woman, still young in +figure, with a fresh colour, belied by the grey circles under the eyes +and the pinched sharpness of the features. The upper lip, which was +pretty and childish, was raised a little over the teeth; the whole +expression of the slightly open mouth was unusually soft and sensitive. +On the whole, Minta Hurd was liked in the village, though she was +thought a trifle "fine." The whole family, indeed, "kept theirsels to +theirsels," and to find Mrs. Hurd with company was unusual. Her name, +of course, was short for Araminta. + +Marcella laughed as she caught Mrs. Jellison's remarks, and made her way +in, delighted. For the present, these village people affected her like +figures in poetry or drama. She saw them with the eye of the imagination +through a medium provided by Socialist discussion, or by certain phases +of modern art; and the little scene of Mrs. Hurd's tea-party took for +her in an instant the dramatic zest and glamour. + +"Look here, Mrs. Jellison," she said, going up to her; "I was just going +to leave these apples for your grandson. Perhaps you'll take them, now +you're here. They're quite sweet, though they look green. They're the +best we've got, the gardener says." + +"Oh, they are, are they?" said Mrs. Jellison, composedly, looking up at +her. "Well, put 'em down, miss. I dare say he'll eat 'em. He eats most +things, and don't want no doctor's stuff nayther, though his mother do +keep on at me for spoilin' his stummuck." + +"You are just fond of that boy, aren't you, Mrs. Jellison?" said +Marcella, taking a wooden stool, the only piece of furniture left in the +tiny cottage on which it was possible to sit, and squeezing herself into +a corner by the fire, whence she commanded the whole group. "No! don't +you turn Mr. Patton out of that chair, Mrs. Hurd, or I shall have to go +away." + +For Mrs. Hurd, in her anxiety, was whispering in old Patton's ear that +it might be well for him to give up her one wooden arm-chair, in which +he was established, to Miss Boyce. But he, being old, deaf, and +rheumatic, was slow to move, and Marcella's peremptory gesture bade her +leave him in peace. + +"Well, it's you that's the young 'un, ain't it, miss?" said Mrs. +Jellison, cheerfully. "Poor old Patton, he do get slow on his legs, +don't you, Patton? But there, there's no helping it when you're turned +of eighty." + +And she turned upon him a bright, philosophic eye, being herself a young +thing not much over seventy, and energetic accordingly. Mrs. Jellison +passed for the village wit, and was at least talkative and excitable +beyond her fellows. + +"Well, _you_ don't seem to mind getting old, Mrs. Jellison," said +Marcella, smiling at her. + +The eyes of all the old people round their tea-table were by now drawn +irresistibly to Miss Boyce in the chimney corner, to her slim grace, and +the splendour of her large black hat and feathers. The new squire's +daughter had so far taken them by surprise. Some of them, however, were +by now in the second stage of critical observation--none the less +critical because furtive and inarticulate. + +"Ah?" said Mrs. Jellison, interrogatively, with a high, long-drawn note +peculiar to her. "Well, I've never found you get forrarder wi' snarlin' +over what you can't help. And there's mercies. When you've had a husband +in his bed for fower year, miss, and he's took at last, you'll _know_." + +She nodded emphatically. Marcella laughed. + +"I know you were very fond of him, Mrs. Jellison, and looked after him +very well, too." + +"Oh, I don't say nothin' about that," said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "But +all the same you kin reckon it up, and see for yoursen. Fower year--an' +fire upstairs, an' fire downstairs, an' fire all night, an' soomthin' +allus wanted. An' he such an objeck afore he died! It do seem like a +holiday now to sit a bit." + +And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of content. A +lock of grey hair had escaped from her bonnet, across her wrinkled +forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish air. Her youth of long +ago--a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity for +physical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, even +through her load of years. But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, +as of one fed with humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the +trouble of communicating them. + +"Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you," said Mrs. Brunt, with a +sigh, "though she took a deal more lookin' after nor your good man, Mrs. +Jellison." + +Mrs. Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in another of the +village almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and was always ready to +help her neighbours in their domestic toils. Her last remaining +daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal disease, had died some nine or +ten months before the Boyces arrived at Mellor. Marcella had already +heard the story several times, but it was part of her social gift that +she was a good listener to such things even at the twentieth hearing. + +"You wouldn't have her back though," she said gently, turning towards +the speaker. + +"No, I wouldn't have her back, miss," said Mrs. Brunt, raising her hand +to brush away a tear, partly the result of feeling, partly of a +long-established habit. "But I do miss her nights terrible! 'Mother, +ain't it ten o'clock?--mother, look at the clock, do, mother--ain't it +time for my stuff, mother--oh, I do _hope_ it is.' That was her stuff, +miss, to make her sleep. And when she'd got it, she'd _groan_--you'd +think she couldn't be asleep, and yet she was, dead-like--for two hours. +I didn't get no rest with her, and now I don't seem to get no rest +without her." + +And again Mrs. Brunt put her hand up to her eyes. + +"Ah, you were allus one for toilin' an' frettin'," said Mrs. Jellison, +calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's there, but I don't +hold wi' thinkin' about it when it's done." + +"I know one," said old Patton, slily, "that fretted about _her_ darter +when it didn't do her no good." + +He had not spoken so far, but had sat with his hands on his stick, a +spectator of the women's humours. He was a little hunched man, twisted +and bent double with rheumatic gout, the fruit of seventy years of field +work. His small face was almost lost, dog-like, under shaggy hair and +overgrown eyebrows, both snow-white. He had a look of irritable +eagerness, seldom, however, expressed in words. A sudden passion in the +faded blue eyes; a quick spot of red in his old cheeks; these Marcella +had often noticed in him, as though the flame of some inner furnace +leapt. He had been a Radical and a rebel once in old rick-burning days, +long before he lost the power in his limbs and came down to be thankful +for one of the parish almshouses. To his social betters he was now a +quiet and peaceable old man, well aware of the cakes and ale to be got +by good manners; but in the depths of him there were reminiscences and +the ghosts of passions, which were still stirred sometimes by causes not +always intelligible to the bystander. + +He had rarely, however, physical energy enough to bring any +emotion--even of mere worry at his physical ills--to the birth. The +pathetic silence of age enwrapped him more and more. Still he could gibe +the women sometimes, especially Mrs. Jellison, who was in general too +clever for her company. + +"Oh, you may talk, Patton!" said Mrs. Jellison, with a little flash of +excitement. "You do like to have your talk, don't you! Well, I dare say +I _was_ orkard with Isabella. I won't go for to say I _wasn't_ orkard, +for I _was_. She should ha' used me to 't before, if she wor took that +way. She and I had just settled down comfortable after my old man went, +and I didn't see no sense in it, an' I don't now. She might ha' let the +men alone. She'd seen enough o' the worrit ov 'em." + +"Well, she did well for hersen," said Mrs. Brunt, with the same gentle +melancholy. "She married a stiddy man as 'ull keep her well all her +time, and never let her want for nothink." + +"A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew," said Mrs. Jellison, +grudgingly. "I don't have nothink to say to him, nor he to me. He thinks +hissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they gi'en him his uniform, and made +him full keeper. A nassty, domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allus +makin' bad blood wi' the yoong fellers when he don't need. It's the way +he's got wi' 'im. But _I_ don't make no account of 'im, an' I let 'im +see 't." + +All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd. The village was well +acquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her son-in-law, +George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison at the mature age of +thirty-five to leave her mother and marry him, and was now one of Lord +Maxwell's keepers, with good pay, and an excellent cottage some little +way out of the village. Mrs. Jellison had never forgiven her daughter +for deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with her +son-in-law; but their only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft +spot in his grandmother, and her favourite excitement in life, now that +he was four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him on +the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved. + +Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile. At the mention of Westall, +she got up hastily, and began to put away the tea things. + +Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful. + +"You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs. Jellison?" she +said, looking up. "Is there much poaching in this village now, do you +think?" + +There was a dead silence. Mrs. Hurd was at the other end of the cottage +with her back to Marcella; at the question, her hands paused an instant +in their work. The eyes of all the old people--of Patton and his wife, +of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs. Brunt--were fixed on the speaker, but +nobody said a word, not even Mrs. Jellison. Marcella coloured. + +"Oh, you needn't suppose--" she said, throwing her beautiful head back, +"you needn't suppose that _I_ care about the game, or that I would ever +be mean enough to tell anything that was told me. I know it _does_ +cause a great deal of quarrelling and bad blood. I believe it does +here--and I should like to know more about it. I want to make up my mind +what to think. Of course, my father has got his land and his own +opinions. And Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like +either of them--I should like you to understand that. It seems to me +right about all such things that people should enquire and find out for +themselves." + +Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a sly +provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to poke +him in the ribs. But she was not going to help him out; and at last the +one male in the company found himself obliged to clear his throat for +reply. + +"We're old folks, most on us, miss, 'cept Mrs. Hurd. We don't hear talk +o' things now like as we did when we were younger. If you ast Mr. Harden +he'll tell you, I dessay." + +Patton allowed himself an inward chuckle. Even Mrs. Jellison, he +thought, must admit that he knew a thing or two as to the best way of +dealing with the gentry. + +But Marcella fixed him with her bright frank eyes. + +"I had rather ask in the village," she said. "If you don't know how it +is now, Mr. Patton, tell me how it used to be when you were young. Was +the preserving very strict about here? Were there often fights, with the +keepers--long ago?--in my grandfather's days?--and do you think men +poached because they were hungry, or because they wanted sport?" + +Patton looked at her fixedly a moment undecided, then her strong +nervous youth seemed to exercise a kind of compulsion on him; perhaps, +too, the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared his throat again, and +tried to forget Mrs. Jellison, who would be sure to let him hear of it +again, whatever he said. + +"Well, I can't answer for 'em, miss, I'm sure, but if you ast _me_, I +b'lieve ther's a bit o' boath in it. Yer see it's not in human natur, +when a man's young and 's got his blood up, as he shouldn't want ter +have 'is sport with the wild creeturs. Perhaps he see 'em when ee's +going to the wood with a wood cart--or he cooms across 'em in the +turnips--wounded birds, you understan', miss, perhaps the day after the +gentry 'as been bangin' at 'em all day. An' ee don't see, not for the +life of 'im, why ee shouldn't have 'em. Ther's bin lots an' lots for the +rich folks, an' he don't see why _ee_ shouldn't have a few arter they've +enjoyed theirselves. And mebbe he's eleven shillin' a week--an' +two-threy little chillen--you understan', miss?" + +"Of course I understand!" said Marcella, eagerly, her dark cheek +flushing. "Of course I do! But there's a good deal of game given away in +these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Maxwell does, and they say Lord +Winterbourne gives all his labourers rabbits, almost as many as they +want." + +Her questions wound old Patton up as though he had been a disused clock. +He began to feel a whirr among his creaking wheels, a shaking of all his +rusty mind. + +"Perhaps they do, miss," he said, and his wife saw that he was beginning +to tremble. "I dessay they do--I don't say nothink agen it--though +theer's none of it cooms my way. But that isn't all the rights on it +nayther--no, that it ain't. The labourin' man ee's glad enough to get a +hare or a rabbit for 'is eatin'--but there's more in it nor that, miss. +Ee's allus in the fields, that's where it is--ee can't help seein' the +hares and the rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver +so. Ee knows ivery run ov ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest +corner o' t' field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because he's +allus there, you see, miss, an' it's the only thing he's got to take his +mind off like. And then he sets a snare or two--an' ee gits very sharp +at settin' on 'em--an' ee'll go out nights for the sport of it. Ther +isn't many things _ee's_ got to liven him up; an' ee takes 'is chances +o' goin' to jail--it's wuth it, ee thinks." + +The old man's hands on his stick shook more and more visibly. Bygones of +his youth had come back to him. + +"Oh, I know! I know!" cried Marcella, with an accent half of +indignation, half of despair. "It's the whole wretched system. It spoils +those who've got, and those who haven't got. And there'll be no mending +it till the _people_ get the land back again, and till the rights on it +are common to all." + +"My! she do speak up, don't she?" said Mrs. Jellison, grinning again at +her companions. Then, stooping forward with one of her wild movements, +she caught Marcella's arm--"I'd like to hear yer tell that to Lord +Maxwell, miss. I likes a roompus, I do." + +Marcella flushed and laughed. + +"I wouldn't mind saying that or anything else to Lord Maxwell," she said +proudly. "I'm not ashamed of anything I think." + +"No, I'll bet you ain't," said Mrs. Jellison, withdrawing her hand. "Now +then, Patton, you say what _you_ thinks. You ain't got no vote now +you're in the parish houses--I minds that. The quality don't trouble +_you_ at 'lection times. This yoong man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' +round so free, promisin' yer the sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote +for 'im, so th' men say--_ee_ don't coom an' set down along o' you an' +me, an' cocker of us up as ee do Joe Simmons or Jim Hurd here. But that +don't matter. Yur thinkin's yur own, anyway." + +But she nudged him in vain. Patton had suddenly run down, and there was +no more to be got out of him. + +Not only had nerves and speech failed him as they were wont, but in his +cloudy soul there had risen, even while Marcella was speaking, the +inevitable suspicion which dogs the relations of the poor towards the +richer class. This young lady, with her strange talk, was the new +squire's daughter. And the village had already made up its mind that +Richard Boyce was "a poor sort," and "a hard sort" too, in his landlord +capacity. He wasn't going to be any improvement on his brother--not a +haporth! What was the good of this young woman talking, as she did, when +there were three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell, just taken out by +the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages? And not a +farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps the bits of +food that the young lady herself brought down to the village now and +then, for which no one, in truth, felt any cause to be particularly +grateful. Besides, what did she mean by asking questions about the +poaching? Old Patton knew as well as anybody else in the village, that +during Robert Boyce's last days, and after the death of his sportsman +son, the Mellor estate had become the haunt of poachers from far and +near, and that the trouble had long since spread into the neighbouring +properties, so that the Winterbourne and Maxwell keepers regarded it +their most arduous business to keep watch on the men of Mellor. Of +course the young woman knew it all, and she and her father wanted to +know more. That was why she talked. Patton hardened himself against the +creeping ways of the quality. + +"I don't think nought," he said roughly in answer to Mrs. Jellison. +"Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish coffin when I'm took. I've +no call to think, I tell yer." + +Marcella's chest heaved with indignant feeling. + +"Oh, but, Mr. Patton!" she cried, leaning forward to him, "won't it +comfort you a bit, even if you can't live to see it, to think there's a +better time coming? There must be. People can't go on like this +always--hating each other and trampling on each other. They're beginning +to see it now, they are! When I was living in London, the persons I was +with talked and thought of it all day. Some day, whenever the people +choose--for they've got the power now they've got the vote--there'll be +land for everybody, and in every village there'll be a council to +manage things, and the labourer will count for just as much as the +squire and the parson, and he'll be better educated and better fed, and +care for many things he doesn't care for now. But all the same, if he +wants sport and shooting, it will be there for him to get. For everybody +will have a chance and a turn, and there'll be no bitterness between +classes, and no hopeless pining and misery as there is now!" + +The girl broke off, catching her breath. It excited her to say these +things to these people, to these poor tottering old things who had lived +out their lives to the end under the pressure of an iron system, and had +no lien on the future, whatever Paradise it might bring. Again the +situation had something foreseen and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as +the preacher, sitting on her stool beside the poor grate--she realised +as a spectator the figures of the women and the old man played on by the +firelight--the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in +the background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd, who +was standing with her back to the dresser, and her head bent forward, +listening to the talk while her fingers twisted the straw she plaited +eternally from morning till night, for a wage of about 1s. 3d. a week: + +Her mind was all aflame with excitement and defiance--defiance of her +father, Lord Maxwell, Aldous Raeburn. Let him come, her friend, and see +for himself what she thought it right to do and say in this miserable +village. Her soul challenged him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was +soon to meet him, and in a new and more significant relation and +environment. The fact made her perception of the whole situation the +more rich and vibrant. + +Patton, while these broken thoughts and sensations were coursing through +Marcella's head, was slowly revolving what she had been saying, and the +others were waiting for him. + +At last he rolled his tongue round his dry lips and delivered himself by +a final effort. + +"Them as likes, miss, may believe as how things are going to happen that +way, but yer won't ketch me! Them as have got 'ull _keep_"--he let his +stick sharply down on the floor--"an' them as 'aven't got 'ull 'ave to +go without and _lump it_--as long as you're alive, miss, you mark my +words!" + +"Oh, Lor', you wor allus one for makin' a poor mouth, Patton!" said Mrs. +Jellison. She had been sitting with her arms folded across her chest, +part absent, part amused, part malicious. "The young lady speaks +beautiful, just like a book she do. An' she's likely to know a deal +better nor poor persons like you and me. All _I_ kin say is,--if there's +goin' to be dividin' up of other folks' property, when I'm gone, I hope +George Westall won't get nothink ov it! He's bad enough as 'tis. +Isabella 'ud have a fine time if _ee_ took to drivin' ov his carriage." + +The others laughed out, Marcella at their head, and Mrs. Jellison +subsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her eyes shining +as though a host of entertaining notions were trooping through +her--which, however, she preferred to amuse herself with rather than the +public. Marcella looked at Patton thoughtfully. + +"You've been all your life in this village, haven't you, Mr. Patton?" +she asked him. + +"Born top o' Witchett's Hill, miss. An' my wife here, she wor born just +a house or two further along, an' we two bin married sixty-one year come +next March." + +He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little plaintive. +His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long +fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth +set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most +of her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate +quaver. + +"D'ye know, miss," said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Patton, "as she +kep' school when she was young?" + +"Did you, Mrs. Patton?" asked Marcella in her tone of sympathetic +interest. "The school wasn't very big then, I suppose?" + +"About forty, miss," said Mrs. Patton, with a sigh. "There was eighteen +the Rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid for, and the rest paid +for themselves." + +Her voice dropped gently, and she sighed again like one weighted with an +eternal fatigue. + +"And what did you teach them?" + +"Well, I taught them the plaitin', miss, and as much readin' and writin' +as I knew myself. It wasn't as high as it is now, you see, miss," and a +delicate flush dawned on the old cheek as Mrs. Patton threw a glance +round her companions as though appealing to them not to tell stories of +her. + +But Mrs. Jellison was implacable. "It wor she taught _me_," she said, +nodding at Marcella and pointing sideways to Mrs. Patton. "She had a +queer way wi' the hard words, I can tell yer, miss. When she couldn't +tell 'em herself she'd never own up to it. 'Say Jerusalem, my dear, and +pass on.' That's what she'd say, she would, sure's as you're alive! I've +heard her do it times. An' when Isabella an' me used to read the Bible, +nights, I'd allus rayther do 't than be beholden to me own darter. It +gets yer through, anyway." + +"Well, it wor a good word," said Mrs. Patton, blushing and mildly +defending herself. "It didn't do none of yer any harm." + +"Oh, an' before her, miss, I went to a school to another woman, as lived +up Shepherd's Row. You remember her, Betsy Brunt?" + +Mrs. Brunt's worn eyes began already to gleam and sparkle. + +"Yis, I recolleck very well, Mrs. Jellison. She wor Mercy Moss, an' a +goodish deal of trouble you'd use to get me into wi' Mercy Moss, all +along o' your tricks." + +Mrs. Jellison, still with folded arms, began to rock herself gently up +and down as though to stimulate memory. + +"My word, but Muster Maurice--he wor the clergyman here then, miss--wor +set on Mercy Moss. He and his wife they flattered and cockered her up. +Ther wor nobody like her for keepin' school, not in their eyes--till one +midsummer--she--well she--I don't want to say nothink onpleasant--_but +she transgressed_," said Mrs. Jellison, nodding mysteriously, +triumphant however in the unimpeachable delicacy of her language, and +looking round the circle for approval. + +"What do you say?" asked Marcella, innocently. "What did Mercy Moss do?" + +Mrs. Jellison's eyes danced with malice and mischief, but her mouth shut +like a vice. Patton leaned forward on his stick, shaken with a sort of +inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed under her breath till she +must needs sigh because laughter tired her old bones. Mrs. Brunt gurgled +gently. And finally Mrs. Jellison was carried away. + +"Oh, my goodness me, don't you make me tell tales o' Mercy Moss!" she +said at last, dashing the water out of her eyes with an excited +tremulous hand. "She's bin dead and gone these forty year--married and +buried mos' respeckable--it 'ud be a burning shame to bring up tales +agen her now. Them as tittle-tattles about dead folks needn't look to +lie quiet theirselves in their graves. I've said it times, and I'll say +it again. What are you lookin' at me for, Betsy Brunt?" + +And Mrs. Jellison drew up suddenly with a fierce glance at Mrs. Brunt. + +"Why, Mrs. Jellison, I niver meant no offence," said Mrs. Brunt, +hastily. + +"I won't stand no insinooating," said Mrs. Jellison, with energy. "If +you've got soomthink agen me, you may out wi' 't an' niver mind the +young lady." + +But Mrs. Brunt, much flurried, retreated amid a shower of excuses, +pursued by her enemy, who was soon worrying the whole little company, as +a dog worries a flock of sheep, snapping here and teasing there, +chattering at the top of her voice in broad dialect, as she got more and +more excited, and quite as ready to break her wit on Marcella as on +anybody else. As for the others, most of them had known little else for +weeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused +and excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is by +his favourite low comedian at his favourite music-hall. They played +chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn against +his will into a caustic sociability. + +Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand, and her +full glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorbing it all +with a covetous curiosity. + +The light-heartedness, the power of enjoyment left in these old folk +struck her dumb. Mrs. Brunt had an income of two-and-sixpence a week, +_plus_ two loaves from the parish, and one of the parish or "charity" +houses, a hovel, that is to say, of one room, scarcely fit for human +habitation at all. She had lost five children, was allowed two shillings +a week by two labourer sons, and earned sixpence a week--about--by +continuous work at "the plait." Her husband had been run over by a farm +cart and killed; up to the time of his death his earnings averaged about +twenty-eight pounds a year. Much the same with the Pattons. They had +lost eight children out of ten, and were now mainly supported by the +wages of a daughter in service. Mrs. Patton had of late years suffered +agonies and humiliations indescribable, from a terrible illness which +the parish doctor was quite incompetent to treat, being all through a +singularly sensitive woman, with a natural instinct for the decorous and +the beautiful. + +Amazing! Starvation wages; hardships of sickness and pain; horrors of +birth and horrors of death; wholesale losses of kindred and friends; the +meanest surroundings; the most sordid cares--of this mingled cup of +village fate every person in the room had drunk, and drunk deep. Yet +here in this autumn twilight, they laughed and chattered, and +joked--weird, wrinkled children, enjoying an hour's rough play in a +clearing of the storm! Dependent from birth to death on squire, parson, +parish, crushed often, and ill-treated, according to their own ideas, +but bearing so little ill-will; amusing themselves with their own +tragedies even, if they could but sit by a fire and drink a neighbour's +cup of tea. + +Her heart swelled and burned within her. Yes, the old people were past +hoping for; mere wreck and driftwood on the shore, the spring-tide of +death would soon have swept them all into unremembered graves. But the +young men and women, the children, were they too to grow up, and grow +old like these--the same smiling, stunted, ignobly submissive creatures? +One woman at least would do her best with her one poor life to rouse +some of them to discontent and revolt! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The fire sank, and Mrs. Hurd made no haste to light her lamp. Soon the +old people were dim chattering shapes in a red darkness. Mrs. Hurd still +plaited, silent and upright, lifting her head every now and then at each +sound upon the road. + +At last there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Hurd ran to open it. + +"Mother, I'm going your way," said a strident voice. "I'll help you home +if you've a mind." + +On the threshold stood Mrs. Jellison's daughter, Mrs. Westall, with her +little boy beside her, the woman's broad shoulders and harsh striking +head standing out against the pale sky behind. Marcella noticed that she +greeted none of the old people, nor they her. And as for Mrs. Hurd, as +soon as she saw the keeper's wife, she turned her back abruptly on her +visitor, and walked to the other end of the kitchen. + +"Are you comin', mother?" repeated Isabella. + +Mrs. Jellison grumbled, gibed at her, and made long leave-takings, while +the daughter stood silent, waiting, and every now and then peering at +Marcella, who had never seen her before. + +"I don' know where yur manners is," said Mrs. Jellison sharply to her, +as though she had been a child of ten, "that you don't say good evenin' +to the young lady." + +Mrs. Westall curtsied low, and hoped she might be excused, as it had +grown so dark. Her tone was smooth and servile, and Marcella disliked +her as she shook hands with her. + +The other old people, including Mrs. Brunt, departed a minute or two +after the mother and daughter, and Marcella was left an instant with +Mrs. Hurd. + +"Oh, thank you, thank you kindly, miss," said Mrs. Hurd, raising her +apron to her eyes to staunch some irrepressible tears, as Marcella +showed her the advertisement which it might possibly be worth Hurd's +while to answer. "He'll try, you may be sure. But I can't think as how +anythink 'ull come ov it." + +And then suddenly, as though something unexplained had upset her +self-control, the poor patient creature utterly broke down. Leaning +against the bare shelves which held their few pots and pans, she threw +her apron over her head and burst into the forlornest weeping. "I wish I +was dead; I wish I was dead, an' the chillen too!" + +Marcella hung over her, one flame of passionate pity, comforting, +soothing, promising help. Mrs. Hurd presently recovered enough to tell +her that Hurd had gone off that morning before it was light to a farm +near Thame, where it had been told him he might possibly find a job. + +"But he'll not find it, miss, he'll not find it," she said, twisting her +hands in a sort of restless misery; "there's nothing good happens to +such as us. An' he wor allus a one to work if he could get it." + +There was a sound outside. Mrs. Hurd flew to the door, and a short, +deformed man, with a large head and red hair, stumbled in blindly, +splashed with mud up to his waist, and evidently spent with long +walking. + +He stopped on the threshold, straining his eyes to see through the +fire-lit gloom. + +"It's Miss Boyce, Jim," said his wife. "Did you hear of anythink?" + +"They're turnin' off hands instead of takin' ov 'em on," he said +briefly, and fell into a chair by the grate. + +He had hardly greeted Marcella, who had certainly looked to be greeted. +Ever since her arrival in August, as she had told Aldous Raeburn, she +had taken a warm interest in this man and his family. There was +something about them which marked them out a bit from their +fellows--whether it was the husband's strange but not repulsive +deformity, contrasted with the touch of plaintive grace in the wife, or +the charm of the elfish children, with their tiny stick-like arms and +legs, and the glancing wildness of their blue eyes, under the frizzle of +red hair, which shone round their little sickly faces. Very soon she had +begun to haunt them in her eager way, to try and penetrate their peasant +lives, which were so full of enigma and attraction to her, mainly +because of their very defectiveness, their closeness to an animal +simplicity, never to be reached by any one of her sort. She soon +discovered or imagined that Hurd had more education than his neighbours. +At any rate, he would sit listening to her--and smoking, as she made him +do--while she talked politics and socialism to him; and though he said +little in return, she made the most of it, and was sure anyway that he +was glad to see her come in, and must some time read the labour +newspapers and Venturist leaflets she brought him, for they were always +well thumbed before they came back to her. + +But to-night his sullen weariness would make no effort, and the hunted +restless glances he threw from side to side as he sat crouching over the +fire--the large mouth tight shut, the nostrils working--showed her that +he would be glad when she went away. + +Her young exacting temper was piqued. She had been for some time trying +to arrange their lives for them. So, in spite of his dumb resistance, +she lingered on, questioning and suggesting. As to the advertisement she +had brought down, he put it aside almost without looking at it. "There +ud be a hun'erd men after it before ever he could get there," was all he +would say to it. Then she inquired if he had been to ask the steward of +the Maxwell Court estate for work. He did not answer, but Mrs. Hurd said +timidly that she heard tell a new drive was to be made that winter for +the sake of giving employment. But their own men on the estate would +come first, and there were plenty of them out of work. + +"Well, but there is the game," persisted Marcella. "Isn't it possible +they might want some extra men now the pheasant shooting has begun. I +might go and inquire of Westall--I know him a little." + +The wife made a startled movement, and Hurd raised his misshapen form +with a jerk. + +"Thank yer, miss, but I'll not trouble yer. I don't want nothing to do +with Westall." + +And taking up a bit of half-burnt wood which lay on the hearth, he threw +it violently back into the grate. Marcella looked from one to the other +with surprise. Mrs. Hurd's expression was one of miserable discomfort, +and she kept twisting her apron in her gnarled hands. + +"Yes, I _shall_ tell, Jim!" she broke out. "I shall. I know Miss Boyce +is one as ull understand--" + +Hurd turned round and looked at his wife full. But she persisted. + +"You see, miss, they don't speak, don't Jim and George Westall. When Jim +was quite a lad he was employed at Mellor, under old Westall, George's +father as was. Jim was 'watcher,' and young George he was assistant. +That was in Mr. Robert's days, you understand, miss--when Master Harold +was alive; and they took a deal o' trouble about the game. An' George +Westall, he was allays leading the others a life--tale-bearing an' +spyin', an' settin' his father against any of 'em as didn't give in to +him. An', oh, he behaved _fearful_ to Jim! Jim ull tell you. Now, Jim, +what's wrong with you--why shouldn't I tell?" + +For Hurd had risen, and as he and his wife looked at each other a sort +of mute conversation seemed to pass between them. Then he turned +angrily, and went out of the cottage by the back door into the garden. + +The wife sat in some agitation a moment, then she resumed. "He can't +bear no talk about Westall--it seems to drive him silly. But I say as +how people _should_ know." + +Her wavering eye seemed to interrogate her companion. Marcella was +puzzled by her manner--it was so far from simple. + +"But that was long ago, surely," she said. + +"Yes, it wor long ago, but you don't forget them things, miss! An' +Westall, he's just the same sort as he was then, so folks say," she +added hurriedly. "You see Jim, miss, how he's made? His back was twisted +that way when he was a little un. His father was a good old +man--everybody spoke well of 'im--but his mother, she was a queer mad +body, with red hair, just like Jim and the children, and a temper! my +word. They do say she was an Irish girl, out of a gang as used to work +near here--an' she let him drop one day when she was in liquor, an' +never took no trouble about him afterwards. He was a poor sickly lad, he +was! you'd wonder how he grew up at all. And oh! George Westall he +treated him _cruel_. He'd kick and swear at him; then he'd dare him to +fight, an' thrash him till the others came in, an' got him away. Then +he'd carry tales to his father, and one day old Westall beat Jim within +an inch of 'is life, with a strap end, because of a lie George told 'im. +The poor chap lay in a ditch under Disley Wood all day, because he was +that knocked about he couldn't walk, and at night he crawled home on his +hands and knees. He's shown me the place many a time! Then he told his +father, and next morning he told me, as he couldn't stand it no longer, +an' he never went back no more." + +"And he told no one else?--he never complained?" asked Marcella, +indignantly. + +"What ud ha been the good o' that, miss?" Mrs. Hurd said, wondering. +"Nobody ud ha taken his word agen old Westall's. But he come and told +me. I was housemaid at Lady Leven's then, an' he and his father were old +friends of ourn. And I knew George Westall too. He used to walk out with +me of a Sunday, just as civil as could be, and give my mother rabbits +now and again, and do anything I'd ask him. An' I up and told him he was +a brute to go ill-treatin' a sickly fellow as couldn't pay him back. +That made him as cross as vinegar, an' when Jim began to be about with +me ov a Sunday sometimes, instead of him, he got madder and madder. An' +Jim asked me to marry him--he begged of me--an' I didn't know what to +say. For Westall had asked me twice; an' I was afeard of Jim's health, +an' the low wages he'd get, an' of not bein' strong myself. But one day +I was going up a lane into Tudley End woods, an' I heard George Westall +on tother side of the hedge with a young dog he was training. Somethin' +crossed him, an' he flew into a passion with it. It turned me _sick_. I +ran away and I took against him there and then. I was frightened of him. +I duresn't trust myself, and I said to Jim I'd take him. So you can +understan', miss, can't you, as Jim don't want to have nothing to do +with Westall? Thank you kindly, all the same," she added, breaking off +her narrative with the same uncertainty of manner, the same timid +scrutiny of her visitor that Marcella had noticed before. + +Marcella replied that she could certainly understand. + +"But I suppose they've not got in each other's way of late years," she +said as she rose to go. + +"Oh! no, miss, no," said Mrs. Hurd as she went hurriedly to fetch a fur +tippet which her visitor had laid down on the dresser. + +"There is _one_ person I can speak to," said Marcella, as she put on the +wrap. "And I will." Against her will she reddened a little; but she had +not been able to help throwing out the promise. "And now, you won't +despair, will you? You'll trust me? I could always do something." + +She took Mrs. Hurd's hand with a sweet look and gesture. Standing there +in her tall vigorous youth, her furs wrapped about her, she had the air +of protecting and guiding this poverty that could not help itself. The +mother and wife felt herself shy, intimidated. The tears came back to +her brown eyes. + + * * * * * + +When Miss Boyce had gone, Minta Hurd went to the fire and put it +together, sighing all the time, her face still red and miserable. + +The door opened and her husband came in. He carried some potatoes in his +great earth-stained hands. + +"You're goin' to put that bit of hare on? Well, mak' eeaste, do, for I'm +starvin'. What did she want to stay all that time for? You go and get +it. I'll blow the fire up--damn these sticks!--they're as wet as Dugnall +pond." + +Nevertheless, as she sadly came and went, preparing the supper, she saw +that he was appeased, in a better temper than before. + +"What did you tell 'er?" he asked abruptly. + +"What do you spose I'd tell her? I acted for the best. I'm always +thinkin' for you!" she said as though with a little cry, "or we'd soon +be in trouble--worse trouble than we are!" she added miserably. + +He stopped working the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his long +chin, stared into the flames. With his deformity, his earth-stains, his +blue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he had +the look of some strange gnome crouching there. + +"I don't know what you're at, I'll swear," he said after a pause. "I +ain't in any pertickler trouble just now--if yer wouldn't send a fellow +stumpin' the country for nothink. If you'll just let me alone I'll get a +livin' for you and the chillen right enough. Don't you trouble +yourself--an' hold your tongue!" + +She threw down her apron with a gesture of despair as she stood beside +him, in front of the fire, watching the pan. + +"What am I to do, Jim, an' them chillen--when you're took to prison?" +she asked him vehemently. + +"I shan't get took to prison, I tell yer. All the same, Westall got holt +o' me this mornin'. I thought praps you'd better know." + +Her exclamation of terror, her wild look at him, were exactly what he +had expected; nevertheless, he flinched before them. His brutality was +mostly assumed. He had adopted it as a mask for more than a year past, +because he _must_ go his way, and she worried him. + +"Now look here," he said resolutely, "it don't matter. I'm not goin' to +be took by Westall. I'd kill him or myself first. But he caught me +lookin' at a snare this mornin'--it wor misty, and I didn't see no one +comin'. It wor close to the footpath, and it worn't my snare." + +"'Jim, my chap,' says he, mockin', 'I'm sorry for it, but I'm going to +search yer, so take it quietly,' says he. He had young Dynes with +him--so I didn't say nought--I kep' as still as a mouse, an' sure enough +he put his ugly han's into all my pockets. An' what do yer think he +foun'?" + +"What?" she said breathlessly. + +"Nothink!" he laughed out. "Nary an end o' string, nor a kink o' +wire--nothink. I'd hidden the two rabbits I got las' night, and all my +bits o' things in a ditch far enough out o' his way. I just laughed at +the look ov 'im. 'I'll have the law on yer for assault an' battery, yer +damned miscalculatin' brute!' says I to him--'why don't yer get that boy +there to teach yer your business?' An' off I walked. Don't you be +afeared--'ee'll never lay hands on me!" + +But Minta was sore afraid, and went on talking and lamenting while she +made the tea. He took little heed of her. He sat by the fire quivering +and thinking. In a public-house two nights before this one, overtures +had been made to him on behalf of a well-known gang of poachers with +head-quarters in a neighbouring county town, who had their eyes on the +pheasant preserves in Westall's particular beat--the Tudley End +beat--and wanted a local watcher and accomplice. He had thought the +matter at first too dangerous to touch. Moreover, he was at that moment +in a period of transition, pestered by Minta to give up "the poachin'," +and yet drawn back to it after his spring and summer of field work by +instincts only recently revived, after long dormancy, but now hard to +resist. + +Presently he turned with anger upon one of Minta's wails which happened +to reach him. + +"Look 'ere!" said he to her, "where ud you an' the chillen be this night +if I 'adn't done it? 'Adn't we got rid of every stick o' stuff we iver +'ad? 'Ere's a well-furnished place for a chap to sit in!"--he glanced +bitterly round the bare kitchen, which had none of the little properties +of the country poor, no chest, no set of mahogany drawers, no +comfortable chair, nothing, but the dresser and the few rush chairs and +the table, and a few odds and ends of crockery and household +stuff--"wouldn't we all a bin on the parish, if we 'adn't starved +fust--_wouldn't_ we?--jes' answer me that! _Didn't_ we sit here an' +starve, till the bones was comin' through the chillen's skin?--didn't +we?" + +That he could still argue the point with her showed the inner +vulnerableness, the inner need of her affection and of peace with her, +which he still felt, far as certain new habits were beginning to sweep +him from her. + +"It's Westall or Jenkins (Jenkins was the village policeman) havin' the +_law_ on yer, Jim," she said with emphasis, putting down a cup and +looking at him--it's the thought of _that_ makes me cold in my back. +None o' _my_ people was ever in prison--an' if it 'appened to you I +should just die of shame!" + +"Then yer'd better take and read them papers there as _she_ brought," he +said impatiently, first jerking his finger over his shoulder in the +direction of Mellor to indicate Miss Boyce, and then pointing to a heap +of newspapers which lay on the floor in a corner, "they'd tell yer +summat about the shame o' _makin_' them game-laws--not o' breakin' ov +'em. But I'm sick o' this! Where's them chillen? Why do yer let that boy +out so late?" + +And opening the door he stood on the threshold looking up and down the +village street, while Minta once more gave up the struggle, dried her +eyes, and told herself to be cheerful. But it was hard. She was far +better born and better educated than her husband. Her father had been a +small master chair-maker in Wycombe, and her mother, a lackadaisical +silly woman, had given her her "fine" name by way of additional proof +that she and her children were something out of the common. Moreover, +she had the conforming law-abiding instincts of the well-treated +domestic servant, who has lived on kindly terms with the gentry and +shared their standards. And for years after their marriage Hurd had +allowed her to govern him. He had been so patient, so hard-working, such +a kind husband and father, so full of a dumb wish to show her he was +grateful to her for marrying such a fellow as he. The quarrel with +Westall seemed to have sunk out of his mind. He never spoke to or of +him. Low wages, the burden of quick-coming children, the bad sanitary +conditions of their wretched cottage, and poor health, had made their +lives one long and sordid struggle. But for years he had borne his load +with extraordinary patience. He and his could just exist, and the man +who had been in youth the lonely victim of his neighbours' scorn had +found a woman to give him all herself and children to love. Hence years +of submission, a hidden flowering time for both of them. + +Till that last awful winter!--the winter before Richard Boyce's +succession to Mellor--when the farmers had been mostly ruined, and half +the able-bodied men of Mellor had tramped "up into the smoke," as the +village put it, in search of London work--then, out of actual sheer +starvation--that very rare excuse of the poacher!--Hurd had gone one +night and snared a hare on the Mellor land. Would the wife and mother +ever forget the pure animal satisfaction of that meal, or the fearful +joy of the next night, when he got three shillings from a local publican +for a hare and two rabbits? + +But after the first relief Minta had gone in fear and trembling. For the +old woodcraft revived in Hurd, and the old passion for the fields and +their chances which he had felt as a lad before his "watcher's" place +had been made intolerable to him by George Westall's bullying. He became +excited, unmanageable. Very soon he was no longer content with Mellor, +where, since the death of young Harold, the heir, the keepers had been +dismissed, and what remained of a once numerous head of game lay open to +the wiles of all the bold spirits of the neighbourhood. He must needs go +on to those woods of Lord Maxwell's, which girdled the Mellor estate on +three sides. And here he came once more across his enemy. For George +Westall was now in the far better-paid service of the Court--and a very +clever keeper, with designs on the head keeper's post whenever it might +be vacant. In the case of a poacher he had the scent of one of his own +hares. It was known to him in an incredibly short time that that "low +caselty fellow Hurd" was attacking "his" game. + +Hurd, notwithstanding, was cunning itself, and Westall lay in wait for +him in vain. Meanwhile, all the old hatred between the two men revived. +Hurd drank this winter more than he had ever drunk yet. It was +necessary to keep on good terms with one or two publicans who acted as +"receivers" of the poached game of the neighbourhood. And it seemed to +him that Westall pursued him into these low dens. The keeper--big, +burly, prosperous--would speak to him with insolent patronage, watching +him all the time, or with the old brutality, which Hurd dared not +resent. Only in his excitable dwarf's sense hate grew and throve, very +soon to monstrous proportions. Westall's menacing figure darkened all +his sky for him. His poaching, besides a means of livelihood, became +more and more a silent duel between him and his boyhood's tyrant. + +And now, after seven months of regular field-work and respectable +living, it was all to begin again with the new winter! The same shudders +and terrors, the same shames before the gentry and Mr. Harden!--the +soft, timid woman with her conscience could not endure the prospect. For +some weeks after the harvest was over she struggled. He had begun to go +out again at nights. But she drove him to look for employment, and lived +in tears when he failed. + +As for him, she knew that he was glad to fail; there was a certain ease +and jauntiness in his air to-night as he stood calling the children: + +"Will!--you come in at once! Daisy!--Nellie!" + +Two little figures came pattering up the street in the moist October +dusk, a third, panted behind. The girls ran in to their mother +chattering and laughing. Hurd lifted the boy in his arm. + +"Where you bin, Will? What were yo out for in this nasty damp? I've +brought yo a whole pocket full o' chestnuts, and summat else too." + +He carried him in to the fire and sat him on his knees. The little +emaciated creature, flushed with the pleasure of his father's company, +played contentedly in the intervals of coughing with the shining +chestnuts, or ate his slice of the fine pear--the gift of a friend in +Thame--which proved to be the "summat else" of promise. The curtains +were close-drawn; the paraffin lamp flared on the table, and as the +savoury smell of the hare and onions on the fire filled the kitchen, the +whole family gathered round watching for the moment of eating. The fire +played on the thin legs and pinched faces of the children; on the baby's +cradle in the further corner; on the mother, red-eyed still, but able to +smile and talk again; on the strange Celtic face and matted hair of the +dwarf. Family affection--and the satisfaction of the simpler physical +needs--these things make the happiness of the poor. For this hour, +to-night, the Hurds were happy. + +Meanwhile, in the lane outside, Marcella, as she walked home, passed a +tall broad-shouldered man in a velveteen suit and gaiters, his gun over +his shoulder and two dogs behind him, his pockets bulging on either +side. He walked with a kind of military air, and touched his cap to her +as he passed. + +Marcella barely nodded. + +"Tyrant and bully!" she thought to herself with Mrs. Hurd's story in her +mind. "Yet no doubt he is a valuable keeper; Lord Maxwell would be sorry +to lose him! It is the system makes such men--and must have them." + +The clatter of a pony carriage disturbed her thoughts. A small, elderly +lady, in a very large mushroom hat, drove past her in the dusk and bowed +stiffly. Marcella was so taken by surprise that she barely returned the +bow. Then she looked after the carriage. That was Miss Raeburn. + +To-morrow! + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +"Won't you sit nearer to the window? We are rather proud of our view at +this time of year," said Miss Raeburn to Marcella, taking her visitor's +jacket from her as she spoke, and laying it aside. "Lady Winterbourne is +late, but she will come, I am sure. She is very precise about +engagements." + +Marcella moved her chair nearer to the great bow-window, and looked out +over the sloping gardens of the Court, and the autumn splendour of the +woods girdling them in on all sides. She held her head nervously erect, +was not apparently much inclined to talk, and Miss Raeburn, who had +resumed her knitting within a few paces of her guest, said to herself +presently after a few minutes' conversation on the weather and the walk +from Mellor: "Difficult--decidedly difficult--and too much manner for a +young girl. But the most picturesque creature I ever set eyes on!" + +Lord Maxwell's sister was an excellent woman, the inquisitive, +benevolent despot of all the Maxwell villages; and one of the soundest +Tories still left to a degenerate party and a changing time. Her brother +and her great-nephew represented to her the flower of human kind; she +had never been capable, and probably never would be capable, of +quarrelling with either of them on any subject whatever. At the same +time she had her rights with them. She was at any rate their natural +guardian in those matters, relating to womankind, where men are +confessedly given to folly. She had accordingly kept a shrewd eye in +Aldous's interest on all the young ladies of the neighbourhood for many +years past; knew perfectly well all that he might have done, and sighed +over all that he had so far left undone. + +At the present moment, in spite of the even good-breeding with which she +knitted and chattered beside Marcella, she was in truth consumed with +curiosity, conjecture, and alarm on the subject of this Miss Boyce. +Profoundly as they trusted each other, the Raeburns were not on the +surface a communicative family. Neither her brother nor Aldous had so +far bestowed any direct confidence upon her; but the course of affairs +had, notwithstanding, aroused her very keenest attention. In the first +place, as we know, the mistress of Maxwell Court had left Mellor and its +new occupants unvisited; she had plainly understood it to be her +brother's wish that she should do so. How, indeed, could you know the +women without knowing Richard Boyce? which, according to Lord Maxwell, +was impossible. And now it was Lord Maxwell who had suggested not only +that after all it would be kind to call upon the poor things, who were +heavily weighted enough already with Dick Boyce for husband and father, +but that it would be a graceful act on his sister's part to ask the girl +and her mother to luncheon. Dick Boyce of course must be made to keep +his distance, but the resources of civilisation were perhaps not unequal +to the task of discriminating, if it were prudently set about. At any +rate Miss Raeburn gathered that she was expected to try, and instead of +pressing her brother for explanations she held her tongue, paid her call +forthwith, and wrote her note. + +But although Aldous, thinking no doubt that he had been already +sufficiently premature, had said nothing at all as to his own feelings +to his great-aunt, she knew perfectly well that he had said a great deal +on the subject of Miss Boyce and her mother to Lady Winterbourne, the +only woman in the neighbourhood with whom he was ever really +confidential. No woman, of course, in Miss Raeburn's position, and with +Miss Raeburn's general interest in her kind, could have been ignorant +for any appreciable number of days after the Boyces' arrival at Mellor +that they possessed a handsome daughter, of whom the Hardens in +particular gave striking but, as Miss Raeburn privately thought, by no +means wholly attractive accounts. And now, after all these somewhat +agitating preliminaries, here was the girl established in the Court +drawing-room, Aldous more nervous and preoccupied than she had ever seen +him, and Lord Maxwell expressing a particular anxiety to return from his +Board meeting in good time for luncheon, to which he had especially +desired that Lady Winterbourne should be bidden, and no one else! It may +well be supposed that Miss Raeburn was on the alert. + +As for Marcella, she was on her side keenly conscious of being observed, +of having her way to make. Here she was alone among these formidable +people, whose acquaintance she had in a manner compelled. Well--what +blame? What was to prevent her from doing the same thing again +to-morrow? Her conscience was absolutely clear. If they were not ready +to meet her in the same spirit in which through Mr. Raeburn she had +approached them, she would know perfectly well how to protect +herself--above all, how to live out her life in the future without +troubling them. + +Meanwhile, in spite of her dignity and those inward propitiations it +from time to time demanded, she was, in her human vivid way, full of an +excitement and curiosity she could hardly conceal as perfectly as she +desired--curiosity as to the great house and the life in it, especially +as to Aldous Raeburn's part therein. She knew very little indeed of the +class to which by birth she belonged; great houses and great people were +strange to her. She brought her artist's and student's eyes to look at +them with; she was determined not to be dazzled or taken in by them. At +the same time, as she glanced every now and then round the splendid room +in which they sat, with its Tudor ceiling, its fine pictures, its +combination of every luxury with every refinement, she was distinctly +conscious of a certain thrill, a romantic drawing towards the +stateliness and power which it all implied, together with a proud and +careless sense of equality, of kinship so to speak, which she made light +of, but would not in reality have been without for the world. + +In birth and blood she had nothing to yield to the Raeburns--so her +mother assured her. If things were to be vulgarly measured, this fact +too must come in. But they should not be vulgarly measured. She did not +believe in class or wealth--not at all. Only--as her mother had told +her--she must hold her head up. An inward temper, which no doubt led to +that excess of manner of which Miss Raeburn was meanwhile conscious. + +Where were the gentlemen? Marcella was beginning to resent and tire of +the innumerable questions as to her likes and dislikes, her +accomplishments, her friends, her opinions of Mellor and the +neighbourhood, which this knitting lady beside her poured out upon her +so briskly, when to her great relief the door opened and a footman +announced "Lady Winterbourne." + +A very tall thin lady in black entered the room at the words. "My dear!" +she said to Miss Raeburn, "I am very late, but the roads are abominable, +and those horses Edward has just given me have to be taken such tiresome +care of. I told the coachman next time he might wrap them in shawls and +put them to bed, and _I_ should walk." + +"You are quite capable of it, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, kissing her. +"We know you! Miss Boyce--Lady Winterbourne." + +Lady Winterbourne shook hands with a shy awkwardness which belied her +height and stateliness. As she sat down beside Miss Raeburn the contrast +between her and Lord Maxwell's sister was sufficiently striking. Miss +Raeburn was short, inclined to be stout, and to a certain gay profusion +in her attire. Her cap was made of a bright silk handkerchief edged with +lace; round her neck were hung a number of small trinkets on various +gold chains; she abounded too in bracelets, most of which were clearly +old-fashioned mementos of departed relatives or friends. Her dress was +a cheerful red verging on crimson; and her general air suggested energy, +bustle, and a good-humoured common sense. + +Lady Winterbourne, on the other hand, was not only dressed from head to +foot in severe black without an ornament; her head and face belonged +also to the same impression, as of some strong and forcible study in +black and white. The attitude was rigidly erect; the very dark eyes, +under the snowy and abundant hair, had a trick of absent staring; in +certain aspects the whole figure had a tragic, nay, formidable dignity, +from which one expected, and sometimes got, the tone and gesture of +tragic acting. Yet at the same time, mixed in therewith, a curious +strain of womanish, nay childish, weakness, appealingness. Altogether, a +great lady, and a personality--yet something else too--something +ill-assured, timid, incongruous--hard to be defined. + +"I believe you have not been at Mellor long?" the new-comer asked, in a +deep contralto voice which she dragged a little. + +"About seven weeks. My father and mother have been there since May." + +"You must of course think it a very interesting old place?" + +"Of course I do; I love it," said Marcella, disconcerted by the odd +habit Lady Winterbourne had of fixing her eyes upon a person, and then, +as it were, forgetting what she had done with them. + +"Oh, I haven't been there, Agneta," said the new-comer, turning after a +pause to Miss Raeburn, "since that summer--_you_ remember that party +when the Palmerstons came over--so long ago--twenty years!" + +Marcella sat stiffly upright. Lady Winterbourne grew a little nervous +and flurried. + +"I don't think I ever saw your mother, Miss Boyce--I was much away from +home about then. Oh, yes, I did once--" + +The speaker stopped, a sudden red suffusing her pale cheeks. She had +felt certain somehow, at sight of Marcella, that she should say or do +something untoward, and she had promptly justified her own prevision. +The only time she had ever seen Mrs. Boyce had been in court, on the +last day of the famous trial in which Richard Boyce was concerned, when +she had made out the wife sitting closely veiled as near to her husband +as possible, waiting for the verdict. As she had already confided this +reminiscence to Miss Raeburn, and had forgotten she had done so, both +ladies had a moment of embarrassment. + +"Mrs. Boyce, I am sorry to say, does not seem to be strong," said Miss +Raeburn, bending over the heel of her stocking. "I wish we could have +had the pleasure of seeing her to-day." + +There was a pause. Lady Winterbourne's tragic eyes were once more +considering Marcella. + +"I hope you will come and see me," she said at last abruptly--"and Mrs. +Boyce too." + +The voice was very soft and refined though so deep, and Marcella looking +up was suddenly magnetised. + +"Yes, I will," she said, all her face melting into sensitive life. +"Mamma won't go anywhere, but I will come, if you will ask me." + +"Will you come next Tuesday?" said Lady Winterbourne quickly--"come to +tea, and I will drive you back. Mr. Raeburn told me about you. He +says--you read a great deal." + +The solemnity of the last words, the fixedness of the tragic look, were +not to be resisted. Marcella laughed out, and both ladies simultaneously +thought her extraordinarily radiant and handsome. + +"How can he know? Why, I have hardly talked about books to him at all." + +"Well! here he comes," said Lady Winterbourne, smiling suddenly; "so I +can ask him. But I am sure he did say so." + +It was now Marcella's turn to colour. Aldous Raeburn crossed the room, +greeted Lady Winterbourne, and next moment she felt her hand in his. + +"You did tell me, Aldous, didn't you," said Lady Winterbourne, "that +Miss Boyce was a great reader?" + +The speaker had known Aldous Raeburn as a boy, and was, moreover, a sort +of cousin, which explained the Christian name. + +Aldous smiled. + +"I said I thought Miss Boyce was like you and me, and had a weakness +that way, Lady Winterbourne. But I won't be cross-examined!" + +"I don't think I am a great reader," said Marcella, bluntly--"at least I +read a great deal, but I hardly ever read a book through. I haven't +patience." + +"You want to get at everything so quickly?" said Miss Raeburn, looking +up sharply. + +"I suppose so!" said Marcella. "There seems to be always a hundred +things tearing one different ways, and no time for any of them." + +"Yes, when one is young one feels like that," said Lady Winterbourne, +sighing. "When one is old one accepts one's limitations. When I was +twenty I never thought that I should still be an ignorant and +discontented woman at nearly seventy." + +"It is because you are so young still, Lady Winterbourne, that you feel +so," said Aldous, laughing at her, as one does at an old friend. "Why, +you are younger than any of us! I feel all brushed and stirred up--a boy +at school again--after I have been to see you!" + +"Well, I don't know what you mean, I'm sure," said Lady Winterbourne, +sighing again. Then she looked at the pair beside her--at the alert +brightness in the man's strong and quiet face as he sat stooping +forward, with his hands upon his knees, hardly able to keep his eyes for +an instant from the dark apparition beside him--at the girl's evident +shyness and pride. + +"My dear!" she said, turning suddenly to Miss Raeburn, "have you heard +what a monstrosity Alice has produced this last time in the way of a +baby? It was born with four teeth!" + +Miss Raeburn's astonishment fitted the provocation, and the two old +friends fell into a gossip on the subject of Lady Winterbourne's +numerous family, which was clearly meant for a _tete-a-tete_. + +"Will you come and look at our tapestry?" said Aldous to his neighbour, +after a few nothings had passed between them as to the weather and her +walk from Mellor. "I think you would admire it, and I am afraid my +grandfather will be a few minutes yet. He hoped to get home earlier than +this, but his Board meeting was very long and important, and has kept +him an unconscionable time." + +Marcella rose, and they moved together towards the south end of the room +where a famous piece of Italian Renaissance tapestry entirely filled the +wall from side to side. + +"How beautiful!" cried the girl, her eyes filling with delight. "What a +delicious thing to live with." + +And, indeed, it was the most adorable medley of forms, tints, +suggestions, of gods and goddesses, nymphs and shepherds, standing in +flowery grass under fruit-laden trees and wreathed about with roses. +Both colour and subject were of fairyland. The golds and browns and +pinks of it, the greens and ivory whites had been mellowed and pearled +and warmed by age into a most glowing, delicate, and fanciful beauty. It +was Italy at the great moment--subtle, rich, exuberant. + +Aldous enjoyed her pleasure. + +"I thought you would like it; I hoped you would. It has been my special +delight since I was a child, when my mother first routed it out of a +garret. I am not sure that I don't in my heart prefer it to any of the +pictures." + +"The flowers!" said Marcella, absorbed in it--"look at them--the irises, +the cyclamens, the lilies! It reminds one of the dreams one used to have +when one was small of what it would be like to have _flowers enough_. I +was at school, you know, in a part of England where one seemed always +cheated out of them! We walked two and two along the straight roads, and +I found one here and one there--but such a beggarly, wretched few, for +all one's trouble. I used to hate the hard dry soil, and console myself +by imagining countries where the flowers grew like this--yes, just like +this, in a gold and pink and blue mass, so that one might thrust one's +hands in and gather and gather till one was really _satisfied_! That is +the worst of being at school when you are poor! You never get enough of +anything. One day it's flowers--but the next day it is pudding--and the +next frocks." + +Her eye was sparkling, her tongue loosened. Not only was it pleasant to +feel herself beside him, enwrapped in such an atmosphere of admiration +and deference, but the artistic sensitive chord in her had been struck, +and vibrated happily. + +"Well, only wait till May, and the cowslips in your own fields will make +up to you!" he said, smiling at her. "But now, I have been wondering to +myself in my room upstairs what you would like to see. There are a good +many treasures in this house, and you will care for them, because you +are an artist. But you shall not be bored with them! You shall see what +and as much as you like. You had about a quarter of an hour's talk with +my aunt, did you not?" he asked, in a quite different tone. + +So all the time while she and Miss Raeburn had been making acquaintance, +he had known that she was in the house, and he had kept away for his own +purposes! Marcella felt a colour she could not restrain leap into her +cheek. + +"Miss Raeburn was very kind," she said, with a return of shyness, which +passed however the next moment by reaction, into her usual daring. "Yes, +she was very kind!--but all the same she doesn't like me--I don't think +she is going to like me--I am not her sort." + +"Have you been talking Socialism to her?" he asked her, smiling. + +"No, not yet--not yet," she said emphatically. "But I am dreadfully +uncertain--I can't always hold my tongue--I am afraid you will be sorry +you took me up." + +"Are you so aggressive? But Aunt Neta is so mild!--she wouldn't hurt a +fly. She mothers every one in the house and out of it. The only people +she is hard upon are the little servant girls, who will wear feathers in +their hats!" + +"There!" cried Marcella, indignantly. "Why shouldn't they wear feathers +in their hats? It is their form of beauty--their tapestry!" + +"But if one can't have both feathers and boots?" he asked her humbly, a +twinkle in his grey eye. "If one hasn't boots, one may catch a cold and +die of it--which is, after all, worse than going featherless." + +"But why _can't_ they have feathers and boots? It is because +you--we--have got too much. You have the tapestry--and--and the +pictures"--she turned and looked round the room--"and this wonderful +house--and the park. Oh, no--I think it is Miss Raeburn has too many +feathers!" + +"Perhaps it is," he admitted, in a different tone, his look changing and +saddening as though some habitual struggle of thought were recalled to +him. "You see I am in a difficulty. I want to show you our feathers. I +think they would please you--and you make me ashamed of them." + +"How absurd!" cried Marcella, "when I told you how I liked the school +children bobbing to me!" + +They laughed, and then Aldous looked round with a start--"Ah, here is my +grandfather!" + +Then he stood back, watching the look with which Lord Maxwell, after +greeting Lady Winterbourne, approached Miss Boyce. He saw the old man's +somewhat formal approach, the sudden kindle in the blue eyes which +marked the first effect of Marcella's form and presence, the bow, the +stately shake of the hand. The lover hearing his own heart beat, +realised that his beautiful lady had so far done well. + +"You must let me say that I see a decided likeness in you to your +grandfather," said Lord Maxwell, when they were all seated at lunch, +Marcella on his left hand, opposite to Lady Winterbourne. "He was one of +my dearest friends." + +"I'm afraid I don't know much about him," said Marcella, rather bluntly, +"except what I have got out of old letters. I never saw him that I +remember." + +Lord Maxwell left the subject, of course, at once, but showed a great +wish to talk to her, and make her talk. He had pleasant things to say +about Mellor and its past, which could be said without offence; and some +conversation about the Boyce monuments in Mellor church led to a +discussion of the part played by the different local families in the +Civil Wars, in which it seemed to Aldous that his grandfather tried in +various shrewd and courteous ways to make Marcella feel at ease with +herself and her race, accepted, as it were, of right into the local +brotherhood, and so to soothe and heal those bruised feelings he could +not but divine. + +The girl carried herself a little loftily, answering with an +independence and freedom beyond her age and born of her London life. She +was not in the least abashed or shy. Yet it was clear that Lord +Maxwell's first impressions were favourable. Aldous caught every now and +then his quick, judging look sweeping over her and instantly +withdrawn--comparing, as the grandson very well knew, every point, and +tone, and gesture with some inner ideal of what a Raeburn's wife should +be. How dream-like the whole scene was to Aldous, yet how exquisitely +real! The room, with its carved and gilt cedar-wood panels, its +Vandykes, its tall windows opening on the park, the autumn sun flooding +the gold and purple fruit on the table, and sparkling on the glass and +silver, the figures of his aunt and Lady Winterbourne, the moving +servants, and dominant of it all, interpreting it all for him anew, the +dark, lithe creature beside his grandfather, so quick, sensitive, +extravagant, so much a woman, yet, to his lover's sense, so utterly +unlike any other woman he had ever seen--every detail of it was charged +to him with a thousand new meanings, now oppressive, now delightful. + +For he was passing out of the first stage of passion, in which it is, +almost, its own satisfaction, so new and enriching is it to the whole +nature, into the second stage--the stage of anxiety, incredulity. +Marcella, sitting there on his own ground, after all his planning, +seemed to him not nearer, but further from him. She was terribly on her +dignity! Where was all that girlish abandonment gone which she had shown +him on that walk, beside the gate? There had been a touch of it, a +divine touch, before luncheon. How could he get her to himself again? + +Meanwhile the conversation passed to the prevailing local topic--the +badness of the harvest, the low prices of everything, the consequent +depression among the farmers, and stagnation in the villages. + +"I don't know what is to be done for the people this winter," said Lord +Maxwell, "without pauperising them, I mean. To give money is easy +enough. Our grandfathers would have doled out coal and blankets, and +thought no more of it. We don't get through so easily." + +"No," said Lady Winterbourne, sighing. "It weighs one down. Last winter +was a nightmare. The tales one heard, and the faces one saw!--though we +seemed to be always giving. And in the middle of it Edward would buy me +a new set of sables. I begged him not, but he laughed at me." + +"Well, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, cheerfully, "if nobody bought +sables, there'd be other poor people up in Russia, isn't it?--or +Hudson's Bay?--badly off. One has, to think of that. Oh, you needn't +talk, Aldous! I know you say it's a fallacy. _I_ call it common sense." + +She got, however, only a slight smile from Aldous, who had long ago left +his great-aunt to work out her own economics. And, anyway, she saw that +he was wholly absorbed from his seat beside Lady Winterbourne in +watching Miss Boyce. + +"It's precisely as Lord Maxwell says," replied Lady Winterbourne; "that +kind of thing used to satisfy everybody. And our grandmothers were very +good women. I don't know why we, who give ourselves so much more trouble +than they did, should carry these thorns about with us, while they went +free." + +She drew herself up, a cloud over her fine eyes. Miss Raeburn, looking +round, was glad to see the servants had left the room. + +"Miss Boyce thinks we are all in a very bad way, I'm sure. I have heard +tales of Miss Boyce's opinions!" said Lord Maxwell, smiling at her, with +an old man's indulgence, as though provoking her to talk. + +Her slim fingers were nervously crumbling some bread beside her; her +head was drooped a little. At his challenge she looked up with a start. +She was perfectly conscious of him, as both the great magnate on his +native heath, and as the trained man of affairs condescending to a +girl's fancies. But she had made up her mind not to be afraid. + +"What tales have you heard?" she asked him. + +"You alarm us, you know," he said gallantly, waiving her question. "We +can't afford a prophetess to the other side, just now." + +Miss Raeburn drew herself up, with a sharp dry look at Miss Boyce, which +escaped every one but Lady Winterbourne. + +"Oh! I am not a Radical!" said Marcella, half scornfully. "We +Socialists don't fight for either political party as such. We take what +we can get out of both." + +"So you call yourself a Socialist? A real full-blown one?" + +Lord Maxwell's pleasant tone masked the mood of a man who after a +morning of hard work thinks himself entitled to some amusement at +luncheon. + +"Yes, I am a Socialist," she said slowly, looking at him. "At least I +ought to be--I am in my conscience." + +"But not in your judgment?" he said laughing. "Isn't that the condition +of most of us?" + +"No, not at all!" she exclaimed, both her vanity and her enthusiasm +roused by his manner. "Both my judgment and my conscience make me a +Socialist. It's only one's wretched love for one's own little luxuries +and precedences--the worst part of one--that makes me waver, makes me a +traitor! The people I worked with in London would think me a traitor +often, I know." + +"And you really think that the world ought to be 'hatched over again and +hatched different'? That it ought to be, if it could be?" + +"I think that things are intolerable as they are," she broke out, after +a pause. "The London poor were bad enough; the country poor seem to me +worse! How can any one believe that such serfdom and poverty--such +mutilation of mind and body--were meant to go on for ever!" + +Lord Maxwell's brows lifted. But it certainly was no wonder that Aldous +should find those eyes of hers superb? + +"Can you really imagine, my dear young lady," he asked her mildly, +"that if all property were divided to-morrow the force of natural +inequality would not have undone all the work the day after, and given +us back our poor?" + +The "newspaper cant" of this remark, as the Cravens would have put it, +brought a contemptuous look for an instant into the girl's face. She +began to talk eagerly and cleverly, showing a very fair training in the +catch words of the school, and a good memory--as one uncomfortable +person at the table soon perceived--for some of the leading arguments +and illustrations of a book of Venturist Essays which had lately been +much read and talked of in London. + +Then, irritated more and more by Lord Maxwell's gentle attention, and +the interjections he threw in from time to time, she plunged into +history, attacked the landowning class, spoke of the Statute of +Labourers, the Law of Settlement, the New Poor Law, and other great +matters, all in the same quick flow of glancing, picturesque speech, and +all with the same utter oblivion--so it seemed to her stiff indignant +hostess at the other end of the table--of the manners and modesty proper +to a young girl in a strange house, and that young girl Richard Boyce's +daughter! + +Aldous struck in now and then, trying to soothe her by supporting her to +a certain extent, and so divert the conversation. But Marcella was soon +too excited to be managed; and she had her say; a very strong say often +as far as language went: there could be no doubt of that. + +"Ah, well," said Lord Maxwell, wincing at last under some of her +phrases, in spite of his courteous _savoir-faire_, "I see you are of the +same opinion as a good man whose book I took up yesterday: 'The +landlords of England have always shown a mean and malignant passion for +profiting by the miseries of others?' Well, Aldous, my boy, we are +judged, you and I--no help for it!" + +The man whose temper and rule had made the prosperity of a whole country +side for nearly forty years, looked at his grandson with twinkling eyes. +Miss Raeburn was speechless. Lady Winterbourne was absently staring at +Marcella, a spot of red on each pale cheek. + +Then Marcella suddenly wavered, looked across at Aldous, and broke down. + +"Of course, you think me very ridiculous," she said, with a tremulous +change of tone. "I suppose I am. And I am as inconsistent as anybody--I +hate myself for it. Very often when anybody talks to me on the other +side, I am almost as much persuaded as I am by the Socialists: they +always told me in London I was the prey of the last speaker. But it +can't make any difference to one's _feeling_: nothing touches that." + +She turned to Lord Maxwell, half appealing-- + +"It is when I go down from our house to the village; when I see the +places the people live in; when one is comfortable in the carriage, and +one passes some woman in the rain, ragged and dirty and tired, trudging +back from her work; when one realises that they have no _rights_ when +they come to be old, nothing to look to but charity, for which _we_, who +have everything, expect them to be grateful; and when I know that every +one of them has done more useful work in a year of their life than I +shall ever do in the whole of mine, then I feel that the whole state of +things is _somehow_ wrong and topsy-turvy and _wicked_." Her voice rose +a little, every emphasis grew more passionate. "And if I don't do +something--the little such a person as I can--to alter it before I die, +I might as well never have lived." + +Everybody at table started. Lord Maxwell looked at Miss Raeburn, his +mouth twitching over the humour of his sister's dismay. Well! this was a +forcible young woman: was Aldous the kind of man to be able to deal +conveniently with such eyes, such emotions, such a personality? + +Suddenly Lady Winterbourne's deep voice broke in: + +"I never could say it half so well as that, Miss Boyce; but I agree with +you. I may say that I have agreed with you all my life." + +The girl turned to her, grateful and quivering. + +"At the same time," said Lady Winterbourne, relapsing with a long breath +from tragic emphasis into a fluttering indecision equally +characteristic, "as you say, one is inconsistent. I was poor once, +before Edward came to the title, and I did not at all like it--not at +all. And I don't wish my daughters to marry poor men; and what I should +do without a maid or a carriage when I wanted it, I cannot imagine. +Edward makes the most of these things. He tells me I have to choose +between things as they are, and a graduated income tax which would leave +nobody--not even the richest--more than four hundred a year." + +"Just enough, for one of those little houses on your station road," +said Lord Maxwell, laughing at her. "I think you might still have a +maid." + +"There, you laugh," said Lady Winterbourne, vehemently: "the men do. But +I tell you it is no laughing matter to feel that your _heart_ and +_conscience_ have gone over to the enemy. You want to feel with your +class, and you can't. Think of what used to happen in the old days. My +grandmother, who was as good and kind a woman as ever lived, was driving +home through our village one evening, and a man passed her, a labourer +who was a little drunk, and who did not take off his hat to her. She +stopped, made her men get down and had him put in the stocks there and +then--the old stocks were still standing on the village green. Then she +drove home to her dinner, and said her prayers no doubt that night with +more consciousness than usual of having done her duty. But if the power +of the stocks still remained to us, my dear friend"--and she laid her +thin old woman's hand, flashing with diamonds, on Lord Maxwell's +arm--"we could no longer do it, you or I. We have lost the sense of +_right_ in our place and position--at least I find I have. In the old +days if there was social disturbance the upper class could put it down +with a strong hand." + +"So they would still," said Lord Maxwell, drily, "if there were +violence. Once let it come to any real attack on property, and you will +see where all these Socialist theories will be. And of course it will +not be _we_--not the landowners or the capitalists--who will put it +down. It will be the hundreds and thousands of people with something to +lose--a few pounds in a joint-stock mill, a house of their own built +through a co-operative store, an acre or two of land stocked by their +own savings--it is they, I am afraid, who will put Miss Boyce's friends +down so far as they represent any real attack on property--and brutally, +too, I fear, if need be." + +"I dare say," exclaimed Marcella, her colour rising again. "I never can +see how we Socialists are to succeed. But how can any one _rejoice_ in +it? How can any one _wish_ that the present state of things should go +on? Oh! the horrors one sees in London. And down here, the cottages, and +the starvation wages, and the ridiculous worship of game, and then, of +course, the poaching--" + +Miss Raeburn pushed back her chair with a sharp noise. But her brother +was still peeling his pear, and no one else moved. Why did he let such +talk go on? It was too unseemly. + +Lord Maxwell only laughed. "My dear young lady," he said, much amused, +"are you even in the frame of mind to make a hero of a poacher? +Disillusion lies that way!--it does indeed. Why--Aldous!--I have been +hearing such tales from Westall this morning. I stopped at Corbett's +farm a minute or two on the way home, and met Westall at the gate coming +out. He says he and his men are being harried to death round about +Tudley End by a gang of men that come, he thinks, from Oxford, a driving +gang with a gig, who come at night or in the early morning--the smartest +rascals out, impossible to catch. But he says he thinks he will soon +have his hand on the local accomplice--a Mellor man--a man named Hurd: +not one of our labourers, I think." + +"Hurd!" cried Marcella, in dismay. "Oh no, it _can't_ be--impossible!" + +Lord Maxwell looked at her in astonishment. + +"Do you know any Hurds? I am afraid your father will find that Mellor is +a bad place for poaching." + +"If it is, it is because they are so starved and miserable," said +Marcella, trying hard to speak coolly, but excited almost beyond bounds +by the conversation and all that it implied. "And the Hurds--I don't +believe it a bit! But if it were true--oh! they have been in such +straits--they were out of work most of last winter; they are out of work +now, No one _could_ grudge them. I told you about them, didn't I?" she +said, suddenly glancing at Aldous. "I was going to ask you to-day, if +you could help them?" Her prophetess air had altogether left her. She +felt ready to cry; and nothing could have been more womanish than her +tone. + +He bent across to her. Miss Raeburn, invaded by a new and intolerable +sense of calamity, could have beaten him for what she read in his +shining eyes, and in the flush on his usually pale cheek. + +"Is he still out of work?" he said. "And you are unhappy about it? But I +am sure we can find him work: I am just now planning improvements at the +north end of the park. We can take him on; I am certain of it. You must +give me his full name and address." + +"And let him beware of Westall," said Lord Maxwell, kindly. "Give him a +hint, Miss Boyce, and nobody will rake up bygones. There is nothing I +dislike so much as rows about the shooting. All the keepers know that." + +"And of course," said Miss Raeburn, coldly, "if the family are in real +distress there are plenty of people at hand to assist them. The man need +not steal." + +"Oh, charity!" cried Marcella, her lip curling. + +"A worse crime than poaching, you think," said Lord Maxwell, laughing. +"Well, these are big subjects. I confess, after my morning with the +lunatics, I am half inclined, like Horace Walpole, to think everything +serious ridiculous. At any rate shall we see what light a cup of coffee +throws upon it? Agneta, shall we adjourn?" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Lord Maxwell closed the drawing-room door behind Aldous and Marcella. +Aldous had proposed to take their guest to see the picture gallery, +which was on the first floor, and had found her willing. + +The old man came back to the two other women, running his hand nervously +through his shock of white hair--a gesture which Miss Raeburn well knew +to show some disturbance of mind. + +"I should like to have your opinion of that young lady," he said +deliberately, taking a chair immediately in front of them. + +"I like her," said Lady Winterbourne, instantly. "Of course she is crude +and extravagant, and does not know quite what she may say. But all that +will improve. I like her, and shall make friends with her." + +Miss Raeburn threw up her hands in angry amazement. + +"Most forward, conceited, and ill-mannered," she said with energy. "I am +certain she has no proper principles, and as to what her religious views +may be, I dread to think of them! If _that_ is a specimen of the girls +of the present day--" + +"My dear," interrupted Lord Maxwell, laying a hand on her knee, "Lady +Winterbourne is an old friend, a very old friend. I think we may be +frank before her, and I don't wish you to say things you may regret. +Aldous has made up his mind to get that girl to marry him, if he can." + +Lady Winterbourne was silent, having in fact been forewarned by that odd +little interview with Aldous in her own drawing-room, when he had +suddenly asked her to call on Mrs. Boyce. But she looked at Miss +Raeburn. That lady took up her knitting, laid it down again, resumed it, +then broke out-- + +"How did it come about? Where have they been meeting?" + +"At the Hardens mostly. He seems to have been struck from the beginning, +and now there is no question as to his determination. But she may not +have him; he professes to be still entirely in the dark." + +"Oh!" cried Miss Raeburn, with a scornful shrug, meant to express all +possible incredulity. Then she began to knit fast and furiously, and +presently said in great agitation,-- + +"What can he be thinking of? She is very handsome, of course, but--" +then her words failed her. "When Aldous remembers his mother, how can +he?--undisciplined! self-willed! Why, she laid down the law to _you_, +Henry, as though you had nothing to do but to take your opinions from a +chit of a girl like her. Oh! no, no; I really can't; you must give me +time. And her father--the disgrace and trouble of it! I tell you, Henry, +it will bring misfortune!" + +Lord Maxwell was much troubled. Certainly he should have talked to +Agneta beforehand. But the fact was he had his cowardice, like other +men, and he had been trusting to the girl herself, to this beauty he +heard so much of, to soften the first shock of the matter to the present +mistress of the Court. + +"We will hope not, Agneta," he said gravely. "We will hope not. But you +must remember Aldous is no boy. I cannot coerce him. I see the +difficulties, and I have put them before him. But I am more favourably +struck with the girl than you are. And anyway, if it comes about, we +must make the best of it." + +Miss Raeburn made no answer, but pretended to set her heel, her needles +shaking. Lady Winterbourne was very sorry for her two old friends. + +"Wait a little," she said, laying her hand lightly on Miss Raeburn's. +"No doubt with her opinions she felt specially drawn to assert herself +to-day. One can imagine it very well of a girl, and a generous girl in +her position. You will see other sides of her, I am sure you will. And +you would never--you could never--make a breach with Aldous." + +"We must all remember," said Lord Maxwell, getting up and beginning to +walk up and down beside them, "that Aldous is in no way dependent upon +me. He has his own resources. He could leave us to-morrow. Dependent on +me! It is the other way, I think, Agneta--don't you?" + +He stopped and looked at her, and she returned his look in spite of +herself. A tear dropped on her stocking which she hastily brushed away. + +"Come, now," said Lord Maxwell, seating himself; "let us talk it over +rationally. Don't go, Lady Winterbourne." + +"Why, they may be settling it at this moment," cried Miss Raeburn, +half-choked, and feeling as though "the skies were impious not to fall." + +"No, no!" he said smiling. "Not yet, I think. But let us prepare +ourselves." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile the cause of all this agitation was sitting languidly in a +great Louis Quinze chair in the picture gallery upstairs, with Aldous +beside her. She had taken off her big hat as though it oppressed her, +and her black head lay against a corner of the chair in fine contrast to +its mellowed golds and crimsons. Opposite to her were two famous Holbein +portraits, at which she looked from time to time as though attracted to +them in spite of herself, by some trained sense which could not be +silenced. But she was not communicative, and Aldous was anxious. + +"Do you think I was rude to your grandfather?" she asked him at last +abruptly, cutting dead short some information she had stiffly asked him +for just before, as to the date of the gallery and its collection. + +"Rude!" he said startled. "Not at all. Not in the least. Do you suppose +we are made of such brittle stuff, we poor landowners, that we can't +stand an argument now and then?" + +"Your aunt thought I was rude," she said unheeding. "I think I was. But +a house like this excites me." And with a little reckless gesture she +turned her head over her shoulder and looked down the gallery. A +Velasquez was beside her; a great Titian over the way; a priceless +Rembrandt beside it. On her right hand stood a chair of carved steel, +presented by a German town to a German emperor, which, had not its +equal in Europe; the brocade draping the deep windows in front of her +had been specially made to grace a state visit to the house of Charles +II. + +"At Mellor," she went on, "we are old and tumble-down. The rain comes +in; there are no shutters to the big hall, and we can't afford to put +them--we can't afford even to have the pictures cleaned. I can pity the +house and nurse it, as I do the village. But here--" + +And looking about her, she gave a significant shrug. + +"What--our feathers again!" he said laughing. "But consider. Even you +allow that Socialism cannot begin to-morrow. There must be a transition +time, and clearly till the State is ready to take over the historical +houses and their contents, the present nominal owners of them are bound, +if they can, to take care of them. Otherwise the State will be some day +defrauded." + +She could not be insensible to the charm of his manner towards her. +There was in it, no doubt, the natural force and weight of the man older +and better informed than his companion, and amused every now and then by +her extravagance. But even her irritable pride could not take offence. +For the intellectual dissent she felt at bottom was tempered by a moral +sympathy of which the gentleness and warmth touched and moved her in +spite of herself. And now that they were alone he could express himself. +So long as they had been in company he had seemed to her, as often +before, shy, hesitating, and ineffective. But with the disappearance of +spectators, who represented to him, no doubt, the harassing claim of +the critical judgment, all was freer, more assured, more natural. + +She leant her chin on her hand, considering his plea. + +"Supposing you live long enough to see the State take it, shall you be +able to reconcile yourself to it? Or shall you feel it a wrong, and go +out a rebel?" + +A delightful smile was beginning to dance in the dark eyes. She was +recovering the tension of her talk with Lord Maxwell. + +"All must depend, you see, on the conditions--on how you and your +friends are going to manage the transition. You may persuade +me--conceivably--or you may eject me with violence." + +"Oh, no!" she interposed quickly. "There will be no violence. Only we +shall gradually reduce your wages. Of course, we can't do without +leaders--we don't want to do away with the captains of any industry, +agricultural or manufacturing. Only we think you overpaid. You must be +content with less." + +"Don't linger out the process," he said laughing, "otherwise it will be +painful. The people who are condemned to live in these houses before the +Commune takes to them, while your graduated land and income taxes are +slowly starving them out, will have a bad time of it." + +"Well, it will be your first bad time! Think of the labourer now, with +five children, of school age, on twelve shillings a week--think of the +sweated women in London." + +"Ah, think of them," he said in a different tone. + +There was a pause of silence. + +"No!" said Marcella, springing up. "Don't let's think of them. I get to +believe the whole thing a _pose_ in myself and other people. Let's go +back to the pictures. Do you think Titian 'sweated' his drapery +men--paid them starvation rates, and grew rich on their labour? Very +likely. All the same, that blue woman"--she pointed to a bending +Magdalen--"will be a joy to all time." + +They wandered through the gallery, and she was now all curiosity, +pleasure, and intelligent interest, as though she had thrown off an +oppression. Then they emerged into the upper corridor answering to the +corridor of the antiques below. This also was hung with pictures, +principally family portraits of the second order, dating back to the +Tudors--a fine series of berobed and bejewelled personages, wherein +clothes pre-dominated and character was unimportant. + +Marcella's eye was glancing along the brilliant colour of the wall, +taking rapid note of jewelled necks surmounting stiff embroidered +dresses, of the whiteness of lace ruffs, or the love-locks and gleaming +satin of the Caroline beauties, when it suddenly occurred to her,-- + +"I shall be their successor. This is already potentially mine. In a few +months, if I please, I shall be walking this house as mistress--its +future mistress, at any rate!" + +She was conscious of a quickening in the blood, a momentary blurring of +the vision. A whirlwind of fancies swept across her. She thought of +herself as the young peeress--Lord Maxwell after all was over +seventy--her own white neck blazing with diamonds, the historic jewels +of a great family--her will making law in this splendid house--in the +great domain surrounding it. What power--what a position--what a +romance! She, the out-at-elbows Marcella, the Socialist, the friend of +the people. What new lines of social action and endeavour she might +strike out! Miss Raeburn should not stop her. She caressed the thought +of the scandals in store for that lady. Only it annoyed her that her +dream of large things should be constantly crossed by this foolish +delight, making her feet dance--in this mere prospect of satin gowns and +fine jewels--of young and feted beauty holding its brilliant court. If +she made such a marriage, it should be, it must be, on public grounds. +Her friends must have no right to blame her. + +Then she stole a glance at the tall, quiet gentleman beside her. A man +to be proud of from the beginning, and surely to be very fond of in +time. "He would always be my friend," she thought. "I could lead him. He +is very clever, one can see, and knows a great deal. But he admires what +I like. His position hampers him--but I could help him to get beyond it. +We might show the way to many!" + +"Will you come and see this room here?" he said, stopping suddenly, yet +with a certain hesitation in the voice. "It is my own sitting-room. +There are one or two portraits I should like to show you if you would +let me." + +She followed him with a rosy cheek, and they were presently standing in +front of the portrait of his mother. He spoke of his recollections of +his parents, quietly and simply, yet she felt through every nerve that +he was not the man to speak of such things to anybody in whom he did not +feel a very strong and peculiar interest. As he was talking a rush of +liking towards him came across her. How good he was--how affectionate +beneath his reserve--a woman might securely trust him with her future. + +So with every minute she grew softer, her eye gentler, and with each +step and word he seemed to himself to be carried deeper into the current +of joy. Intoxication was mounting within him, as her slim, warm youth +moved and breathed beside him; and it was natural that he should read +her changing behaviour for something other than it was. A man of his +type asks for no advance from the woman; the woman he loves does not +make them; but at the same time he has a natural self-esteem, and +believes readily in his power to win the return he is certain he will +deserve. + +"And this?" she said, moving restlessly towards his table, and taking up +the photograph of Edward Hallin. + +"Ah! that is the greatest friend I have in the world. But I am sure you +know the name. Mr. Hallin--Edward Hallin." + +She paused bewildered. + +"What! _the_ Mr. Hallin--_that_ was Edward Hallin--who settled the +Nottingham strike last month--who lectures so much in the East End, and +in the north?" + +"The same. We are old college friends. I owe him much, and in all his +excitements he does not forget old friends. There, you see--" and he +opened a blotting book and pointed smiling to some closely written +sheets lying within it--"is my last letter to him. I often write two of +those in the week, and he to me. We don't agree on a number of things, +but that doesn't matter." + +"What can you find to write about?" she said wondering. "I thought +nobody wrote letters nowadays, only notes. Is it books, or people?" + +"Both, when it pleases us!" How soon, oh! ye favouring gods, might he +reveal to her the part she herself played in those closely covered +sheets? "But he writes to me on social matters chiefly. His whole heart, +as you probably know, is in certain experiments and reforms in which he +sometimes asks me to help him." + +Marcella opened her eyes. These were new lights. She began to recall all +that she had heard of young Hallin's position in the Labour movement; +his personal magnetism and prestige; his power as a speaker. Her +Socialist friends, she remembered, thought him in the way--a force, but +a dangerous one. He was for the follies of compromise--could not be got +to disavow the principle of private property, while ready to go great +lengths in certain directions towards collective action and corporate +control. The "stalwarts" of _her_ sect would have none of him as a +leader, while admitting his charm as a human being--a charm she +remembered to have heard discussed with some anxiety among her Venturist +friends. But for ordinary people he went far enough. Her father, she +remembered, had dubbed him an "Anarchist" in connection with the terms +he had been able to secure for the Nottingham strikers, as reported in +the newspapers. It astonished her to come across the man again as Mr. +Raeburn's friend. + +They talked about Hallin a little, and about Aldous's Cambridge +acquaintance with him. Then Marcella, still nervous, went to look at the +bookshelves, and found herself in front of that working collection of +books on economics which Aldous kept in his own room under his hand, by +way of guide to the very fine special collection he was gradually making +in the library downstairs. + +Here again were surprises for her. Aldous had never made the smallest +claim to special knowledge on all those subjects she had so often +insisted on making him discuss. He had been always tentative and +diffident, deferential even so far as her own opinions were concerned. +And here already was the library of a student. All the books she had +ever read or heard discussed were here--and as few among many. The +condition of them, moreover, the signs of close and careful reading she +noticed in them, as she took them out, abashed her: _she_ had never +learnt to read in this way. It was her first contact with an exact and +arduous culture. She thought of how she had instructed Lord Maxwell at +luncheon. No doubt he shared his grandson's interests. Her cheek burned +anew; this time because it seemed to her that she had been ridiculous. + +"I don't know why you never told me you took a particular interest in +these subjects," she said suddenly, turning round upon him +resentfully--she had just laid down, of all things, a volume of +Venturist essays. "You must have thought I talked a great deal of +nonsense at luncheon." + +"Why!--I have always been delighted to find you cared for such things +and took an interest in them. How few women do!" he said quite simply, +opening his eyes. "Do you know these three pamphlets? They were +privately printed, and are very rare." + +He took out a book and showed it to her as one does to a comrade and +equal--as he might have done to Edward Hallin. But something was jarred +in her--conscience or self-esteem--and she could not recover her sense +of heroineship. She answered absently, and when he returned the book to +the shelf she said that it was time for her to go, and would he kindly +ask for her maid, who was to walk with her? + +"I will ring for her directly," he said. "But you will let me take you +home?" Then he added hurriedly, "I have some business this afternoon +with a man who lives in your direction." + +She assented a little stiffly--but with an inward thrill. His words and +manner seemed suddenly to make the situation unmistakable. Among the +books it had been for the moment obscured. + +He rang for his own servant, and gave directions about the maid. Then +they went downstairs that Marcella might say good-bye. + +Miss Raeburn bade her guest farewell, with a dignity which her small +person could sometimes assume, not unbecomingly. Lady Winterbourne held +the girl's hand a little, looked her out of countenance, and insisted on +her promising again to come to Winterbourne Park the following Tuesday. +Then Lord Maxwell, with old-fashioned politeness, made Marcella take his +arm through the hall. + +"You must come and see us again," he said smiling; "though we are such +belated old Tories, we are not so bad as we sound." + +And under cover of his mild banter he fixed a penetrating attentive look +upon her. Flushed and embarrassed! Had it indeed been done already? or +would Aldous settle it on this walk? To judge from his manner and hers, +the thing was going with rapidity. Well, well, there was nothing for it +but to hope for the best. + +On their way through the hall she stopped him, her hand still in his +arm. Aldous was in front, at the door, looking for a light shawl she had +brought with her. + +"I should like to thank you," she said shyly, "about the Hurds. It will +be very kind of you and Mr. Raeburn to find them work." + +Lord Maxwell was pleased; and with the usual unfair advantage of beauty +her eyes and curving lips gave her little advance a charm infinitely +beyond what any plainer woman could have commanded. + +"Oh, don't thank me!" he said cheerily. "Thank Aldous. He does all that +kind of thing. And if in your good works you want any help we can give, +ask it, my dear young lady. My old comrade's grand-daughter will always +find friends in this house." + +Lord Maxwell would have been very much astonished to hear himself making +this speech six weeks before. As it was, he handed her over gallantly to +Aldous, and stood on the steps looking after them in a stir of mind not +unnoted by the confidential butler who held the door open behind him. +Would Aldous insist on carrying his wife off to the dower house on the +other side of the estate? or would they be content to stay in the old +place with the old people? And if so, how were that girl and his sister +to get on? As for himself, he was of a naturally optimist temper, and +ever since the night of his first interview with Aldous on the subject, +he had been more and more inclining to take a cheerful view. He liked to +see a young creature of such evident character and cleverness holding +opinions and lines of her own. It was infinitely better than mere +nonentity. Of course, she was now extravagant and foolish, perhaps vain +too. But that would mend with time--mend, above all, with her position +as Aldous's wife. Aldous was a strong man--how strong, Lord Maxwell +suspected that this impetuous young lady hardly knew. No, he thought the +family might be trusted to cope with her when once they got her among +them. And she would certainly be an ornament to the old house. + +Her father of course was, and would be, the real difficulty, and the +blight which had descended on the once honoured name. But a man so +conscious of many kinds of power as Lord Maxwell could not feel much +doubt as to his own and his grandson's competence to keep so poor a +specimen of humanity as Richard Boyce in his place. How wretchedly ill, +how feeble, both in body and soul, the fellow had looked when he and +Winterbourne met him! + +The white-haired owner of the Court walked back slowly to his library, +his hands in his pockets, his head bent in cogitation. Impossible to +settle to the various important political letters lying on his table, +and bearing all of them on that approaching crisis in the spring which +must put Lord Maxwell and his friends in power. He was over seventy, but +his old blood quickened within him as he thought of those two on this +golden afternoon, among the beech woods. How late Aldous had left all +these experiences! His grandfather, by twenty, could have shown him the +way. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile the two in question were walking along the edge of the hill +rampart overlooking the plain, with the road on one side of them, and +the falling beech woods on the other. They were on a woodland path, just +within the trees, sheltered, and to all intents and purposes alone. The +maid, with leisurely discretion, was following far behind them on the +high road. + +Marcella, who felt at moments as though she could hardly breathe, by +reason of a certain tumult of nerve, was yet apparently bent on +maintaining a conversation without breaks. As they diverged from the +road into the wood-path, she plunged into the subject of her companion's +election prospects. How many meetings did he find that he must hold in +the month? What places did he regard as his principal strongholds? She +was told that certain villages, which she named, were certain to go +Radical, whatever might be the Tory promises. As to a well-known +Conservative League, which was very strong in the country, and to which +all the great ladies, including Lady Winterbourne, belonged, was he +actually going to demean himself by accepting its support? How was it +possible to defend the bribery, buns, and beer by which it won its +corrupting way? + +Altogether, a quick fire of questions, remarks, and sallies, which +Aldous met and parried as best he might, comforting himself all the time +by thought of those deeper and lonelier parts of the wood which lay +before them. At last she dropped out, half laughing, half defiant, words +which arrested him,-- + +"Well, I shall know what the other side think of their prospects very +soon. Mr. Wharton is coming to lunch with us to-morrow." + +"Harry Wharton!" he said astonished. "But Mr. Boyce is not supporting +him. Your father, I think, is Conservative?" + +One of Dick Boyce's first acts as owner of Mellor, when social +rehabilitation had still looked probable to him, had been to send a +contribution to the funds of the League aforesaid, so that Aldous had +public and conspicuous grounds for his remark. + +"Need one measure everything by politics?" she asked him a little +disdainfully. "Mayn't one even feed a Radical?" + +He winced visibly a moment, touched in his philosopher's pride. + +"You remind me," he said, laughing and reddening--"and justly--that an +election perverts all one's standards and besmirches all one's morals. +Then I suppose Mr. Wharton is an old friend?" + +"Papa never saw him before last week," she said carelessly. "Now he +talks of asking him to stay some time, and says that, although he won't +vote for him, he hopes that he will make a good fight." + +Raeburn's brow contracted in a puzzled frown. + +"He will make an excellent fight," he said rather shortly. "Dodgson +hardly hopes to get in. Harry Wharton is a most taking speaker, a very +clever fellow, and sticks at nothing in the way of promises. Ah, you +will find him interesting, Miss Boyce! He has a co-operative farm on his +Lincolnshire property. Last year he started a Labour paper--which I +believe you read. I have heard you quote it. He believes in all that you +hope for--great increase in local government and communal control--the +land for the people--graduated income-tax--the extinction of landlord +and capitalist as soon as may be--_e tutti quanti_. He talks with great +eloquence and ability. In our villages I find he is making way every +week. The people think his manners perfect. ''Ee 'as a way wi' un,' said +an old labourer to me last week. 'If 'ee wor to coe the wild birds, I do +believe, Muster Raeburn, they'd coom to un!'" + +"Yet you dislike him!" said Marcella, a daring smile dancing on the dark +face she turned to him. "One can hear it in every word you say." + +He hesitated, trying, even at the moment that an impulse of jealous +alarm which astonished himself had taken possession of him, to find the +moderate and measured phrase. + +"I have known him from a boy," he said. "He is a connection of the +Levens, and used to be always there in old days. He is very brilliant +and very gifted--" + +"Your 'but' must be very bad," she threw in, "it is so long in coming." + +"Then I will say, whatever opening it gives you," he replied with +spirit, "that I admire him without respecting him." + +"Who ever thought otherwise of a clever opponent?" she cried. "It is the +stock formula." + +The remark stung, all the more because Aldous was perfectly conscious +that there was much truth in her implied charge of prejudice. He had +never been very capable of seeing this particular man in the dry light +of reason, and was certainly less so than before, since it had been +revealed to him that Wharton and Mr. Boyce's daughter were to be +brought, before long, into close neighbourhood. + +"I am sorry that I seem to you such a Pharisee," he said, turning upon +her a look which had both pain and excitement in it. + +She was silent, and they walked on a few yards without speaking. The +wood had thickened around them: The high road was no longer visible. No +sound of wheels or footsteps reached them. The sun struck freely through +the beech-trees, already half bared, whitening the grey trunks at +intervals to an arrowy distinctness and majesty, or kindling the slopes +of red and freshly fallen leaves below into great patches of light and +flame. Through the stems, as always, the girdling blues of the plain, +and in their faces a gay and buoyant breeze, speaking rather of spring +than autumn. Robins, "yellow autumn's nightingales," sang in the hedge +to their right. In the pause between them, sun, wind, birds made their +charm felt. Nature, perpetual chorus as she is to man, stole in, urging, +wooing, defining. Aldous's heart leapt to the spur of a sudden resolve. + +Instinctively she turned to him at the same moment as he to her, and +seeing his look she paled a little. + +"Do you guess at all why it hurts me to jar with you?" he said--finding +his words in a rush, he did not know how--"Why every syllable of yours +matters to me? It is because I have hopes--dreams--which have become my +life! If you could accept this--this--feeling--this devotion--which has +grown up in me--if you could trust yourself to me--you should have no +cause, I think--ever--to think me hard or narrow towards any person, any +enthusiasm for which you had sympathy. May I say to you all that is in +my mind--or--or--am I presuming?" + +She looked away from him, crimson again. A great wave of +exultation--boundless, intoxicating--swept through her. Then it was +checked by a nobler feeling--a quick, penitent sense of his nobleness. + +"You don't know me," she said hurriedly: "you think you do. But I am all +odds and ends. I should annoy--wound--disappoint you." + +His quiet grey eyes flamed. + +"Come and sit down here, on these dry roots," he said, taking already +joyous command of her. "We shall be undisturbed. I have so much to say!" + +She obeyed trembling. She felt no passion, but the strong thrill of +something momentous and irreparable, together with a swelling +pride--pride in such homage from such a man. + +He led her a few steps down the slope, found a place for her against a +sheltering trunk, and threw himself down beside her. As he looked up at +the picture she made amid the autumn branches, at her bent head, her +shy moved look, her white hand lying ungloved on her black dress, +happiness overcame him. He took her hand, found she did not resist, drew +it to him, and clasping it in both his, bent his brow, his lips upon it. +It shook in his hold, but she was passive. The mixture of emotion and +self-control she showed touched him deeply. In his chivalrous modesty he +asked for nothing else, dreamt of nothing more. + +Half an hour later they were still in the same spot. There had been much +talk between them, most of it earnest, but some of it quite gay, broken +especially by her smiles. Her teasing mood, however, had passed away. +She was instead composed and dignified, like one conscious that life had +opened before her to great issues. + +Yet she had flinched often before that quiet tone of eager joy in which +he had described his first impressions of her, his surprise at finding +in her ideals, revolts, passions, quite unknown to him, so far, in the +women of his own class. Naturally he suppressed, perhaps he had even +forgotten, the critical amusement and irritation she had often excited +in him. He remembered, he spoke only of sympathy, delight, pleasure--of +his sense, as it were, of slaking some long-felt moral thirst at the +well of her fresh feeling. So she had attracted him first,--by a certain +strangeness and daring--by what she _said_-- + +"Now--and above all by what you _are_!" he broke out suddenly, moved out +of his even speech. "Oh! it is too much to believe--to dream of! Put +your hand in mine, and say again that it is really _true_ that we two +are to go forward together--that you will be always there to inspire--to +help--" + +And as she gave him the hand, she must also let him--in this first +tremor of a pure passion--take the kiss which was now his by right. That +she should flush and draw away from him as she did, seemed to him the +most natural thing in the world, and the most maidenly. + +Then, as their talk wandered on, bit by bit, he gave her all his +confidence, and she had felt herself honoured in receiving it. She +understood now at least something--a first fraction--of that inner life, +masked so well beneath his quiet English capacity and unassuming manner. +He had spoken of his Cambridge years, of his friend, of the desire of +his heart to make his landowner's power and position contribute +something towards that new and better social order, which he too, like +Hallin--though more faintly and intermittently--believed to be +approaching. The difficulties of any really new departure were +tremendous; he saw them more plainly and more anxiously than Hallin. Yet +he believed that he had thought his way to some effective reform on his +grandfather's large estate, and to some useful work as one of a group of +like-minded men in Parliament. She must have often thought him careless +and apathetic towards his great trust. But he was not so--not +careless--but paralysed often by intellectual difficulty, by the claims +of conflicting truths. + +She, too, explained herself most freely, most frankly. She would have +nothing on her conscience. + +"They will say, of course," she said with sudden nervous abruptness, +"that I am marrying you for wealth and position. And in a sense I shall +be. No! don't stop me! I should not marry you if--if--I did not like +you. But you can give me--you have--great opportunities. I tell you +frankly, I shall enjoy them and use them. Oh! do think well before you +do it. I shall _never_ be a meek, dependent wife. A woman, to my mind, +is bound to cherish her own individuality sacredly, married or not +married. Have you thought that I may often think it right to do things +you disagree with, that may scandalise your relations?" + +"You shall be free," he said steadily. "I have thought of it all." + +"Then there is my father," she said, turning her head away. "He is +ill--he wants pity, affection. I will accept no bond that forces me to +disown him." + +"Pity and affection are to me the most sacred things in the world," he +said, kissing her hand gently. "Be content--be at rest--my beautiful +lady!" + +There was again silence, full of thought on her side, of heavenly +happiness on his. The sun had sunk almost to the verge of the plain, the +wind had freshened. + +"We _must_ go home," she said, springing up. "Taylor must have got there +an hour ago. Mother will be anxious, and I must--I must tell them." + +"I will leave you at the gate," he suggested as they walked briskly; +"and you will ask your father, will you not, if I may see him to-night +after dinner?" + +The trees thinned again in front of them, and the path curved inward to +the front. Suddenly a man, walking on the road, diverged into the path +and came towards them. He was swinging a stick and humming. His head was +uncovered, and his light chestnut curls were blown about his forehead by +the wind. Marcella, looking up at the sound of the steps, had a sudden +impression of something young and radiant, and Aldous stopped with an +exclamation. + +The new-comer perceived them, and at sight of Aldous smiled, and +approached, holding out his hand. + +"Why, Raeburn, I seem to have missed you twenty times a day this last +fortnight. We have been always on each other's tracks without meeting. +Yet I think, if we had met, we could have kept our tempers." + +"Miss Boyce, I think you do not know Mr. Wharton," said Aldous, stiffly. +"May I introduce you?" + +The young man's blue eyes, all alert and curious at the mention of +Marcella's name, ran over the girl's face and form. Then he bowed with a +certain charming exaggeration--like an eighteenth-century beau with his +hand upon his heart--and turned back with them a step or two towards the +road. + + + + + +BOOK II. + + +"A woman has enough to govern wisely +Her own demeanours, passions and divisions." + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +On a certain night in the December following the engagement of Marcella +Boyce to Aldous Raeburn, the woods and fields of Mellor, and all the +bare rampart of chalk down which divides the Buckinghamshire plain from +the forest upland of the Chilterns lay steeped in moonlight, and in the +silence which belongs to intense frost. + +Winter had set in before the leaf had fallen from the last oaks; already +there had been a fortnight or more of severe cold, with hardly any snow. +The pastures were delicately white; the ditches and the wet furrows in +the ploughed land, the ponds on Mellor common, and the stagnant pool in +the midst of the village, whence it drew its main water supply, were +frozen hard. But the ploughed chalk land itself lay a dull grey beside +the glitter of the pastures, and the woods under the bright sun of the +days dropped their rime only to pass once more with the deadly cold of +the night under the fantastic empire of the frost. Every day the veil of +morning mist rose lightly from the woods, uncurtaining the wintry +spectacle, and melting into the brilliant azure of an unflecked sky; +every night the moon rose without a breath of wind, without a cloud; and +all the branch-work of the trees, where they stood in the open fields, +lay reflected clean and sharp on the whitened ground. The bitter cold +stole into the cottages, marking the old and feeble with the touch of +Azrael; while without, in the field solitudes, bird and beast cowered +benumbed and starving in hole and roosting place. + +How still it was--this midnight--on the fringe of the woods! Two men +sitting concealed among some bushes at the edge of Mr. Boyce's largest +cover, and bent upon a common errand, hardly spoke to each other, so +strange and oppressive was the silence. One was Jim Hurd; the other was +a labourer, a son of old Patton of the almshouses, himself a man of +nearly sixty, with a small wizened face showing sharp and white to-night +under his slouched hat. + +They looked out over a shallow cup of treeless land to a further bound +of wooded hill, ending towards the north in a bare bluff of down shining +steep under the moon. They were in shadow, and so was most of the wide +dip of land before them; but through a gap to their right, beyond the +wood, the moonbeams poured, and the farms nestling under the opposite +ridge, the plantations ranging along it, and the bald beacon hill in +which it broke to the plain, were all in radiant light. + +Not a stir of life anywhere. Hurd put up his hand to his ear, and +leaning forward listened intently. Suddenly--a vibration, a dull +thumping sound in the soil of the bank immediately beside him. He +started, dropped his hand, and, stooping, laid his ear to the ground. + +"Gi' us the bag," he said to his companion, drawing himself upright. +"You can hear 'em turnin' and creepin' as plain as anything. Now then, +you take these and go t' other side." + +He handed over a bundle of rabbit nets. Patton, crawling on hands and +knees, climbed over the low overgrown bank on which the hedge stood into +the precincts of the wood itself. The state of the hedge, leaving the +cover practically open and defenceless along its whole boundary, showed +plainly enough that it belonged to the Mellor estate. But the field +beyond was Lord Maxwell's. + +Hurd applied himself to netting the holes on his own side, pushing the +brambles and undergrowth aside with the sure hand of one who had already +reconnoitred the ground. Then he crept over to Patton to see that all +was right on the other side, came back, and went for the ferrets, of +whom he had four in a closely tied bag. + +A quarter of an hour of intense excitement followed. In all, five +rabbits bolted--three on Hurd's side, two on Patton's. It was all the +two men could do to secure their prey, manage the ferrets, and keep a +watch on the holes. Hurd's great hands--now fixing the pegs that held +the nets, now dealing death to the entangled rabbit, whose neck he broke +in an instant by a turn of the thumb, now winding up the line that held +the ferret--seemed to be everywhere. + +At last a ferret "laid up," the string attached to him having either +slipped or broken, greatly to the disgust of the men, who did not want +to be driven either to dig, which made a noise and took time, or to lose +their animal. The rabbits made no more sign, and it was tolerably +evident that they had got as much as they were likely to get out of +that particular "bury." + +Hurd thrust his arm deep into the hole where he had put the ferret. +"Ther's summat in the way," he declared at last. "Mos' likely a dead un. +Gi' me the spade." + +He dug away the mouth of the hole, making as little noise as possible, +and tried again. + +"'Ere ee be," he cried, clutching at something, drew it out, exclaimed +in disgust, flung it away, and pounced upon a rabbit which on the +removal of the obstacle followed like a flash, pursued by the lost +ferret. Hurd caught the rabbit by the neck, held it by main force, and +killed it; then put the ferret into his pocket. "Lord!" he said, wiping +his brow, "they do come suddent." + +What he had pulled out was a dead cat; a wretched puss, who on some +happy hunt had got itself wedged in the hole, and so perished there +miserably. He and Patton stooped over it wondering; then Hurd walked +some paces along the bank, looking warily out to the right of him across +the open country all the time. He threw the poor malodorous thing far +into the wood and returned. + +The two men lit their pipes under the shelter of the bushes, and rested +a bit, well hidden, but able to see out through a break in the bit of +thicket. + +"Six on 'em," said Hurd, looking at the stark creatures beside him. "I +be too done to try another bury. I'll set a snare or two, an' be off +home." + +Patton puffed silently. He was wondering whether Hurd would give him one +rabbit or two. Hurd had both "plant" and skill, and Patton would have +been glad enough to come for one. Still he was a plaintive man with a +perpetual grievance, and had already made up his mind that Hurd would +treat him shabbily to-night, in spite of many past demonstrations that +his companion was on the whole of a liberal disposition. + +"You bin out workin' a day's work already, han't yer?" he said +presently. He himself was out of work, like half the village, and had +been presented by his wife with boiled swede for supper. But he knew +that Hurd had been taken on at the works at the Court, where the new +drive was being made, and a piece of ornamental water enlarged and +improved--mainly for the sake of giving employment in bad times. He, +Patton, and some of his mates, had tried to get a job there. But the +steward had turned them back. The men off the estate had first claim, +and there was not room for all of them. Yet Hurd had been taken on, +which had set people talking. + +Hurd nodded, and said nothing. He was not disposed to be communicative +on the subject of his employment at the Court. + +"An' it be true as _she_ be goin' to marry Muster Raeburn?" + +Patton jerked his head towards the right, where above a sloping hedge +the chimneys of Mellor and the tops of the Mellor cedars, some two or +three fields away, showed distinct against the deep night blue. + +Hurd nodded again, and smoked diligently. Patton, nettled by this +parsimony of speech, made the inward comment that his companion was "a +deep un." The village was perfectly aware of the particular friendship +shown by Miss Boyce to the Hurds. He was goaded into trying a more +stinging topic. + +"Westall wor braggin' last night at Bradsell's"--(Bradsell was the +landlord of "The Green Man" at Mellor)--"ee said as how they'd taken you +on at the Court--but that didn't prevent 'em knowin' as you was a bad +lot. Ee said _ee_ 'ad 'is eye on yer--ee 'ad warned yer twoice last +year--" + +"That's a lie!" said Hurd, removing his pipe an instant and putting it +back again. + +Patton looked more cheerful. + +"Well, ee spoke cru'l. Ee was certain, ee said, as you could tell a +thing or two about them coverts at Tudley End, if the treuth were known. +You wor allus a loafer, an' a loafer you'd be. Yer might go snivellin' +to Miss Boyce, ee said, but yer wouldn't do no honest work--ee said--not +if yer could help it--that's what ee said." + +"Devil!" said Hurd between his teeth, with a quick lift of all his great +misshapen chest. He took his pipe out of his mouth, rammed it down +fiercely with his thumb, and put it in his pocket. + +"Look out!" exclaimed Patton with a start. + +A whistle!--clear and distinct--from the opposite side of the hollow. +Then a man's figure, black and motionless an instant on the whitened +down, with a black speck beside it; lastly, another figure higher up +along the hill, in quick motion towards the first, with other specks +behind it. The poachers instantly understood that it was Westall--whose +particular beat lay in this part of the estate--signalling to his night +watcher, Charlie Dynes, and that the two men would be on them in no +time. It was the work of a few seconds to efface as far as possible the +traces of their raid, to drag some thick and trailing brambles which +hung near over the mouth of the hole where there had been digging, to +catch up the ferrets and game, and to bid Hurd's lurcher to come to +heel. The two men crawled up the ditch with their burdens as far away to +leeward as they could get from the track by which the keepers would +cross the field. The ditch was deeply overgrown, and when the +approaching voices warned them to lie close, they crouched under a dense +thicket of brambles and overhanging bushes, afraid of nothing but the +noses of the keepers' dogs. + +Dogs and men, however, passed unsuspecting. + +"Hold still!" said Hurd, checking Patton's first attempt to move. "He'll +be back again mos' like. It's 'is dodge." + +And sure enough in twenty minutes or so the men reappeared. They +retraced their steps from the further corner of the field, where some +preserves of Lord Maxwell's approached very closely to the big Mellor +wood, and came back again along the diagonal path within fifty yards or +so of the men in the ditch. + +In the stillness the poachers could hear Westall's harsh and peremptory +voice giving some orders to his underling, or calling to the dogs, who +had scattered a little in the stubble. Hurd's own dog quivered beside +him once or twice. + +Then steps and voices faded into the distance and all was safe. + +The poachers crept out grinning, and watched the keepers' progress +along the hill-face, till they disappeared into the Maxwell woods. + +"_Ee_ be sold again--blast 'im!" said Hurd, with a note of quite +disproportionate exultation in his queer, cracked voice. "Now I'll set +them snares. But you'd better git home." + +Patton took the hint, gave a grunt of thanks as his companion handed him +two rabbits, which he stowed away in the capacious pockets of his +poacher's coat, and slouched off home by as sheltered and roundabout a +way as possible. + +Hurd, left to himself, stowed his nets and other apparatus in a hidden +crevice of the bank, and strolled along to set his snares in three +hare-runs, well known to him, round the further side of the wood. + +Then he waited impatiently for the striking of the clock in Mellor +church. The cold was bitter, but his night's work was not over yet, and +he had had very good reasons for getting rid of Patton. + +Almost immediately the bell rang out, the echo rolling round the bend of +the hills in the frosty silence. Half-past twelve Hurd scrambled over +the ditch, pushed his way through the dilapidated hedge, and began to +climb the ascent of the wood. The outskirts of it were filled with a +thin mixed growth of sapling and underwood, but the high centre of it +was crowned by a grove of full-grown beeches, through which the moon, +now at its height, was playing freely, as Hurd clambered upwards amid +the dead leaves just freshly strewn, as though in yearly festival, about +their polished trunks. Such infinite grace and strength in the line work +of the branches!--branches not bent into gnarled and unexpected +fantasies, like those of the oak, but gathered into every conceivable +harmony of upward curve and sweep, rising all together, black against +the silvery light, each tree related to and completing its neighbour, as +though the whole wood, so finely rounded on itself and to the hill, were +but one majestic conception of a master artist. + +But Hurd saw nothing of this as he plunged through the leaves. He was +thinking that it was extremely likely a man would be on the look-out for +him to-night under the big beeches--a man with some business to propose +to him. A few words dropped in his ear at a certain public-house the +night before had seemed to him to mean this, and he had accordingly sent +Patton out of the way. + +But when he got to the top of the hill no one was to be seen or heard, +and he sat him down on a fallen log to smoke and wait awhile. + +He had no sooner, however, taken his seat than he shifted it uneasily, +turning himself round so as to look in the other direction. For in front +of him, as he was first placed, there was a gap in the trees, and over +the lower wood, plainly visible and challenging attention, rose the dark +mass of Mellor House. And the sight of Mellor suggested reflections just +now that were not particularly agreeable to Jim Hurd. + +He had just been poaching Mr. Boyce's rabbits without any sort of +scruple. But the thought of _Miss_ Boyce was not pleasant to him when he +was out on these nightly raids. + +Why had she meddled? He bore her a queer sort of grudge for it. He had +just settled down to the bit of cobbling which, together with his wife's +plait, served him for a blind, and was full of a secret excitement as to +various plans he had in hand for "doing" Westall, combining a maximum of +gain for the winter with a maximum of safety, when Miss Boyce walked in, +radiant with the news that there was employment for him at the Court, on +the new works, whenever he liked to go and ask for it. + +And then she had given him an odd look. + +"And I was to pass you on a message from Lord Maxwell, Hurd," she had +said: "'You tell him to keep out of Westall's way for the future, and +bygones shall be bygones.' Now, I'm not going to ask what that means. If +you've been breaking some of our landlords' law, I'm not going to say +I'm shocked. I'd alter the law to-morrow, if I could!--you know I would. +But I do say you're a fool if you go on with it, now you've got good +work for the winter; you must please remember your wife and children." + +And there he had sat like a log, staring at her--both he and Minta not +knowing where to look, or how to speak. Then at last his wife had broken +out, crying: + +"Oh, miss! we should ha starved--" + +And Miss Boyce had stopped her in a moment, catching her by the hand. +Didn't she know it? Was she there to preach to them? Only Hurd must +promise not to do it any more, for his wife's sake. + +And he--stammering--left without excuse or resource, either against her +charge, or the work she offered him--had promised her, and promised her, +moreover--in his trepidation--with more fervency than he at all liked +to remember. + +For about a fortnight, perhaps, he had gone to the Court by day, and had +kept indoors by night. Then, just as the vagabond passions, the Celtic +instincts, so long repressed, so lately roused, were goading at him +again, he met Westall in the road--Westall, who looked him over from top +to toe with an insolent smile, as much as to say, "Well, my man, we've +got the whip hand of you now!" That same night he crept out again in the +dark and the early morning, in spite of all Minta's tears and scolding. + +Well, what matter? As towards the rich and the law, he had the morals of +the slave, who does not feel that he has had any part in making the +rules he is expected to keep, and breaks them when he can with glee. It +made him uncomfortable, certainly, that Miss Boyce should come in and +out of their place as she did, should be teaching Willie to read, and +bringing her old dresses to make up for Daisy and Nellie, while he was +making a fool of her in this way. Still he took it all as it came. One +sensation wiped out another. + +Besides, Miss Boyce had, after all, much part in this double life of +his. Whenever he was at home, sitting over the fire with a pipe, he read +those papers and things she had brought him in the summer. He had not +taken much notice of them at first. Now he spelled them out again and +again. He had always thought "them rich people took advantage of yer." +But he had never supposed, somehow, they were such thieves, such mean +thieves, as it appeared, they were. A curious ferment filled his +restless, inconsequent brain. The poor were downtrodden, but they were +coming to their rights. The land and its creatures were for the people! +not for the idle rich. Above all, Westall was a devil, and must be put +down. For the rest, if he could have given words to experience, he would +have said that since he began to go out poaching he had burst his prison +and found himself. A life which was not merely endurance pulsed in him. +The scent of the night woods, the keenness of the night air, the tracks +and ways of the wild creatures, the wiles by which he slew them, the +talents and charms of his dog Bruno--these things had developed in him +new aptitudes both of mind and body, which were in themselves +exhilaration. He carried his dwarf's frame more erect, breathed from an +ampler chest. As for his work at the Court, he thought of it often with +impatience and disgust. It was a more useful blind than his cobbling, or +he would have shammed illness and got quit of it. + +"Them were sharp uns that managed that business at Tudley End!" He fell +thinking about it and chuckling over it as he smoked. Two of Westall's +best coverts swept almost clear just before the big shoot in +November!--and all done so quick and quiet, before you could say "Jack +Robinson." Well, there was plenty more yet, more woods, and more birds. +There were those coverts down there, on the Mellor side of the +hollow--they had been kept for the last shoot in January. Hang him! why +wasn't that fellow up to time? + +But no one came, and he must sit on, shivering and smoking, a sack +across his shoulders. As the stir of nerve and blood caused by the +ferreting subsided, his spirits began to sink. Mists of Celtic +melancholy, perhaps of Celtic superstition, gained upon him. He found +himself glancing from side to side, troubled by the noises in the wood. +A sad light wind crept about the trunks like a whisper; the owls called +overhead; sometimes there was a sudden sharp rustle or fall of a branch +that startled him. Yet he knew every track, every tree in that wood. Up +and down that field outside he had followed his father at the plough, a +little sickly object of a lad, yet seldom unhappy, so long as childhood +lasted, and his mother's temper could be fled from, either at school or +in the fields. Under that boundary hedge to the right he had lain +stunned and bleeding all a summer afternoon, after old Westall had +thrashed him, his heart scorched within him by the sense of wrong and +the craving for revenge. On that dim path leading down the slope of the +wood, George Westall had once knocked him down for disturbing a sitting +pheasant. He could see himself falling--the tall, powerful lad standing +over him with a grin. + +Then, inconsequently, he began to think of his father's death. He made a +good end did the old man. "Jim, my lad, the Lord's verra merciful," or +"Jim, you'll look after Ann." Ann was the only daughter. Then a sigh or +two, and a bit of sleep, and it was done. + +And everybody must go the same way, must come to the same stopping of +the breath, the same awfulness--in a life of blind habit--of a moment +that never had been before and never could be again? He did not put it +to these words, but the shudder that is in the thought for all of us, +seized him. He was very apt to think of dying, to ponder in his secret +heart _how_ it would be, and when. And always it made him very soft +towards Minta and the children. Not only did the _life_ instinct cling +to them, to the warm human hands and faces hemming him in and protecting +him from that darkness beyond with its shapes of terror. But to think of +himself as sick, and gasping to his end, like his father, was to put +himself back in his old relation to his wife, when they were first +married. He might cross Minta now, but if he came to lie sick, he could +see himself there, in the future, following her about with his eyes, and +thanking her, and doing all she told him, just as he'd used to do. He +couldn't die without her to help him through. The very idea of her being +taken first, roused in him a kind of spasm--a fierceness, a clenching of +the hands. But all the same, in this poaching matter, he must have, his +way, and she must just get used to it. + +Ah! a low whistle from the further side of the wood. He replied, and was +almost instantly joined by a tall slouching youth, by day a blacksmith's +apprentice at Gairsley, the Maxwells' village, who had often brought him +information before. + +The two sat talking for ten minutes or so on the log. Then they parted; +Hurd went back to the ditch where he had left the game, put two rabbits +into his pockets, left the other two to be removed in the morning when +he came to look at his snares, and went off home, keeping as much as +possible in the shelter of the hedges. On one occasion he braved the +moonlight and the open field, rather than pass through a woody corner +where an old farmer had been found dead some six years before. Then he +reached a deep lane leading to the village, and was soon at his own +door. + +As he climbed the wooden ladder leading to the one bedroom where he, his +wife, and his four children slept, his wife sprang up in bed. + +"Jim, you must be perished--such a night as 't is. Oh, Jim--where ha' +you bin?" + +She was a miserable figure in her coarse nightgown, with her grizzling +hair wild about her, and her thin arms nervously outstretched along the +bed. The room was freezing cold, and the moonlight stealing through the +scanty bits of curtains brought into dismal clearness the squalid bed, +the stained walls, and bare uneven floor. On an iron bedstead, at the +foot of the large bed, lay Willie, restless and coughing, with the elder +girl beside him fast asleep; the other girl lay beside her mother, and +the wooden box with rockers, which held the baby, stood within reach of +Mrs. Hurd's arm. + +He made her no answer, but went to look at the coughing boy, who had +been in bed for a week with bronchitis. + +"You've never been and got in Westall's way again?" she said anxiously. +"It's no good my tryin' to get a wink o' sleep when you're out like +this." + +"Don't you worrit yourself," he said to her, not roughly, but decidedly. +"I'm all right. This boy's bad, Minta." + +"Yes, an' I kep' up the fire an' put the spout on the kettle, too." She +pointed to the grate and to the thin line of steam, which was doing its +powerless best against the arctic cold of the room. + +Hurd bent over the boy and tried to put him comfortable. The child, weak +and feverish, only began to cry--a hoarse bronchial crying, which +threatened to wake the baby. He could not be stopped, so Hurd made haste +to take off his own coat and boots, and then lifted the poor soul in his +arms. + +"You'll be quiet, Will, and go sleep, won't yer, if daddy takes keer on +you?" + +He wrapped his own coat round the little fellow, and lying down beside +his wife, took him on his arm and drew the thin brown blankets over +himself and his charge. He himself was warm with exercise, and in a +little while the huddling creatures on either side of him were warm too. +The quick, panting breath of the boy soon showed that he was asleep. His +father, too, sank almost instantly into deep gulfs of sleep. Only the +wife--nervous, overdone, and possessed by a thousand fears--lay tossing +and wakeful hour after hour, while the still glory of the winter night +passed by. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +"Well, Marcella, have you and Lady Winterbourne arranged your classes?" + +Mrs. Boyce was stooping over a piece of needlework beside a window in +the Mellor drawing-room, trying to catch the rapidly failing light. It +was one of the last days of December. Marcella had just come in from the +village rather early, for they were expecting a visitor to arrive about +tea time, and had thrown herself, tired, into a chair near her mother. + +"We have got about ten or eleven of the younger women to join; none of +the old ones will come," said Marcella. "Lady Winterbourne has heard of +a capital teacher from Dunstable, and we hope to get started next week. +There is money enough to pay wages for three months." + +In spite of her fatigue, her eye was bright and restless. The energy of +thought and action from which she had just emerged still breathed from +every limb and feature. + +"Where have you got the money?" + +"Mr. Raeburn has managed it," said Marcella, briefly. + +Mrs. Boyce gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. + +"And afterwards--what is to become of your product?" + +"There is a London shop Lady Winterbourne knows will take what we make +if it turns out well. Of course, we don't expect to pay our way." + +Marcella gave her explanations with a certain stiffness of self-defence. +She and Lady Winterbourne had evolved a scheme for reviving and +improving the local industry of straw-plaiting, which after years of +decay seemed now on the brink of final disappearance. The village women +who could at present earn a few pence a week by the coarser kinds of +work were to be instructed, not only in the finer and better paid sorts, +but also in the making up of the plait when done, and the "blocking" of +hats and bonnets--processes hitherto carried on exclusively at one or +two large local centres. + +"You don't expect to pay your way?" repeated Mrs. Boyce. "What, never?" + +"Well, we shall give twelve to fourteen shillings a week wages. We shall +find the materials, and the room--and prices are very low, the whole +trade depressed." + +Mrs. Boyce laughed. + +"I see. How many workers do you expect to get together?" + +"Oh! eventually, about two hundred in the three villages. It will +regenerate the whole life!" said Marcella, a sudden ray from the inner +warmth escaping her, against her will. + +Mrs. Boyce smiled again, and turned her work so as to see it better. + +"Does Aldous understand what you are letting him in for?" + +Marcella flushed. + +"Perfectly. It is 'ransom'--that's all." + +"And he is ready to take your view of it?" + +"Oh, he thinks us economically unsound, of course," said Marcella, +impatiently. "So we are. All care for the human being under the present +state of things is economically unsound. But he likes it no more than I +do." + +"Well, lucky for you he has a long purse," said Mrs. Boyce, lightly. +"But I gather, Marcella, you don't insist upon his spending it _all_ on +straw-plaiting. He told me yesterday he had taken the Hertford Street +house." + +"We shall live quite simply," said Marcella, quickly. + +"What, no carriage?" + +Marcella hesitated. + +"A carriage saves time. And if one goes about much, it does not cost so +much more than cabs." + +"So you mean to go about much? Lady Winterbourne talks to me of +presenting you in May." + +"That's Miss Raeburn," cried Marcella. "She says I must, and all the +family would be scandalised if I didn't go. But you can't imagine--" + +She stopped and took off her hat, pushing the hair back from her +forehead. A look of worry and excitement had replaced the radiant glow +of her first resting moments. + +"That you like it?" said Mrs. Boyce, bluntly. "Well, I don't know. Most +young women like pretty gowns, and great functions, and prominent +positions. I don't call you an ascetic, Marcella." + +Marcella winced. + +"One has to fit oneself to circumstances," she said proudly. "One may +hate the circumstances, but one can't escape them." + +"Oh, I don't think you will hate your circumstances, my dear! You would +be very foolish if you did. Have you heard finally how much the +settlement is to be?" + +"No," said Marcella, shortly. "I have not asked papa, nor anybody." + +"It was only settled this morning. Your father told me hurriedly as he +went out. You are to have two thousand a year of your own." + +The tone was dry, and the speaker's look as she turned towards her +daughter had in it a curious hostility; but Marcella did not notice her +mother's manner. + +"It is too much," she said in a low voice. + +She had thrown back her head against the chair in which she sat, and her +half-troubled eyes were wandering over the darkening expanse of lawn and +avenue. + +"He said he wished you to feel perfectly free to live your own life, and +to follow out your own projects. Oh, for a person of projects, my dear, +it is not so much. You will do well to husband it. Keep it for yourself. +Get what _you_ want out of it: not what other people want." + +Again Marcella's attention missed the note of agitation in her mother's +sharp manner. A soft look--a look of compunction--passed across her +face. Mrs. Boyce began to put her working things away, finding it too +dark to do any more. + +"By the way," said the mother, suddenly, "I suppose you will be going +over to help him in his canvassing this next few weeks? Your father says +the election will be certainly in February." + +Marcella moved uneasily. + +"He knows," she said at last, "that I don't agree with him in so many +things. He is so full of this Peasant Proprietors Bill. And I hate +peasant properties. They are nothing but a step backwards." + +Mrs. Boyce lifted her eyebrows. + +"That's unlucky. He tells me it is likely to be his chief work in the +new Parliament. Isn't it, on the whole, probable that he knows more +about the country than you do, Marcella?" + +Marcella sat up with sudden energy and gathered her walking things +together. + +"It isn't knowledge that's the question, mamma; it's the principle of +the thing. I mayn't know anything, but the people whom I follow know. +There are the two sides of thought--the two ways of looking at things. I +warned Aldous when he asked me to marry him which I belonged to. And he +accepted it." + +Mrs. Boyce's thin fine mouth curled a little. + +"So you suppose that Aldous had his wits about him on that great +occasion as much as you had?" + +Marcella first started, then quivered with nervous indignation. + +"Mother," she said, "I can't bear it. It's not the first time that you +have talked as though I had taken some unfair advantage--made an +unworthy bargain. It is too hard too. Other people may think what they +like, but that you--" + +Her voice failed her, and the tears came into her eyes. She was tired +and over-excited, and the contrast between the atmosphere of flattery +and consideration which surrounded her in Aldous's company, in the +village, or at the Winterbournes, and this tone which her mother so +often took with her when they were alone, was at the moment hardly to be +endured. + +Mrs. Boyce looked up more gravely. + +"You misunderstand me, my dear," she said quietly. "I allow myself to +wonder at you a little, but I think no hard things of you ever. I +believe you like Aldous." + +"Really, mamma!" cried Marcella, half hysterically. + +Mrs. Boyce had by now rolled up her work and shut her workbasket. + +"If you are going to take off your things," she said, "please tell +William that there will be six or seven at tea. You said, I think, that +Mr. Raeburn was going to bring Mr. Hallin?" + +"Yes, and Frank Leven is coming. When will Mr. Wharton be here?" + +"Oh, in ten minutes or so, if his train is punctual. I hear your father +just coming in." + +Marcella went away, and Mrs. Boyce was left a few minutes alone. Her +thin hands lay idle a moment on her lap, and leaning towards the window +beside her, she looked out an instant into the snowy twilight. Her mind +was full of its usual calm scorn for those--her daughter included--who +supposed that the human lot was to be mended by a rise in weekly wages, +or that suffering has any necessary dependence on the amount of +commodities of which a man disposes. What hardship is there in starving +and scrubbing and toiling? Had she ever seen a labourer's wife scrubbing +her cottage floor without envy, without moral thirst? Is it these things +that kill, or any of the great simple griefs and burdens? Doth man live +by bread alone? The whole language of social and charitable enthusiasm +often raised in her a kind of exasperation. + +So Marcella would be rich, excessively rich, even now. Outside the +amount settled upon her, the figures of Aldous Raeburn's present income, +irrespective of the inheritance which would come to him on his +grandfather's death, were a good deal beyond what even Mr. Boyce--upon +whom the daily spectacle of the Maxwell wealth exercised a certain +angering effect--had supposed. + +Mrs. Boyce had received the news of the engagement with astonishment, +but her after-acceptance of the situation had been marked by all her +usual philosophy. Probably behind the philosophy there was much secret +relief. Marcella was provided for. Not the fondest or most contriving +mother could have done more for her than she had at one stroke done for +herself. During the early autumn Mrs. Boyce had experienced some moments +of sharp prevision as to what her future relations might be towards this +strong and restless daughter, so determined to conquer a world her +mother had renounced. Now all was clear, and a very shrewd observer +could allow her mind to play freely with the ironies of the situation. + +As to Aldous Raeburn, she had barely spoken to him before the day when +Marcella announced the engagement, and the lover a few hours later had +claimed her daughter at the mother's hands with an emotion to which Mrs. +Boyce found her usual difficulty in responding. She had done her best, +however, to be gracious and to mask her surprise that he should have +proposed, that Lord Maxwell should have consented, and that Marcella +should have so lightly fallen a victim. One surprise, however, had to be +confessed, at least to herself. After her interview with her future +son-in-law, Mrs. Boyce realised that for the first time for fifteen +years she was likely to admit a new friend. The impression made upon him +by her own singular personality had translated itself in feelings and +language which, against her will as it were, established an +understanding, an affinity. That she had involuntarily aroused in him +the profoundest and most chivalrous pity was plain to her. Yet for the +first time in her life she did not resent it; and Marcella watched her +mother's attitude with a mixture of curiosity and relief. + +Then followed talk of an early wedding, communications from Lord Maxwell +to Mr. Boyce of a civil and formal kind, a good deal more notice from +the "county," and finally this definite statement from Aldous Raeburn as +to the settlement he proposed to make upon his wife, and the joint +income which he and she would have immediately at their disposal. + +Under all these growing and palpable evidences of Marcella's future +wealth and position, Mrs. Boyce had shown her usual restless and ironic +spirit. But of late, and especially to-day, restlessness had become +oppression. While Marcella was so speedily to become the rich and +independent woman, they themselves, Marcella's mother and father, were +very poor, in difficulties even, and likely to remain so. She gathered +from her husband's grumbling that the provision of a suitable trousseau +for Marcella would tax his resources to their utmost. How long would it +be before they were dipping in Marcella's purse? Mrs. Boyce's +self-tormenting soul was possessed by one of those nightmares her pride +had brought upon her in grim succession during these fifteen years. And +this pride, strong towards all the world, was nowhere so strong or so +indomitable, at this moment, as towards her own daughter. They were +practically strangers to each other; and they jarred. To inquire where +the fault lay would have seemed to Mrs. Boyce futile. + + * * * * * + +Darkness had come on fast, and Mrs. Boyce was in the act of ringing for +lights when her husband entered. + +"Where's Marcella?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair with the +air of irritable fatigue which was now habitual to him. + +"Only gone to take off her things and tell William about tea. She will +be down directly." + +"Does she know about that settlement?" + +"Yes, I told her. She thought it generous, but not--I think--unsuitable. +The world cannot be reformed on nothing." + +"Reformed!--fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Boyce, angrily. "I never saw a girl +with a head so full of nonsense in my life. Where does she get it from? +Why did you let her go about in London with those people? She may be +spoilt for good. Ten to one she'll make a laughing stock of herself and +everybody belonging to her, before she's done." + +"Well, that is Mr. Raeburn's affair. I think I should take him into +account more than Marcella does, if I were she. But probably she knows +best." + +"Of course she does. He has lost his head; any one can see that. While +she is in the room, he is like a man possessed. It doesn't sit well on +that kind of fellow. It makes him ridiculous. I told him half the +settlement would be ample. She would only spend the rest on nonsense." + +"You told him that?" + +"Yes, I did. Oh!"--with an angry look at her--"I suppose you thought I +should want to sponge upon her? I am as much obliged to you as usual!" + +A red spot rose in his wife's thin cheek. But she turned and answered +him gently, so gently that he had the rare sensation of having triumphed +over her. He allowed himself to be mollified, and she stood there over +the fire, chatting with him for some time, a friendly natural note in +her voice which was rare and, insensibly, soothed him like an opiate. +She chatted about Marcella's trousseau gowns, detailing her own +contrivances for economy; about the probable day of the wedding, the +latest gossip of the election, and so on. He sat shading his eyes from +the firelight, and now and then throwing in a word or two. The inmost +soul of him was very piteous, harrowed often by a new dread--the dread +of dying. The woman beside him held him in the hollow of her hand. In +the long wrestle between her nature and his, she had conquered. His fear +of her and his need of her had even come to supply the place of a dozen +ethical instincts he was naturally without. + +Some discomfort, probably physical, seemed at last to break up his +moment of rest. + +"Well, I tell you, I often wish it were the other man," he said, with +some impatience. "Raeburn 's so d----d superior. I suppose I offended +him by what I said of Marcella's whims, and the risk of letting her +control so much money at her age, and with her ideas. You never saw such +an air!--all very quiet, of course. He buttoned his coat and got up to +go, as though I were no more worth considering than the table. Neither +he nor his precious grandfather need alarm themselves: I shan't trouble +them as a visitor. If I shock them, they bore me--so we're quits. +Marcella'll have to come here if she wants to see her father. But owing +to your charming system of keeping her away from us all her childhood, +she's not likely to want." + +"You mean Mr. Wharton by the other man?" said Mrs. Boyce, not defending +herself or Aldous. + +"Yes, of course. But he came on the scene just too late, worse luck! Why +wouldn't he have done just as well? He's as mad as she--madder. He +believes all the rubbish she does--talks such _rot_, the people tell me, +in his meetings. But then he's good company--he amuses you--you don't +need to be on your p's and q's with _him_. Why wouldn't she have taken +up with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. _He's_ +not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just bad +luck." + +Mrs. Boyce smiled a little. + +"What there is to make you suppose that she would have inclined to him, +I don't exactly see. She has been taken up with Mr. Raeburn, really, +from the first week of her arrival here." + +"Well, I dare say--there was no one else," said her husband, testily. +"That's natural enough. It's just what I say. All I know is, Wharton +shall be free to use this house just as he pleases during his +canvassing, whatever the Raeburns may say." + +He bent forward and poked the somewhat sluggish fire with a violence +which hindered rather than helped it. Mrs. Boyce's smile had quite +vanished. She perfectly understood all that was implied, whether in his +instinctive dislike of Aldous Raeburn, or in his cordiality towards +young Wharton. + +After a minute's silence, he got up again and left the room, walking, as +she observed, with difficulty. She stopped a minute or so in the same +place after he had gone, turning her rings absently on her thin fingers. +She was thinking of some remarks which Dr. Clarke, the excellent and +experienced local doctor, had made to her on the occasion of his last +visit. With all the force of her strong will she had set herself to +disbelieve them. But they had had subtle effects already. Finally she +too went upstairs, bidding Marcella, whom she met coming down, hurry +William with the tea, as Mr. Wharton might arrive any moment. + + * * * * * + +Marcella saw the room shut up--the large, shabby, beautiful room--the +lamps brought in, fresh wood thrown on the fire to make it blaze, and +the tea-table set out. Then she sat herself down on a low chair by the +fire, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped +in front of her. Her black dress revealed her fine full throat and her +white wrists, for she had an impatience of restraint anywhere, and wore +frills and falls of black lace where other people would have followed +the fashion in high collars and close wristbands. What must have struck +any one with an observant eye, as she sat thus, thrown into beautiful +light and shade by the blaze of the wood fire, was the massiveness of +the head compared with the nervous delicacy of much of the face, the +thinness of the wrist, and of the long and slender foot raised on the +fender. It was perhaps the great thickness and full wave of the hair +which gave the head its breadth; but the effect was singular, and would +have been heavy but for the glow of the eyes, which balanced it. + +She was thinking, as a _fiancee_ should, of Aldous and their marriage, +which had been fixed for the end of February. Yet not apparently with +any rapturous absorption. There was a great deal to plan, and her mind +was full of business. Who was to look after her various village schemes +while she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London? Mary Harden had +hardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was. They must find some +capable woman and pay her. The Cravens would tell her, of course, that +she was on the high road to the most degrading of _roles_--the _role_ of +Lady Bountiful. But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls. And +the _role_ itself was inevitable. It all depended upon how it was +managed--in the interest of what ideas. + +She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town. It would +certainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward a +little. Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over. + +All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell, +which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it was +not easy to hear. Their coming guest was not much in her mind. She +tacitly assumed that her father would look after him. On the two or +three occasions when they had met during the last three months, +including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, her +thoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice of +him--picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be. Of late he had not been +much in the neighbourhood. There had been a slack time for both +candidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hard +canvassing in view of the election which everybody expected at the end +of February. + +But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin! That interested her. She felt an +intense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certain +nervousness. The impression she might be able to make on him would be in +some sense an earnest of her future. + +Suddenly, something undefinable--a slight sound, a current of air--made +her turn her head. To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorway +looking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves. + +She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance. + +"Mr. Wharton!" + +"Oh!--must you?"--he said, with a movement of one hand, as though to +stop her. "Couldn't you stay like that? At first I thought there was +nobody in the room. Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are as +the sand of the sea for multitude, so I wandered in by myself. Then I +saw you--and the fire--and the room. It was like a bit of music. It was +mere wanton waste to interrupt it." + +Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him. + +"I did not hear the front door," she said coldly. "My mother will be +here directly. May I give you some tea?" + +"Thanks. No, I knew you did not hear me. That delighted me. It showed +what charming things there are in the world that have no spectators! +What a _delicious_ place this is!--what a heavenly old place--especially +in these half lights! There was a raw sun when I was here before, but +now--" + +He stood in front of the fire, looking round the great room, and at the +few small lamps making their scanty light amid the flame-lit darkness. +His hands were loosely crossed behind his back, and his boyish face, in +its setting of curls, shone with content and self-possession. + +"Well," said Marcella, bluntly, "I should prefer a little more light to +live by. Perhaps, when you have fallen downstairs here in the dark as +often as I have, you may too." + +He laughed. + +"But how much better, after all--don't you think so?--to have too little +of anything than too much!" + +He flung himself into a chair beside the tea-table, looking up with gay +interrogation as Marcella handed him his cup. She was a good deal +surprised by him. On the few occasions of their previous meetings, these +bright eyes, and this pronounced manner, had been--at any rate as +towards herself--much less free and evident. She began to recover the +start he had given her, and to study him with a half-unwilling +curiosity. + +"Then Mellor will please you," she said drily, in answer to his remark, +carrying her own tea meanwhile to a chair on the other side of the fire. +"My father never bought anything--my father can't. I believe we have +chairs enough to sit down upon--but we have no curtains to half the +windows. Can I give you anything?" + +For he had risen, and was looking over the tea-tray. + +"Oh! but I _must_," he said discontentedly. "I _must_ have enough sugar +in my tea!" + +"I gave you more than the average," she said, with a sudden little leap +of laughter, as she came to his aid. "Do all your principles break down +like this? I was going to suggest that you might like some of that fire +taken away?" And she pointed to the pile of blazing logs which now +filled up the great chimney. + +"That fire!" he said, shivering, and moving up to it. "Have you any idea +what sort of a wind you keep up here on these hills on a night like +this? And to think that in this weather, with a barometer that laughs in +your face when you try to move it, I have three meetings to-morrow +night!" + +"When one loves the 'People,' with a large P," said Marcella, "one +mustn't mind winds." + +He flashed a smile at her, answering to the sparkle of her look, then +applied himself to his tea and toasted bun again, with the dainty +deliberation of one enjoying every sip and bite. + +"No; but if only the People didn't live so far apart. Some murderous +person wanted them to have only one neck. I want them to have only one +ear. Only then unfortunately everybody would speak well--which would +bring things round to dulness again. Does Mr. Raeburn make you think +very bad things of me, Miss Boyce?" + +He bent forward to her as he spoke, his blue eyes all candour and mirth. + +Marcella started. + +"How can he?" she said abruptly. "I am not a Conservative." + +"Not a Conservative?" he said joyously. "Oh! but impossible! Does that +mean that you ever read my poor little speeches?" + +He pointed to the local newspaper, freshly cut, which lay on a table at +Marcella's elbow. + +"Sometimes--" said Marcella, embarrassed. "There is so little time." + +In truth she had hardly given his candidature a thought since the day +Aldous proposed to her. She had been far too much taken up with her own +prospects, with Lady Winterbourne's friendship, and her village schemes. + +He laughed. + +"Of course there is. When is the great event to be?" + +"I didn't mean that," said Marcella, stiffly. "Lady Winterbourne and I +have been trying to start some village workshops. We have been working +and talking, and writing, morning, noon, and night." + +"Oh! I know--yes, I heard of it. And you really think anything is going +to come out of finicking little schemes of that sort?" + +His dry change of tone drew a quick look from her. The fresh-coloured +face was transformed. In place of easy mirth and mischief, she read an +acute and half contemptuous attention. + +"I don't know what you mean," she said slowly, after a pause. "Or +rather--I do know quite well. You told papa--didn't you?--and Mr. +Raeburn says that you are a Socialist--not half-and-half, as all the +world is, but the real thing? And of course you want great changes: you +don't like anything that might strengthen the upper class with the +people. But that is nonsense. You can't get the changes for a long +_long_ time. And, meanwhile, people must be clothed and fed and kept +alive." + +She lay back in her high-backed chair and looked at him defiantly. His +lip twitched, but he kept his gravity. + +"You would be much better employed in forming a branch of the +Agricultural Union," he said decidedly. "What is the good of playing +Lady Bountiful to a decayed industry? All that is childish; we want _the +means of revolution_. The people who are for reform shouldn't waste +money and time on fads." + +"I understand all that," she said scornfully, her quick breath rising +and falling. "Perhaps you don't know that I was a member of the +Venturist Society in London? What you say doesn't sound very new to me!" + +His seriousness disappeared in laughter. He hastily put down his cup +and, stepping over to her, held out his hand. + +"You a Venturist? So am I. Joy! Won't you shake hands with me, as +comrades should? We are a very mixed set of people, you know, and +between ourselves I don't know that we are coming to much. But we can +make an alderman dream of the guillotine--that is always something. Oh! +but now we can talk on quite a new footing!" + +She had given him her hand for an instant, withdrawing it with shy +rapidity, and he had thrown himself into a chair again, with his arms +behind his head, and the air of one reflecting happily on a changed +situation. "Quite a new footing," he repeated thoughtfully. "But it +is--a little surprising. What does--what does Mr. Raeburn say to it?" + +"Nothing! He cares just as much about the poor as you or I, please +understand! He doesn't choose my way--but he won't interfere with it." + +"Ah! that is like him--like Aldous." + +Marcella started. + +"You don't mind my calling him by his Christian name sometimes? It drops +out. We used to meet as boys together at the Levens. The Levens are my +cousins. He was a big boy, and I was a little one. But he didn't like +me. You see--I was a little beast!" + +His air of appealing candour could not have been more engaging. + +"Yes, I fear I was a little beast. And he was, even then, and always, +'the good and beautiful.' You don't understand Greek, do you, Miss +Boyce? But he was very good to me. I got into an awful scrape once. I +let out a pair of eagle owls that used to be kept in the courtyard--Sir +Charles loved them a great deal more than his babies--I let them out at +night for pure wickedness, and they came to fearful ends in the park. I +was to have been sent home next day, in the most unnecessary and penal +hurry. But Aldous interposed--said he would look after me for the rest +of the holidays." + +"And then you tormented him?" + +"Oh no!" he said with gentle complacency. "Oh no! I never torment +anybody. But one must enjoy oneself you know; what else can one do? Then +afterwards, when we were older--somehow I don't know--but we didn't get +on. It is very sad--I wish he thought better of me." + +The last words were said with a certain change of tone, and sitting up +he laid the tips of his fingers together on his knees with a little +plaintive air. Marcella's eyes danced with amusement, but she looked +away from him to the fire, and would not answer. + +"You don't help me out. You don't console me. It's unkind of-you. Don't +you think it a melancholy fate to be always admiring the people who +detest you?" + +"Don't admire them!" she said merrily. + +His eyebrows lifted. "_That_," he said drily, "is disloyal. I call--I +call your ancestor over the mantelpiece"--he waved his hand towards a +blackened portrait in front of him--"to witness, that I am all for +admiring Mr. Raeburn, and you discourage it. Well, but now--_now_"--he +drew his chair eagerly towards hers, the pose of a minute before thrown +to the winds--"do let us understand each other a little more before +people come. You know I have a labour newspaper?" + +She nodded. + +"You read it?" + +"Is it the _Labour Clarion_? I take it in." + +"Capital!" he cried. "Then I know now why I found a copy in the village +here. You lent it to a man called Hurd?" + +"I did." + +"Whose wife worships you?--whose good angel you have been? Do I know +something about you, or do I not? Well, now, are you satisfied with that +paper? Can you suggest to me means of improving it? It wants some fresh +blood, I think--I must find it? I bought the thing last year, in a +moribund condition, with the old staff. Oh! we will certainly take +counsel together about it--most certainly! But first--I have been +boasting of knowing something about you--but I should like to ask--do +you know anything about me?" + +Both laughed. Then Marcella tried to be serious. + +"Well--I--I believe--you have some land?" + +"Eight!" he nodded--"I am a Lincolnshire landowner. I have about five +thousand acres--enough to be tolerably poor on--and enough to play +tricks with. I have a co-operative farm, for instance. At present I have +lent them a goodish sum of money--and remitted them their first +half-year's rent. Not so far a paying speculation. But it will do--some +day. Meanwhile the estate wants money--and my plans and I want +money--badly. I propose to make the _Labour Clarion_ pay--if I can. +That will give me more time for speaking and organising, for what +concerns _us_--as Venturists--than the Bar." + +"The Bar?" she said, a little mystified, but following every word with a +fascinated attention. + +"I made myself a barrister three years ago, to please my mother. She +thought I should do better in Parliament--if ever I got in. Did you ever +hear of my mother?" + +There was no escaping these frank, smiling questions. + +"No," said Marcella, honestly. + +"Well, ask Lord Maxwell," he said, laughing. "He and she came across +each other once or twice, when he was Home Secretary years ago, and she +was wild about some woman's grievance or other. She always maintains +that she got the better of him--no doubt he was left with a different +impression. Well--my mother--most people thought her mad--perhaps she +was--but then somehow--I loved her!" + +He was still smiling, but at the last words a charming vibration crept +into the words, and his eyes sought her with a young open demand for +sympathy. + +"Is that so rare?" she asked him, half laughing--instinctively defending +her own feeling lest it should be snatched from her by any make-believe. + +"Yes--as we loved each other--it is rare. My father died when I was ten. +She would not send me to school, and I was always in her pocket--I +shared all her interests. She was a wild woman--but she _lived_, as not +one person in twenty lives." + +Then he sighed. Marcella was too shy to imitate his readiness to ask +questions. But she supposed that his mother must be dead--indeed, now +vaguely remembered to have heard as much. + +There was a little silence. + +"Please tell me," she said suddenly, "why do you attack my +straw-plaiting? Is a co-operative farm any less of a stopgap?" + +Instantly his face changed. He drew up his chair again beside her, as +gay and keen-eyed as before. + +"I can't argue it out now. There is so much to say. But do listen! I +have a meeting in the village here next week to preach land +nationalisation. We mean to try and form a branch of the Labourers' +Union. Will you come?" + +Marcella hesitated. + +"I think so," she said slowly. + +There was a pause. Then she raised her eyes and found his fixed upon +her. A sudden sympathy--of youth, excitement, pleasure--seemed to rise +between them. She had a quick impression of lightness, grace; of an open +brow set in curls; of a look more intimate, inquisitive, commanding, +than any she had yet met. + +"May I speak to you, miss?" said a voice at the door. + +Marcella rose hastily. Her mother's maid was standing there. + +She hurried across the room. + +"What is the matter, Deacon?" + +"Your mother says, miss," said the maid, retreating into the hall, "I am +to tell you she can't come down. Your father is ill, and she has sent +for Dr. Clarke. But you are please not to go up. Will you give the +gentlemen their tea, and she will come down before they go, if she can." + +Marcella had turned pale. + +"Mayn't I go, Deacon? What is it?" + +"It's a bad fit of pain, your mother says, miss. Nothing can be done +till the doctor comes. She begged _particular_ that you wouldn't go up, +miss. She doesn't want any one put out." + +At the same moment there was a ring at the outer door. + +"Oh, there is Aldous," cried Marcella, with relief, and she ran out into +the hall to meet him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Aldous advanced into the inner hall at sight of Marcella, leaving his +companions behind in the vestibule taking off their coats. Marcella ran +to him. + +"Papa is ill!" she said to him hastily. "Mamma has sent for Dr. Clarke. +She won't let me go up, and wants us to take no notice and have tea +without her." + +"I am so sorry! Can we do anything? The dogcart is here with a fast +horse. If your messenger went on foot--" + +"Oh, no! they are sure to have sent the boy on the pony. I don't know +why, but I have had a presentiment for a long time past that papa was +going to be ill." + +She looked white and excited. She had turned back to the drawing-room, +forgetting the other guests, he walking beside her. As they passed along +the dim hall, Aldous had her hand close in his, and when they passed +under an archway at the further end he stooped suddenly in the shadows +and kissed the hand. Touch--kiss--had the clinging, the intensity of +passion. + +They were the expression of all that had lain vibrating at the man's +inmost heart during the dark drive, while he had been chatting with his +two companions. + +"My darling! I hope not. Would you rather not see strangers? Shall I +send Hallin and young Leven away? They would understand at once." + +"Oh, no! Mr. Wharton is here anyway--staying. Where is Mr. Hallin? I +had forgotten him." + +Aldous turned and called. Mr. Hallin and young Frank Leven, divining +something unusual, were looking at the pictures in the hall. + +Edward Hallin came up and took Marcella's offered hand. Each looked at +the other with a special attention and interest. "She holds my friend's +life in her hands--is she worthy of it?" was naturally the question +hanging suspended in the man's judgment. The girl's manner was proud and +shy, the manner of one anxious to please, yet already, perhaps, on the +defensive. + +Aldous explained the position of affairs, and Hallin expressed his +sympathy. He had a singularly attractive voice, the voice indeed of the +orator, which can adapt itself with equal charm and strength to the most +various needs and to any pitch. As he spoke, Marcella was conscious of a +sudden impression that she already knew him and could be herself with +him at once. + +"Oh, I say," broke in young Leven, who was standing behind; "don't you +be bothered with us, Miss Boyce. Just send us back at once. I'm awfully +sorry!" + +"No; you are to come in!" she said, smiling through her pallor, which +was beginning to pass away, and putting out her hand to him--the young +Eton and Oxford athlete, just home for his Christmas vacation, was a +great favourite with her--"You must come and have tea and cheer me up by +telling me all the things you have killed this week. Is there anything +left alive? You had come down to the fieldfares, you know, last +Tuesday." + +He followed her, laughing and protesting, and she led the way to the +drawing-room. But as her fingers were on the handle she once more caught +sight of the maid, Deacon, standing on the stairs, and ran to speak to +her. + +"He is better," she said, coming back with a face of glad relief. "The +attack seems to be passing off. Mamma can't come down, but she begs that +we will all enjoy ourselves." + +"We'll endeavour," said young Leven, rubbing his hands, "by the help of +tea. Miss Boyce, will you please tell Aldous and Mr. Hallin not to talk +politics when they're taking me out to a party. They should fight a man +of their own size. I'm all limp and trampled on, and want you to protect +me." + +The group moved, laughing and talking, into the drawing-room. + +"Jiminy!" said Leven, stopping short behind Aldous, who was alone +conscious of the lad's indignant astonishment; "what the deuce is _he_ +doing here?" + +For there on the rug, with his back to the fire, stood Wharton, +surveying the party with his usual smiling _aplomb_. + +"Mr. Hallin, do you know Mr. Wharton?" said Marcella. + +"Mr. Wharton and I have met several times on public platforms," said +Hallin, holding out his hand, which Wharton took with effusion. Aldous +greeted him with the impassive manner, the "three finger" manner, which +was with him an inheritance--though not from his grandfather--and did +not contribute to his popularity in the neighbourhood. As for young +Leven, he barely nodded to the Radical candidate, and threw himself into +a chair as far from the fire as possible. + +"Frank and I have met before to-day!" said Wharton, laughing. + +"Yes, I've been trying to undo some of your mischief," said the boy, +bluntly. "I found him, Miss Boyce, haranguing a lot of men at the +dinner-hour at Tudley End--one of our villages, you know--cramming them +like anything--all about the game laws, and our misdeeds--my father's, +of course." + +Wharton raised a protesting hand. + +"Oh--all very well! Of course it was us you meant! Well, when he'd +driven off, I got up on a cart and had _my_ say. I asked them whether +they didn't all come out at our big shoots, and whether they didn't have +almost as much fun as we did--why! the schoolmaster and the postman come +to ask to carry cartridges, and everybody turns out, down to the +cripples!--whether they didn't have rabbits given them all the year +round; whether half of them hadn't brothers and sons employed somehow +about the game, well-paid, and well-treated; whether any man-jack of +them would be a ha'porth better off if there were no game; whether many +of them wouldn't be worse off; and whether England wouldn't be a beastly +dull place to live in, if people like him"--he pointed to Wharton--"had +the governing of it! And I brought 'em all round too. I got them +cheering and laughing. Oh! I can tell you old Dodgson'll have to take +me on. He says he'll ask me to speak for him at several places. I'm not +half bad, I declare I'm not." + +"I thought they gave you a holiday task at Eton," observed Wharton, +blandly. + +The lad coloured hotly, then bethought himself--radiant:-- + +"I left Eton last half, as of course you know quite well. But if it had +only been last Christmas instead of this, wouldn't I have scored--by +Jove! They gave us a beastly _essay_ instead of a book. _Demagogues_!' I +sat up all night, and screwed out a page and a half. I'd have known +something about it _now_." + +And as he stood beside the tea-table, waiting for Marcella to entrust +some tea to him for distribution, he turned and made a profound bow to +his candidate cousin. + +Everybody joined in the laugh, led by Wharton. Then there was a general +drawing up of chairs, and Marcella applied herself to making tea, helped +by Aldous. Wharton alone remained standing before the fire, observant +and apart. + +Hallin, whose health at this moment made all exertion, even a drive, +something of a burden, sat a little away from the tea-table, resting, +and glad to be silent. Yet all the time he was observing the girl +presiding and the man beside her--his friend, her lover. The moment had +a peculiar, perhaps a melancholy interest for him. So close had been the +bond between himself and Aldous, that the lover's communication of his +engagement had evoked in the friend that sense--poignant, +inevitable--which in the realm of the affections always waits on +something done and finished,--a leaf turned, a chapter closed. "That sad +word, Joy!" Hallin was alone and ill when Raeburn's letter reached him, +and through the following day and night he was haunted by Landor's +phrase, long familiar and significant to him. His letter to his friend, +and the letter to Miss Boyce for which Raeburn had asked him, had cost +him an invalid's contribution of sleep and ease. The girl's answer had +seemed to him constrained and young, though touched here and there with +a certain fineness and largeness of phrase, which, if it was to be taken +as an index of character, no doubt threw light upon the matter so far as +Aldous was concerned. + +Her beauty, of which he had heard much, now that he was face to face +with it, was certainly striking enough--all the more because of its +immaturity, the subtlety and uncertainty of its promise. +_Immaturity_--_uncertainty_--these words returned upon him as he +observed her manner with its occasional awkwardness, the awkwardness +which goes with power not yet fully explored or mastered by its +possessor. How Aldous hung upon her, following every movement, +anticipating every want! After a while Hallin found himself +half-inclined to Mr. Boyce's view, that men of Raeburn's type are never +seen to advantage in this stage--this queer topsy-turvy stage--of first +passion. He felt a certain impatience, a certain jealousy for his +friend's dignity. It seemed to him too, every now and then, that +she--the girl--was teased by all this absorption, this deference. He was +conscious of watching for something in her that did not appear; and a +first prescience of things anxious or untoward stirred in his quick +sense. + +"You may all say what you like," said Marcella, suddenly, putting down +her cup, and letting her hand drop for emphasis on her knee; "but you +will never persuade me that game-preserving doesn't make life in the +country much more difficult, and the difference between classes much +wider and bitterer, than they need be." + +The remark cut across some rattling talk of Frank Leven's, who was in +the first flush of the sportsman's ardour, and, though by no means +without parts, could at the present moment apply his mind to little else +than killing of one kind or another, unless it were to the chances of +keeping his odious cousin out of Parliament. + +Leven stared. Miss Boyce's speech seemed to him to have no sort of _a +propos_. Aldous looked down upon her as he stood beside her, smiling. + +"I wish you didn't trouble yourself so much about it," he said. + +"How can I help it?" she answered quickly; and then flushed, like one +who has drawn attention indiscreetly to their own personal situation. + +"Trouble herself!" echoed young Leven. "Now, look here Miss Boyce, will +you come for a walk with me? I'll convince you, as I convinced those +fellows over there. I know I could, and you won't give me the chance; +it's too bad." + +"Oh, you!" she said, with a little shrug; "what do you know about it? +One might as well consult a gambler about gambling when he is in the +middle of his first rush of luck. I have ten times more right to an +opinion than you have. I can keep my head cool, and notice a hundred +things that _you_ would never see. I come fresh into your country life, +and the first thing that strikes me is that the whole machinery of law +and order seems to exist for nothing in the world but to protect your +pheasants! There are policemen--to catch poachers; there are +magistrates--to try them. To judge from the newspapers, at least, they +have nothing else to do. And if _you_ follow your sporting instincts, +you are a very fine fellow, and everybody admires you. But if a +shoemaker's son in Mellor follows his, he is a villain and a thief, and +the policeman and the magistrate make for him at once." + +"But I don't steal his chickens!" cried the lad, choking with arguments +and exasperation; "and why should he steal my pheasants? I paid for the +eggs, I paid for the hens to sit on 'em, I paid for the coops to rear +them in, I paid the men to watch them, I paid for the barley to feed +them with: why is he to be allowed to take my property, and I am to be +sent to jail if I take his?" + +"_Property_!" said Marcella, scornfully. "You can't settle everything +nowadays by that big word. We are coming to put the public good before +property. If the nation should decide to curtail your 'right,' as you +call it, in the general interest, it will do it, and you will be left to +scream." + +She had flung her arm round the back of her chair, and all her lithe +young frame was tense with an eagerness, nay, an excitement, which drew +Hallin's attention. It was more than was warranted by the conversation, +he thought. + +"Well, if you think the abolition of game preserving would be popular in +the country, Miss Boyce, I'm certain you make a precious mistake," cried +Leven. "Why, even you don't think it would be, do you, Mr. Hallin?" he +said, appealing at random in his disgust. + +"I don't know," said Hallin, with his quiet smile. "I rather think, on +the whole, it would be. The farmers put up with it, but a great many of +them don't like it. Things are mended since the Ground Game Act, but +there are a good many grievances still left." + +"I should think there are!" said Marcella, eagerly, bending forward to +him. "I was talking to one of our farmers the other day whose land goes +up to the edge of Lord Winterbourne's woods. '_They_ don't keep their +pheasants, miss,' he said. '_I_ do. I and my corn. If I didn't send a +man up half-past five in the morning, when the ears begin to fill, +there'd be nothing left for _us_.' 'Why don't you complain to the +agent?' I said. 'Complain! Lor' bless you, miss, you may complain till +you're black in the face. I've allus found--an' I've been here, man and +boy, thirty-two year--as how _Winterbournes generally best it.'_ There +you have the whole thing in a nutshell. It's a tyranny--a tyranny of the +rich." + +Flushed and sarcastic, she looked at Frank Leven; but Hallin had an +uncomfortable feeling that the sarcasm was not all meant for him. Aldous +was sitting with his hands on his knees, and his head bent forward a +little. Once, as the talk ran on, Hallin saw him raise his grey eyes to +the girl beside him, who certainly did not notice it, and was not +thinking of him. There was a curious pain and perplexity in the +expression, but something else too--a hunger, a dependence, a yearning, +that for an instant gripped the friend's heart. + +"Well, I know Aldous doesn't agree with you, Miss Boyce," cried Leven, +looking about him in his indignation for some argument that should be +final. "You don't, do you, Aldous? You don't think the country would be +the better, if we could do away with game to-morrow?" + +"No more than I think it would be the better," said Aldous, quietly, "if +we could do away with gold-plate and false hair to-morrow. There would +be too many hungry goldsmiths and wig-makers on the streets." + +Marcella turned to him, half defiant, half softened. + +"Of course, your point lies in _to-morrow,"_ she said. "I accept that. +We can't carry reform by starving innocent people. But the question is, +what are we to work towards? Mayn't we regard the game laws as one of +the obvious crying abuses to be attacked first--in the great +campaign!--the campaign which is to bring liberty and self-respect back +to the country districts, and make the labourer feel himself as much of +a man as the squire?" + +"What a head! What an attitude!" thought Hallin, half repelled, half +fascinated. "But a girl that can talk politics--hostile politics--to her +lover, and mean them too--or am I inexperienced?--and is it merely that +she is so much interested in him that she wants to be quarrelling with +him?" + +Aldous looked up. "I am not _sure_," he said, answering her. "That is +always my difficulty, you know," and he smiled at her. "Game preserving +is not to me personally an attractive form of private property, but it +seems to me bound up with other forms, and I want to see where the +attack is going to lead me. But I would protect your farmer--mind!--as +zealously as you." + +Hallin caught the impatient quiver of the girl's lip. The tea had just +been taken away, and Marcella had gone to sit upon an old sofa near the +fire, whither Aldous had followed her. Wharton, who had so far said +nothing, had left his post of observation on the hearth-rug, and was +sitting under the lamp balancing a paper-knife with great attention on +two fingers. In the half light Hallin by chance saw a movement of +Raeburn's hand towards Marcella's, which lay hidden among the folds of +her dress--quick resistance on her part, then acquiescence. He felt a +sudden pleasure in his friend's small triumph. + +"Aldous and I have worn these things threadbare many a time," he said, +addressing his hostess. "You don't know how kind he is to my dreams. I +am no sportsman and have no landowning relations, so he ought to bid me +hold my tongue. But he lets me rave. To me the simple fact is that _game +preserving creates crime_. Agricultural life is naturally simpler--might +be, it always seems to me, so much more easily moralised and fraternised +than the industrial form. And you split it up and poison it all by the +emphasis laid on this class pleasure. It is a natural pleasure, you say. +Perhaps it is--the survival, perhaps, of some primitive instinct in our +northern blood--but, if so, why should it be impossible for the rich to +share it with the poor? I have little plans--dreams. I throw them out +sometimes to catch Aldous, but he hardly rises to them!" + +"Oh! I _say_," broke in Frank Leven, who could really bear it no longer. +"Now look here, Miss Boyce,--what do you think Mr. Hallin wants? It is +just sheer lunacy--it really is--though I know I'm impertinent, and he's +a great man. But I do declare he wants Aldous to give up a big common +there is--oh! over beyond Girtstone, down in the plain--on Lord +Maxwell's estate, and make a _labourers'_ shoot of it! Now, I ask you! +And he vows he doesn't see why they shouldn't rear pheasants if they +choose to club and pay for it. Well, I will say that much for him, +Aldous didn't see his way to _that_, though he isn't the kind of +Conservative _I_ want to see in Parliament by a long way. Besides, it's +such stuff! They say sport brutalises _us_, and then they want to go and +contaminate the labourer. But we won't take the responsibility. We've +got our own vices, and we'll stick to them; we're used to them; but we +won't hand them on: we'd scorn the action." + +The flushed young barbarian, driven to bay, was not to be resisted. +Marcella laughed heartily, and Hallin laid an affectionate hand on the +boy's shoulder, patting him as though he were a restive horse. + +"Yes, I remember I was puzzled as to the details of Hallin's scheme," +said Aldous, his mouth twitching. "I wanted to know who was to pay for +the licences; how game enough for the number of applicants was to be +got without preserving; and how men earning twelve or fourteen shillings +a week were to pay a keeper. Then I asked a clergyman who has a living +near this common what he thought would be the end of it. 'Well,' he +said, 'the first day they'd shoot every animal on the place; the second +day they'd shoot each other. Universal carnage--I should say that would +be about the end of it.' These were trifles, of course--details." + +Hallin shook his head serenely. + +"I still maintain," he said, "that a little practical ingenuity might +have found a way." + +"And I will support you," said Wharton, laying down the paper-knife and +bending over to Hallin, "with good reason. For three years and a few +months just such an idea as you describe has been carried out on my own +estate, and it has not worked badly at all." + +"There!" cried Marcella. "There! I knew something could be done, if +there was a will. I have always felt it." + +She half turned to Aldous, then bent forward instead as though listening +eagerly for what more Wharton might say, her face all alive, and +eloquent. + +"Of course, there was nothing to shoot!" exclaimed Frank Leven. + +"On the contrary," said Wharton, smiling, "we are in the middle of a +famous partridge country." + +"How your neighbours must dote on you!" cried the boy. But Wharton took +no notice. + +"And my father preserved strictly," he went on. "It is quite a simple +story. When I inherited, three years ago, I thought the whole thing +detestable, and determined I wouldn't be responsible for keeping it up. +So I called the estate together--farmers and labourers--and we worked +out a plan. There are keepers, but they are the estate servants, not +mine. Everybody has his turn according to the rules--I and my friends +along with the rest. Not everybody can shoot every year, but everybody +gets his chance, and, moreover, a certain percentage of all the game +killed is public property, and is distributed every year according to a +regular order." + +"Who pays the keepers?" interrupted Leven. + +"I do," said Wharton, smiling again. "Mayn't I--for the present--do what +I will with mine own? I return in their wages some of my ill-gotten +gains as a landowner. It is all makeshift, of course." + +"I understand!" exclaimed Marcella, nodding to him--"you could not be a +Venturist and keep up game-preserving?" + +Wharton met her bright eye with a half deprecating, reserved air. + +"You are right, of course," he said drily. "For a Socialist to be +letting his keepers run in a man earning twelve shillings a week for +knocking over a rabbit would have been a little strong. No one can be +consistent in my position--in any landowner's position--it is +impossible; still, thank Heaven, one can deal with the most glaring +matters. As Mr. Raeburn said, however, all this game business is, of +course, a mere incident of the general land and property system, as you +will hear me expound when you come to that meeting you promised me to +honour." + +He stooped forward, scanning her with smiling deference. Marcella felt +the man's hand that held her own suddenly tighten an instant. Then +Aldous released her, and rising walked towards the fire. + +"You're _not_ going to one of his meetings, Miss Boyce!" cried Frank, in +angry incredulity. + +Marcella hesitated an instant, half angry with Wharton. Then she +reddened and threw back her dark head with the passionate gesture Hallin +had already noticed as characteristic. + +"Mayn't I go where I belong?" she said--"where my convictions lead me?" + +There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Hallin got up. + +"Miss Boyce, may we see the house? Aldous has told me much of it." + + * * * * * + +Presently, in the midst of their straggling progress through the +half-furnished rooms of the garden front, preceded by the shy footman +carrying a lamp, which served for little more than to make darkness +visible, Marcella found herself left behind with Aldous. As soon as she +felt that they were alone, she realised a jar between herself and him. +His manner was much as usual, but there was an underlying effort and +difficulty which her sensitiveness caught at once. A sudden wave of +girlish trouble--remorse--swept over her. In her impulsiveness she moved +close to him as they were passing through her mother's little +sitting-room, and put her hand on his arm. + +"I don't think I was nice just now," she said, stammering. "I didn't +mean it. I seem to be always driven into opposition--into a feeling of +war--when you are so good to me--so much too good to me!" + +Aldous had turned at her first word. With a long breath, as it were of +unspeakable relief, he caught her in his arms vehemently, passionately. +So far she had been very shrinking and maidenly with him in their +solitary moments, and he had been all delicate chivalry and respect, +tasting to the full the exquisiteness of each fresh advance towards +intimacy, towards lover's privilege, adoring her, perhaps, all the more +for her reserve, her sudden flights, and stiffenings. But to-night he +asked no leave, and in her astonishment she was almost passive. + +"Oh, do let me go!" she cried at last, trying to disengage herself +completely. + +"No!" he said with emphasis, still holding her hand firmly. "Come and +sit down here. They will look after themselves." + +He put her, whether she would or no, into an arm-chair and knelt beside +her. + +"Did you think it was hardly kind," he said with a quiver of voice he +could not repress, "to let me hear for the first time, in public, that +you had promised to go to one of that man's meetings after refusing +again and again to come to any of mine?" + +"Do you want to forbid me to go?" she said quickly. There was a feeling +in her which would have been almost relieved, for the moment, if he had +said yes. + +"By no means," he said steadily. "That was not our compact. But--guess +for yourself what I want! Do you think"--he paused a moment--"do you +think I put nothing of myself into my public life--into these meetings +among the people who have known me from a boy? Do you think it is all a +convention--that my feeling, my conscience, remain outside? You can't +think that! But if not, how can I bear to live what is to be so large a +part of my life out of your ken and sight? I know--I know--you warned me +amply--you can't agree with me. But there is much besides intellectual +agreement possible--much that would help and teach us both--if only we +are together--not separated--not holding aloof--" + +He stopped, watching all the changes of her face. She was gulfed in a +deep wave of half-repentant feeling, remembering all his generosity, his +forbearance, his devotion. + +"When are you speaking next?" she half whispered. In the dim light her +softened pose, the gentle sudden relaxation of every line, were an +intoxication. + +"Next week--Friday--at Gairsly. Hallin and Aunt Neta are coming." + +"Will Miss Raeburn take me?" + +His grey eyes shone upon her, and he kissed her hand. + +"Mr. Hallin won't speak for you!" she said, after the silence, with a +return of mischief. + +"Don't be so sure! He has given me untold help in the drafting of my +Bill. If I didn't call myself a Conservative, he would vote for me +to-morrow. That's the absurdity of it. Do you know, I hear them coming +back?" + +"One thing," she said hastily, drawing him towards her, and then +holding him back, as though shrinking always from the feeling she could +so readily evoke. "I must say it; you oughtn't to give me so much money, +it is too much. Suppose I use it for things you don't like?" + +"You won't," he said gaily. + +She tried to push the subject further, but he would not have it. + +"I am all for free discussion," he said in the same tone; "but sometimes +debate must be stifled. I am going to stifle it!" + +And stooping, he kissed her, lightly, tremulously. His manner showed her +once more what she was to him--how sacred, how beloved. First it touched +and shook her; then she sprang up with a sudden disagreeable sense of +moral disadvantage--inferiority--coming she knew not whence, and undoing +for the moment all that buoyant consciousness of playing the +magnanimous, disinterested part which had possessed her throughout the +talk in the drawing-room. + +The others reappeared, headed by their lamp: Wharton first, scanning the +two who had lingered behind, with his curious eyes, so blue and +brilliant under the white forehead and the curls. + +"We have been making the wildest shots at your ancestors, Miss Boyce," +he said. "Frank professed to know everything about the pictures, and +turned out to know nothing. I shall ask for some special coaching +to-morrow morning. May I engage you--ten o'clock?" + +Marcella made some evasive answer, and they all sauntered back to the +drawing-room. + +"Shall you be at work to-morrow, Raeburn?" said Wharton. + +"Probably," said Aldous drily. Marcella, struck by the tone, looked +back, and caught an expression and bearing which were as yet new to her +in the speaker. She supposed they represented the haughtiness natural in +the man of birth and power towards the intruder, who is also the +opponent. + +Instantly the combative critical mood returned upon her, and the impulse +to assert herself by protecting Wharton. His manner throughout the talk +in the drawing-room had been, she declared to herself, excellent--modest, +and self-restrained, comparing curiously with the boyish egotism and +self-abandonment he had shown in their _tete-a-tete_. + + * * * * * + +"Why, there is Mr. Boyce," exclaimed Wharton, hurrying forward as they +entered the drawing-room. + +There, indeed, on the sofa was the master of the house, more ghastly +black and white than ever, and prepared to claim to the utmost the +tragic pre-eminence of illness. He shook hands coldly with Aldous, who +asked after his health with the kindly brevity natural to the man who +wants no effusions for himself in public or personal matters, and +concludes therefore that other people desire none. + +"You _are_ better, papa?" said Marcella, taking his hand. + +"Certainly, my dear--better for morphia. Don't talk of me. I have got my +death warrant, but I hope I can take it quietly. Evelyn, I _specially_ +asked to have that thin cushion brought down from my dressing-room. It +is strange that no one pays any attention to my wants." + +Mrs. Boyce, almost as white, Marcella now saw, as her husband, moved +forward from the fire, where she had been speaking to Hallin, took a +cushion from a chair near, exactly similar to the one he missed, and +changed his position a little. + +"It is just the feather's weight of change that makes the difference, +isn't it?" said Wharton, softly, sitting down beside the invalid. + +Mr. Boyce turned a mollified countenance upon the speaker, and being now +free from pain, gave himself up to the amusement of hearing his guest +talk. Wharton devoted himself, employing all his best arts. + +"Dr. Clarke is not anxious about him," Mrs. Boyce said in a low voice to +Marcella as they moved away. "He does not think the attack will return +for a long while, and he has given me the means of stopping it if it +does come back." + +"How tired you look!" said Aldous, coming up to them, and speaking in +the same undertone. "Will you not let Marcella take you to rest?" + +He was always deeply, unreasonably touched by any sign of stoicism, of +defied suffering in women. Mrs. Boyce had proved it many times already. +On the present occasion she put his sympathy by, but she lingered to +talk with him. Hallin from a distance noticed first of all her tall +thinness and fairness, and her wonderful dignity of carriage; then the +cordiality of her manner to her future son-in-law. Marcella stood by +listening, her young shoulders somewhat stiffly set. Her consciousness +of her mother's respect and admiration for the man she was to marry was, +oddly enough, never altogether pleasant to her. It brought with it a +certain discomfort, a certain wish to argue things out. + +Hallin and Aldous parted with Frank Leven at Mellor gate, and turned +homeward together under a starry heaven already whitening to the coming +moon. + +"Do you know that man Wharton is getting an extraordinary hold upon the +London working men?" said Hallin. "I have heard him tell that story of +the game-preserving before. He was speaking for one of the Radical +candidates at Hackney, and I happened to be there. It brought down +the house. The _role_ of your Socialist aristocrat, of your +land-nationalising landlord, is a very telling one." + +"And comparatively easy," said Aldous, "when you know that neither +Socialism nor land-nationalisation will come in your time!" + +"Oh! so you think him altogether a windbag?" + +Aldous hesitated and laughed. + +"I have certainly no reason to suspect him of principles. His conscience +as a boy was of pretty elastic stuff." + +"You may be unfair to him," said Hallin, quickly. Then, after a pause: +"How long is he staying at Mellor?" + +"About a week, I believe," said Aldous, shortly. "Mr. Boyce has taken a +fancy to him." + +They walked on in silence, and then Aldous turned to his friend in +distress. + +"You know, Hallin, this wind is much too cold for you. You are the most +wilful of men. Why would you walk?" + +"Hold your tongue, sir, and listen to me. I think your Marcella is +beautiful, and as interesting as she is beautiful. There!" + +Aldous started, then turned a grateful face upon him. + +"You must get to know her well," he said, but with some constraint. + +"Of course. I wonder," said Hallin, musing, "whom she has got hold of +among the Venturists. Shall you persuade her to come out of that, do you +think, Aldous?" + +"No!" said Raeburn, cheerfully. "Her sympathies and convictions go with +them." + +Then, as they passed through the village, he began to talk of quite +other things--college friends, a recent volume of philosophical essays, +and so on. Hallin, accustomed and jealously accustomed as he was to be +the one person in the world with whom Raeburn talked freely, would not +to-night have done or said anything to force a strong man's reserve. But +his own mind was full of anxiety. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"I _love_ this dilapidation!" said Wharton, pausing for a moment with +his back against the door he had just shut. "Only it makes me long to +take off my coat and practise some honest trade or other--plastering, or +carpentering, or painting. What useless drones we upper classes are! +Neither you nor I could mend that ceiling or patch this floor--to save +our lives." + +They were in the disused library. It was now the last room westwards of +the garden front, but in reality it was part of the older house, and had +been only adapted and re-built by that eighteenth-century Marcella whose +money had been so gracefully and vainly lavished on giving dignity to +her English husband's birthplace. The roof had been raised and domed to +match the "Chinese room," at the expense of some small rooms on the +upper floor; and the windows and doors had been suited to +eighteenth-century taste. But the old books in the old latticed shelves +which the Puritan founder of the family had bought in the days of the +Long Parliament were still there; so were the chairs in which that +worthy had sat to read a tract of Milton's or of Baxter's, or the table +at which he had penned his letters to Hampden or Fairfax, or to his old +friend--on the wrong side--Edmund Verney the standard-bearer. Only the +worm-eaten shelves were dropping from their supports, and the books lay +in mouldy confusion; the roofs had great holes and gaps, whence the +laths hung dismally down, and bats came flitting in the dusk; and there +were rotten places in the carpetless floor. + +"I have tried my best," said Marcella, dolefully, stooping to look at a +hole in the floor. "I got a bit of board and some nails, and tried to +mend some of these places myself. But I only broke the rotten wood away; +and papa was angry, and said I did more harm than good. I did get a +carpenter to mend some of the chairs; but one doesn't know where to +begin. I have cleaned and mended some of the books, but--" + +She looked sadly round the musty, forlorn place. + +"But not so well, I am afraid, as any second-hand bookseller's +apprentice could have done it," said Wharton, shaking his head. "It's +maddening to think what duffers we gentlefolks are!" + +"Why do you harp on that?" said Marcella, quickly. She had been taking +him over the house, and was in twenty minds again as to whether and how +much she liked him. + +"Because I have been reading some Board of Trade reports before +breakfast," said Wharton, "on one or two of the Birmingham industries in +particular. Goodness! what an amount of knowledge and skill and resource +these fellows have that I go about calling the 'lower orders.' I wonder +how long they are going to let me rule over them!" + +"I suppose brain-power and education count for something still?" said +Marcella, half scornfully. + +"I am greatly obliged to the world for thinking so," said Wharton with +emphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-power +I happen to possess, which is the point. The processes by which a +Birmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to +'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are, +of course, mere imbecility--compared to my performances in Responsions. +Lucky for _me_, at any rate, that the world has decided it so. I get a +good time of it--and the Birmingham jeweller calls me 'sir.'" + +"Oh! the skilled labour! that can take care of itself, and won't go on +calling you 'sir' much longer. But what about the unskilled--the people +here for instance--the villagers? We talk of their governing themselves; +we wish it, and work for it. But which of us _really_ believes that they +are fit for it, or that they are ever going to get along without _our_ +brain-power?" + +"No--poor souls!" said Wharton, with a peculiar vibrating emphasis. +"'_By their stripes we are healed, by their death we have lived_.' Do +you remember your Carlyle?" + +They had entered one of the bays formed by the bookcases which on either +side of the room projected from the wall at regular intervals, and were +standing by one of the windows which looked out on the great avenue. +Beside the window on either side hung a small portrait--in the one case +of an elderly man in a wig, in the other of a young, dark-haired woman. + +"Plenty in general, but nothing in particular," said Marcella, laughing. +"Quote." + +He was leaning against the angle formed by the wall and the bookcase. +The half-serious, half-provocative intensity of his blue eyes under the +brow which drooped forward contrasted with the careless, well-appointed +ease of his general attitude and dress. + +"'_Two men I honour, and no third_,'" he said, quoting in a slightly +dragging, vibrating voice: "'_First, the toil-worn craftsman that with +earth-made implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her +man's.--Hardly-entreated Brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us +were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed; thou wert our +conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so +marred_.' Heavens! how the words swing! But it is great nonsense, you +know, for you and me--Venturists--to be maundering like this. +Charity--benevolence--that is all Carlyle is leading up to. He merely +wants the cash nexus supplemented by a few good offices. But we want +something much more unpleasant! 'Keep your subscriptions--hand over your +dividends--turn out of your land--and go to work!' Nowadays society is +trying to get out of doing what _we_ want, by doing what Carlyle +wanted." + +"_Do_ you want it?" said Marcella. + +"I don't know," he said, laughing. "It won't come in our time." + +Her lip showed her scorn. + +"That's what we all think. Meanwhile you will perhaps admit that a +little charity greases the wheels." + +"_You_ must, because you are a woman; and women are made for +charity--and aristocracy." + +"Do you suppose you know so much about women?" she asked him, rather +hotly. "I notice it is always the assumption of the people who make most +mistakes." + +"Oh! I know enough to steer by!" he said, smiling, with a little +inclination of his curly head, as though to propitiate her. "How like +you are to that portrait!" + +Marcella started, and saw that he was pointing to the woman's portrait +beside the window--looking from it to his hostess with a close +considering eye. + +"That was an ancestress of mine," she said coldly, "an Italian lady. She +was rich and musical. Her money built these rooms along the garden, and +these are her music books." + +She showed him that the shelves against which she was leaning were full +of old music. + +"Italian!" he said, lifting his eyebrows. "Ah, that explains. Do you +know--that you have all the qualities of a leader!"--and he moved away a +yard from her, studying her--"mixed blood--one must always have that to +fire and fuse the English paste--and then--but no! that won't do--I +should offend you." + +Her first instinct was one of annoyance--a wish to send him about his +business, or rather to return him to her mother who would certainly keep +him in order. Instead, however, she found herself saying, as she looked +carelessly out of window-- + +"Oh! go on." + +"Well, then"--he drew himself up suddenly and wheeled round upon +her--"you have the gift of compromise. That is invaluable--that will +take you far." + +"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you! I know what that means--from a +Venturist. You think me a mean insincere person!" + +He started, then recovered himself and came to lean against the +bookshelves beside her. + +"I mean nothing of the sort," he said, in quite a different manner, with +a sort of gentle and personal emphasis. "But--may I explain myself, Miss +Boyce, in a room with a fire? I can see you shivering under your fur." + +For the frost still reigned supreme outside, and the white grass and +trees threw chill reflected lights into the forsaken library. Marcella +controlled a pulse of excitement that had begun to beat in her, admitted +that it was certainly cold, and led the way through a side door to a +little flagged parlour, belonging to the oldest portion of the house, +where, however, a great log-fire was burning, and some chairs drawn up +round it. She took one and let the fur wrap she had thrown about her for +their promenade through the disused rooms drop from her shoulders. It +lay about her in full brown folds, giving special dignity to her slim +height and proud head. Wharton glancing about in his curious inquisitive +way, now at the neglected pictures, now on the walls, now at the old oak +chairs and chests, now at her, said to himself that she was a splendid +and inspiring creature. She seemed to be on the verge of offence with +him too, half the time, which was stimulating. She would have liked, he +thought, to play the great lady with him already, as Aldous Raeburn's +betrothed. But he had so far managed to keep her off that plane--and +intended to go on doing so. + +"Well, I meant this," he said, leaning against the old stone chimney +and looking down upon her; "only _don't_ be offended with me, please. +You are a Socialist, and you are going--some day--to be Lady Maxwell. +Those combinations are only possible to women. They can sustain them, +because they are imaginative--not logical." + +She flushed. + +"And you," she said, breathing quickly, "are a Socialist and a landlord. +What is the difference?" + +He laughed. + +"Ah! but I have no gift--I can't ride the two horses, as you will be +able to--quite honestly. There's the difference. And the consequence is +that with my own class I am an outcast--they all hate me. But you will +have power as Lady Maxwell--and power as a Socialist--because you will +give and take. Half your time you will act as Lady Maxwell should, the +other half like a Venturist. And, as I said, it will give you power--a +modified power. But men are less clever at that kind of thing." + +"Do you mean to say," she asked him abruptly, "that you have given up +the luxuries and opportunities of your class?" + +He shifted his position a little. + +"That is a different matter," he said after a moment. "We Socialists are +all agreed, I think, that no man can be a Socialist by himself. +Luxuries, for the present, are something personal, individual. It is +only a man's 'public form' that matters. And there, as I said before, I +have no gift!--I have not a relation or an old friend in the world that +has not turned his back upon me--as you might see for yourself +yesterday! My class has renounced me already--which, after all, is a +weakness." + +"So you pity yourself?" she said. + +"By no means! We all choose the part in life that amuses us--that brings +us most _thrill_. I get most thrill out of throwing myself into the +workmen's war--much more than I could ever get, you will admit, out of +dancing attendance on my very respectable cousins. My mother taught me +to see everything dramatically. We have no drama in England at the +present moment worth a cent; so I amuse myself with this great +tragi-comedy of the working-class movement. It stirs, pricks, interests +me, from morning till night. I feel the great rough elemental passions +in it, and it delights me to know that every day brings us nearer to +some great outburst, to scenes and struggles at any rate that will make +us all look alive. I am like a child with the best of its cake to come, +but with plenty in hand already. Ah!--stay still a moment, Miss Boyce!" + +To her amazement he stooped suddenly towards her; and she, looking down, +saw that a corner of her light, black dress, which had been overhanging +the low stone fender, was in flames, and that he was putting it out with +his hands. She made a movement to rise, alarmed lest the flames should +leap to her face--her hair. But he, releasing one hand for an instant +from its task of twisting and rolling the skirt upon itself, held her +heavily down. + +"Don't move; I will have it out in a moment. You won't be burnt." + +And in a second more she was looking at a ragged brown hole in her +dress; and at him, standing, smiling, before the fire, and wrapping a +handkerchief round some of the fingers of his left hand. + +"You have burnt yourself, Mr. Wharton?" + +"A little." + +"I will go and get something--what would you like?" + +"A little olive oil if you have some, and a bit of lint--but don't +trouble yourself." + +She flew to find her mother's maid, calling and searching on her way for +Mrs. Boyce herself, but in vain. Mrs. Boyce had disappeared after +breakfast, and was probably helping her husband to dress. + +In a minute or so Marcella ran downstairs again, bearing various +medicaments. She sped to the Stone Parlour, her cheek and eye glowing. + +"Let me do it for you." + +"If you please," said Wharton, meekly. + +She did her best, but she was not skilful with her fingers, and this +close contact with him somehow excited her. + +"There," she said, laughing and releasing him. "Of course, if I were a +work-girl I should have done it better. They are not going to be very +bad, I think." + +"What, the burns? Oh, no! They will have recovered, I am afraid, long +before your dress." + +"Oh, my dress! yes, it is deplorable. I will go and change it." + +She turned to go, but she lingered instead, and said with an odd, +introductory laugh: + +"I believe you saved my life!" + +"Well, I am glad I was here. You might have lost self-possession--even +_you_ might, you know!--and then it would have been serious." + +"Anyway"--her voice was still uncertain--"I might have been +disfigured--disfigured for life!" + +"I don't know why you should dwell upon it now it's done with," he +declared, smiling. + +"It would be strange, wouldn't it, if I took it quite for granted--all +in the day's work?" She held out her hand: "I am grateful--please." + +He bowed over it, laughing, again with that eighteenth-century air which +might have become a Chevalier des Grieux. + +"May I exact a reward?" + +"Ask it." + +"Will you take me down with you to your village? I know you are going. I +must walk on afterwards and catch a midday train to Widrington. I have +an appointment there at two o'clock. But perhaps you will introduce me +to one or two of your poor people first?" + +Marcella assented, went upstairs, changed her dress, and put on her +walking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her mother +to go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by a +feeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally and +indecorously towards whom?--towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did not +know. But there was a curious sense of lost bloom, lost dignity, +combined with an odd wish that Mr. Wharton were not going away for the +day. In the end, however, she left her mother undisturbed. + +By the time they were half way to the village, Marcella's uncomfortable +feelings had all passed away. Without knowing it, she was becoming too +much absorbed in her companion to be self-critical, so long as they were +together. It seemed to her, however, before they had gone more than a +few hundred yards that he was taking advantage--presuming on what had +happened. He offended her taste, her pride, her dignity, in a hundred +ways, she discovered. At the same time it was _she_ who was always on +the defensive--protecting her dreams, her acts, her opinions, against +the constant fire of his half-ironical questions, which seemed to leave +her no time at all to carry the war into the enemy's country. He put her +through a quick cross-examination about the village, its occupations, +the incomes of the people, its local charities and institutions, what +she hoped to do for it, what she would do if she could, what she thought +it _possible_ to do. She answered first reluctantly, then eagerly, her +pride all alive to show that she was not merely ignorant and amateurish. +But it was no good. In the end he made her feel as Antony Craven had +constantly done--that she knew nothing exactly, that she had not +mastered the conditions of any one of the social problems she was +talking about; that not only was her reading of no account, but that she +had not even managed to _see_ these people, to interpret their lives +under her very eyes, with any large degree of insight. + +Especially was he merciless to all the Lady Bountiful pose, which meant +so much to her imagination--not in words so much as in manner. He let +her see that all the doling and shepherding and advising that still +pleased her fancy looked to him the merest temporary palliative, and +irretrievably tainted, even at that, with some vulgar feeling or other. +All that the well-to-do could do for the poor under the present state of +society was but a niggardly quit-rent; as for any relation of "superior" +and "inferior" in the business, or of any social desert attaching to +these precious efforts of the upper class to daub the gaps in the +ruinous social edifice for which they were themselves responsible, he +did not attempt to conceal his scorn. If you did not do these things, so +much the worse for you when the working class came to its own; if you +did do them, the burden of debt was hardly diminished, and the rope was +still left on your neck. + +Now Marcella herself had on one or two occasions taken a malicious +pleasure in flaunting these doctrines, or some of them, under Miss +Raeburn's eyes. But somehow, as applied to herself, they were +disagreeable. Each of us is to himself a "special case"; and she saw the +other side. Hence a constant soreness of feeling; a constant recalling +of the argument to the personal point of view; and through it all a +curious growth of intimacy, a rubbing away of barriers. She had felt +herself of no account before, intellectually, in Aldous's company, as we +know. But then how involuntary on his part, and how counter-balanced by +that passionate idealism of his love, which glorified every pretty +impulse in her to the noblest proportions! Under Wharton's Socratic +method, she was conscious at times of the most wild and womanish +desires, worthy of her childhood--to cry, to go into a passion!--and +when they came to the village, and every human creature, old and young, +dropped its obsequious curtsey as they passed, she could first have +beaten them for so degrading her, and the next moment felt a feverish +pleasure in thus parading her petty power before a man who in his +doctrinaire pedantry had no sense of poetry, or of the dear old natural +relations of country life. + +They went first to Mrs. Jellison's, to whom Marcella wished to unfold +her workshop scheme. + +"Don't let me keep you," she said to Wharton coldly, as they neared the +cottage; "I know you have to catch your train." + +Wharton consulted his watch. He had to be at a local station some two +miles off within an hour. + +"Oh! I have time," he said. "Do take me in, Miss Boyce. I have made +acquaintance with these people so far, as my constituents--now show them +to me as your subjects. Besides, I am an observer. I 'collect' peasants. +They are my study." + +"They are not my subjects, but my friends," she said with the same +stiffness. + +They found Mrs. Jellison having her dinner. The lively old woman was +sitting close against her bit of fire, on her left a small deal table +which held her cold potatoes and cold bacon; on her right a tiny window +and window-sill whereon lay her coil of "plait" and the simple +straw-splitting machine she had just been working. When Marcella had +taken the only other chair the hovel contained, nothing else remained +for Wharton but to flatten himself as closely against the door as he +might. + +"I'm sorry I can't bid yer take a cheer," said Mrs. Jellison to him, +"but what yer han't got yer can't give, so I don't trouble my head about +nothink." + +Wharton applauded her with easy politeness, and then gave himself, with +folded arms, to examining the cottage while Marcella talked. It might be +ten feet broad, he thought, by six feet in one part and eight feet in +another. The roof was within little more than an inch of his head. The +stairway in the corner was falling to pieces; he wondered how the woman +got up safely to her bed at night; custom, he supposed, can make even +old bones agile. + +Meanwhile Marcella was unfolding the project of the straw-plaiting +workshop that she and Lady Winterbourne were about to start. Mrs. +Jellison put on her spectacles apparently that she might hear the +better, pushed away her dinner in spite of her visitors' civilities, and +listened with a bright and beady eye. + +"An' yer agoin' to pay me one a sixpence a score, where I now gets +ninepence. And I'll not have to tramp it into town no more--you'll send +a man round. And who is agoin' to pay me, miss, if you'll excuse me +asking?" + +"Lady Winterbourne and I," said Marcella, smiling. "We're going to +employ this village and two others, and make as good business of it as +we can. But we're going to begin by giving the workers better wages, and +in time we hope to teach them the higher kinds of work." + +"Lor'!" said Mrs. Jellison. "But I'm not one o' them as kin do with +changes." She took up her plait and looked at it thoughtfully. +"Eighteen-pence a score. It wor that rate when I wor a girl. An' it ha' +been dibble--dibble--iver sense; a penny off here, an' a penny off +there, an' a hard job to keep a bite ov anythink in your mouth." + +"Then I may put down your name among our workers, Mrs. Jellison?" said +Marcella, rising and smiling down upon her. + +"Oh, lor', no; I niver said that," said Mrs. Jellison, hastily. "I don't +hold wi' shilly-shallyin' wi' yer means o' livin'. I've took my plait to +Jimmy Gedge--'im an' 'is son, fust shop on yer right hand when yer git +into town--twenty-five year, summer and winter--me an' three other +women, as give me a penny a journey for takin' theirs. If I wor to go +messin' about wi' Jimmy Gedge, Lor' bless yer, I should 'ear ov it--oh! +I shoulden sleep o' nights for thinkin' o' how Jimmy ud serve me out +when I wor least egspectin' ov it. He's a queer un. No, miss, thank yer +kindly; but I think I'll bide." + +Marcella, amazed, began to argue a little, to expound the many +attractions of the new scheme. Greatly to her annoyance, Wharton came +forward to her help, guaranteeing the solvency and permanence of her new +partnership in glib and pleasant phrase, wherein her angry fancy +suspected at once the note of irony. But Mrs. Jellison held firm, +embroidering her negative, indeed, with her usual cheerful chatter, but +sticking to it all the same. At last there was no way of saving dignity +but to talk of something else and go--above all, to talk of something +else before going, lest the would-be benefactor should be thought a +petty tyrant. + +"Oh, Johnnie?--thank yer, miss--'e's an owdacious young villain as iver +I seed--but _clever_--lor', you'd need 'ave eyes in yer back to look +after _'im_. An' _coaxin'_! ''Aven't yer brought me no sweeties, +Gran'ma?' 'No, my dear,' says I. 'But if you was to _look_, Gran'ma--in +both your pockets, Gran'ma--iv you was to let _me_ look?' It's a sharp +un Isabella, she don't 'old wi' sweet-stuff, she says, sich a pack o' +nonsense. She'd stuff herself sick when she wor 'is age. Why shouldn't +_ee_ be happy, same as her? There ain't much to make a child 'appy in +_that_ 'ouse. Westall, ee's that mad about them poachers over Tudley +End; ee's like a wild bull at 'ome. I told Isabella ee'd come to +knockin' ov her about _some_ day, though ee did speak so oily when ee +wor a courtin'. Now she knows as I kin see a thing or two," said Mrs. +Jellison, significantly. Her manner, Wharton noticed, kept always the +same gay philosophy, whatever subject turned up. + +"Why, that's an old story--that Tudley End business--" said Marcella, +rising. "I should have thought Westall might have got over it by now." + +"But bless yer, ee says it's goin' on as lively as iver. Ee says ee +knows they're set on grabbin' the birds t'other side the estate, over +beyond Mellor way--ee's got wind of it--an' ee's watchin' night an' day +to see they don't do him no bad turn _this_ month, bekase o' the big +shoot they allus has in January. An' lor', ee do speak drefful bad o' +_soom_ folks," said Mrs. Jellison, with an amused expression. "You know +some on 'em, miss, don't yer?" And the old woman, who had begun toying +with her potatoes, slanted her fork over her shoulder so as to point +towards the Hurds' cottage, whereof the snow-laden roof could be seen +conspicuously through the little lattice beside her, making sly eyes the +while at her visitor. + +"I don't believe a word of it," said Marcella, impatiently. "Hurd has +been in good work since October, and has no need to poach. Westall has a +down on him. You may tell him I think so, if you like." + +"That I will," said Mrs. Jellison, cheerfully, opening the door for +them. "There's nobody makes 'im 'ear the treuth, nobbut me. I _loves_ +naggin' ov 'im, ee's that masterful. But ee don't master _me_!" + +"A gay old thing," said Wharton as they shut the gate behind them. "How +she does enjoy the human spectacle. And obstinate too. But you will find +the younger ones more amenable." + +"Of course," said Marcella, with dignity. "I have a great many names +already. The old people are always difficult. But Mrs. Jellison will +come round." + +"Are you going in here?" + +"Please." + +Wharton knocked at the Hurds' door, and Mrs. Hurd opened. + +The cottage was thick with smoke. The chimney only drew when the door +was left open. But the wind to-day was so bitter that mother and +children preferred the smoke to the draught. Marcella soon made out the +poor little bronchitic boy, sitting coughing by the fire, and Mrs. Hurd +busied with some washing. She introduced Wharton, who, as before, stood +for some time, hat in hand, studying the cottage. Marcella was perfectly +conscious of it, and a blush rose to her cheek while she talked to Mrs. +Hurd. For both this and Mrs. Jellison's hovel were her father's property +and somewhat highly rented. + +Minta Hurd said eagerly that she would join the new straw-plaiting, and +went on to throw out a number of hurried, half-coherent remarks about +the state of the trade past and present, leaning meanwhile against the +table and endlessly drying her hands on the towel she had taken up when +her visitors came in. + +Her manner was often nervous and flighty in these days. She never looked +happy; but Marcella put it down to health or natural querulousness of +character. Yet both she and the children were clearly better nourished, +except Willie, in whom the tubercular tendency was fast gaining on the +child's strength. + +Altogether Marcella was proud of her work, and her eager interest in +this little knot of people whose lives she had shaped was more +possessive than ever. Hurd, indeed, was often silent and secretive; but +she put down her difficulties with him to our odious system of class +differences, against which in her own way she was struggling. One thing +delighted her--that he seemed to take more and more interest in the +labour questions she discussed with him, and in that fervid, exuberant +literature she provided him with. Moreover, he now went to all Mr. +Wharton's meetings that were held within reasonable distance of Mellor; +and, as she said to Aldous with a little laugh, which, however, was not +unsweet, _he_ had found her man work--_she_ had robbed his candidate of +a vote. + +Wharton listened a while to her talk with Minta, smiled a little, +unperceived of Marcella, at the young mother's docilities of manner and +phrase; then turned his attention to the little hunched and coughing +object by the fire. + +"Are you very bad, little man?" + +The white-faced child looked up, a dreary look, revealing a patient, +melancholy soul. He tried to answer, but coughed instead. + +Wharton, moving towards him, saw a bit of ragged white paper lying on +the ground, which had been torn from a grocery parcel. + +"Would you like something to amuse you a bit--Ugh! this smoke! Come +round here, it won't catch us so much. _Now_, then, what do you say to a +doggie,--two doggies?" + +The child stared, let himself be lifted on the stranger's knee, and did +his very utmost to stop coughing. But when he had succeeded his quick +panting breaths still shook his tiny frame and Wharton's knee. + +"Hm--Give him two months or thereabouts!" thought Wharton. "What a +beastly hole!--one room up, and one down, like the other, only a shade +larger. Damp, insanitary, cold--bad water, bad drainage, I'll be +bound--bad everything. That girl may well try her little best. And I go +making up to that man Boyce! What for? Old spites?--new +spites?--which?--or both!" + +Meanwhile his rapid skilful fingers were tearing, pinching, and shaping; +and in a very few minutes there, upon his free knee, stood the most +enticing doggie of pinched paper, a hound in full course, with long ears +and stretching legs. + +The child gazed at it with ravishment, put out a weird hand, touched +it, stroked it, and then, as he looked back at Wharton, the most +exquisite smile dawned in his saucer-blue eyes. + +"What? did you like it, grasshopper?" cried Wharton, enchanted by the +beauty of the look, his own colour mounting. "Then you shall have +another." + +And he twisted and turned his piece of fresh paper, till there, beside +the first, stood a second fairy animal--a greyhound this time, with +arching neck and sharp long nose. + +"There's two on 'em at Westall's!" cried the child, hoarsely, clutching +at his treasures in an ecstasy. + +Mrs. Hurd, at the other end of the cottage, started as she heard the +name. Marcella noticed it; and with her eager sympathetic look began at +once to talk of Hurd and the works at the Court. She understood they +were doing grand things, and that the work would last all the winter. +Minta answered hurriedly and with a curious choice of phrases. "Oh! he +didn't have nothing to say against it." Mr. Brown, the steward, seemed +satisfied. All that she said was somehow irrelevant; and, to Marcella's +annoyance, plaintive as usual. Wharton, with the boy inside his arm, +turned his head an instant to listen. + +Marcella, having thought of repeating, without names, some of Mrs. +Jellison's gossip, then shrank from it. He had promised her, she thought +to herself with a proud delicacy; and she was not going to treat the +word of a working man as different from anybody else's. + +So she fastened her cloak again, which she had thrown open in the +stifling air of the cottage, and turned both to call her companion and +give a smile or two to the sick boy. + +But, as she did so, she stood amazed at the spectacle of Wharton and the +child. Then, moving up to them, she perceived the menagerie--for it had +grown to one--on Wharton's knee. + +"You didn't guess I had such tricks," he said, smiling. + +"But they are so good--so artistic!" She took up a little galloping +horse he had just fashioned and wondered at it. + +"A great-aunt taught me--she was a genius--I follow her at a long +distance. Will you let me go, young man? You may keep all of them." + +But the child, with a sudden contraction of the brow, flung a tiny +stick-like arm round his neck, pressing hard, and looking at him. There +was a red spot in each wasted cheek, and his eyes were wide and happy. +Wharton returned the look with one of quiet scrutiny--the scrutiny of +the doctor or the philosopher. On Marcella's quick sense the contrast of +the two heads impressed itself--the delicate youth of Wharton's with its +clustering curls--the sunken contours and the helpless suffering of the +other. Then Wharton kissed the little fellow, put his animals carefully +on to a chair beside him, and set him down. + +They walked along the snowy street again, in a different relation to +each other. Marcella had been touched and charmed, and Wharton teased +her no more. As they reached the door of the almshouse where the old +Pattons lived, she said to him: "I think I had rather go in here by +myself, please. I have some things to give them--old Patton has been +very ill this last week--but I know what you think of doles--and I know +too what you think, what you must think, of my father's cottages. It +makes me feel a hypocrite; yet I must do these things; we are different, +you and I--I am sure you will miss your train!" + +But there was no antagonism, only painful feeling in her softened look. + +Wharton put out his hand. + +"Yes, it is time for me to go. You say I make you feel a hypocrite! I +wonder whether you have any idea what you make me feel? Do you imagine I +should dare to say the things I have said except to one of the _elite_? +Would it be worth my while, as a social reformer? Are you not vowed to +great destinies? When one comes across one of the tools of the future, +must one not try to sharpen it, out of one's poor resources, in spite of +manners?" + +Marcella, stirred--abashed--fascinated--let him press her hand. Then he +walked rapidly away towards the station, a faint smile twitching at his +lip. + +"An inexperienced girl," he said to himself, composedly. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Before she went home, Marcella turned into the little rectory garden to +see if she could find Mary Harden for a minute or two. The intimacy +between them was such that she generally found entrance to the house by +going round to a garden door and knocking or calling. The house was very +small, and Mary's little sitting-room was close to this door. + +Her knock brought Mary instantly. + +"Oh! come in. You won't mind. We were just at dinner. Charles is going +away directly. Do stay and talk to me a bit." + +Marcella hesitated, but at last went in. The meals at the rectory +distressed her--the brother and sister showed the marks of them. To-day +she found their usual fare carefully and prettily arranged on a spotless +table; some bread, cheese, and boiled rice--nothing else. Nor did they +allow themselves any fire for meals. Marcella, sitting beside them in +her fur, did not feel the cold, but Mary was clearly shivering under her +shawl. They eat meat twice a week, and in the afternoon Mary lit the +sitting-room fire. In the morning she contented herself with the +kitchen, where, as she cooked for many sick folk, and had only a girl of +fourteen whom she was training to help her with the housework, she had +generally much to do. + +The Rector did not stay long after her arrival. He had a distant visit +to pay to a dying child, and hurried off so as to be home, if possible, +before dark. Marcella admired him, but did not feel that she understood +him more as they were better acquainted. He was slight and young, and +not very clever; but a certain inexpugnable dignity surrounded him, +which, real as it was, sometimes irritated Marcella. It sat oddly on his +round face--boyish still, in spite of its pinched and anxious look--but +there it was, not to be ignored. Marcella thought him a Conservative, +and very backward and ignorant in his political and social opinions. But +she was perfectly conscious that she must also think him a saint; and +that the deepest things in him were probably not for her. + +Mr. Harden said a few words to her now as to her straw-plaiting scheme, +which had his warmest sympathy--Marcella contrasted his tone gratefully +with that of Wharton, and once more fell happily in love with her own +ideas--then he went off, leaving the two girls together. + +"Have you seen Mrs. Hurd this morning?" said Mary. + +"Yes, Willie seems very bad." + +Mary assented. + +"The doctor says he will hardly get through the winter, especially if +this weather goes on. But the greatest excitement of the village just +now--do you know?--is the quarrel between Hurd and Westall. Somebody +told Charles yesterday that they never meet without threatening each +other. Since the covers at Tudley End were raided, Westall seems to have +quite lost his head. He declares Hurd knew all about that, and that he +is hand and glove with the same gang still. He vows he will catch him +out, and Hurd told the man who told Charles that if Westall bullies him +any more he will put a knife into him. And Charles says that Hurd is not +a bit like he was. He used to be such a patient, silent creature. Now--" + +"He has woke up to a few more ideas and a little more life than he had, +that's all," said Marcella, impatiently. "He poached last winter, and +small blame to him. But since he got work at the Court in November--is +it likely? He knows that he was suspected; and what could be his +interest now, after a hard day's work, to go out again at night, and run +the risk of falling into Westall's clutches, when he doesn't want either +the food or the money?" + +"I don't know," said Mary, shaking her head. "Charles says, if they once +do it, they hardly ever leave it off altogether. It's the excitement and +amusement of it." + +"He promised me," said Marcella, proudly. + +"They promise Charles all sorts of things," said Mary, slyly; "but they +don't keep to them." + +Warmly grateful as both she and the Rector had been from the beginning +to Marcella for the passionate interest she took in the place and the +people, the sister was sometimes now a trifle jealous--divinely +jealous--for her brother. Marcella's unbounded confidence in her own +power and right over Mellor, her growing tendency to ignore anybody +else's right or power, sometimes set Mary aflame, for Charles's sake, +heartily and humbly as she admired her beautiful friend. + +"I shall speak to Mr. Raeburn about it," said Marcella. + +She never called him "Aldous" to anybody--a stiffness which jarred a +little upon the gentle, sentimental Mary. + +"I saw you pass," she said, "from one of the top windows. He was with +you, wasn't he?" + +A slight colour sprang to her sallow cheek, a light to her eyes. Most +wonderful, most interesting was this engagement to Mary, who--strange to +think!--had almost brought it about. Mr. Raeburn was to her one of the +best and noblest of men, and she felt quite simply, and with a sort of +Christian trembling for him, the romance of his great position. Was +Marcella happy, was she proud of him, as she ought to be? Mary was often +puzzled by her. + +"Oh no!" said Marcella, with a little laugh. "That wasn't Mr. Raeburn. I +don't know where your eyes were, Mary. That was Mr. Wharton, who is +staying with us. He has gone on to a meeting at Widrington." + +Mary's face fell. + +"Charles says Mr. Wharton's influence in the village is very bad," she +said quickly. "He makes everybody discontented; sets everybody by the +ears; and, after all, what can he do for anybody?" + +"But that's just what he wants to do--to make them discontented," cried +Marcella. "Then, if they vote for him, that's the first practical step +towards improving their life." + +"But it won't give them more wages or keep them out of the public +house," said Mary, bewildered. She came of a homely middle-class stock, +accustomed to a small range of thinking, and a high standard of doing. +Marcella's political opinions were an amazement, and on the whole a +scandal to her. She preferred generally to give them a wide berth. + +Marcella did not reply. It was not worth while to talk to Mary on these +topics. But Mary stuck to the subject a moment longer. + +"You can't want him to get in, though?" she said in a puzzled voice, as +she led the way to the little sitting-room across the passage, and took +her workbasket out of the cupboard. "It was only the week before last +Mr. Raeburn was speaking at the schoolroom for Mr. Dodgson. You weren't +there, Marcella?" + +"No," said Marcella, shortly. "I thought you knew perfectly well, Mary, +that Mr. Raeburn and I don't agree politically. Certainly, I hope Mr. +Wharton will get in!" + +Mary opened her eyes in wonderment. She stared at Marcella, forgetting +the sock she had just slipped over her left hand, and the darning needle +in her right. + +Marcella laughed. + +"I know you think that two people who are going to be married ought to +say ditto to each other in everything. Don't you--you dear old goose?" + +She came and stood beside Mary, a stately and beautiful creature in her +loosened furs. She stroked Mary's straight sandy hair back from her +forehead. Mary looked up at her with a thrill, nay, a passionate throb +of envy--soon suppressed. + +"I think," she said steadily, "it is very strange--that love should +oppose and disagree with what it loves." + +Marcella went restlessly towards the fire and began to examine the +things on the mantelpiece. + +"Can't people agree to differ, you sentimentalist? Can't they respect +each other, without echoing each other on every subject?" + +"Respect!" cried Mary, with a sudden scorn, which was startling from a +creature so soft. + +"There, she could tear me in pieces!" said Marcella, laughing, though +her lip was not steady. "I wonder what you would be like, Mary, if you +were engaged." + +Mary ran her needle in and out with lightning speed for a second or two, +then she said almost under her breath-- + +"I shouldn't be engaged unless I were in love. And if I were in love, +why, I would go anywhere--do anything--believe anything--if _he_ told +me!" + +"Believe anything?--Mary--you wouldn't!" + +"I don't mean as to religion," said Mary, hastily. "But everything +else--I would give it all up!--governing one's self, thinking for one's +self. He should do it, and I would _bless_ him!" + +She looked up crimson, drawing a very long breath, as though from some +deep centre of painful, passionate feeling. It was Marcella's turn to +stare. Never had Mary so revealed herself before. + +"Did you ever love any one like that, Mary?" she asked quickly. + +Mary dropped her head again over her work and did not answer +immediately. + +"Do you see--" she said at last, with a change of tone, "do you see +that we have got our invitation?" + +Marcella, about to give the rein to an eager curiosity Mary's manner had +excited in her, felt herself pulled up sharply. When she chose, this +little meek creature could put on the same unapproachableness as her +brother. Marcella submitted. + +"Yes, I see," she said, taking up a card on the mantelpiece. "It will be +a great crush. I suppose you know. They have asked the whole county, it +seems to me." + +The card bore an invitation in Miss Raeburn's name for the Rector and +his sister to a dance at Maxwell Court--the date given was the +twenty-fifth of January. + +"What fun!" said Mary, her eye sparkling. "You needn't suppose that I +know enough of balls to be particular. I have only been to one before in +my life--ever. That was at Cheltenham. An aunt took me--I didn't dance. +There were hardly any men, but I enjoyed it." + +"Well, you shall dance this time," said Marcella, "for I will make Mr. +Raeburn introduce you." + +"Nonsense, you won't have any time to think about me. You will be the +queen--everybody will want to speak to you. I shall sit in a corner and +look at you--that will be enough for me." + +Marcella went up to her quickly and kissed her, then she said, still +holding her-- + +"I know you think I ought to be very happy, Mary!" + +"I should think I do!" said Mary, with astonished emphasis, when the +voice paused--"I should think I do!" + +"I _am_ happy--and I want to make him happy. But there are so many +things, so many different aims and motives, that complicate life, that +puzzle one. One doesn't know how much to give of one's self, to each--" + +She stood with her hand on Mary's shoulder, looking away towards the +window and the snowy garden, her brow frowning and distressed. + +"Well, I don't understand," said Mary, after a pause. "As I said before, +it seems to me so plain and easy--to be in love, and give one's self +_all_--to that. But you are so much cleverer than I, Marcella, you know +so much more. That makes the difference. I can't be like you. Perhaps I +don't want to be!"--and she laughed. "But I can admire you and love you, +and think about you. There, now, tell me what you are going to wear?" + +"White satin, and Mr. Raeburn wants me to wear some pearls he is going +to give me, some old pearls of his mother's. I believe I shall find them +at Mellor when I get back." + +There was little girlish pleasure in the tone. It was as though Marcella +thought her friend would be more interested in her bit of news than she +was herself, and was handing it on to her to please her. + +"Isn't there a superstition against doing that--before you're married?" +said Mary, doubtfully. + +"As if I should mind if there was! But I don't believe there is, or Miss +Raeburn would have heard of it. She's a mass of such things. Well! I +hope I shall behave myself to please her at this function. There are +not many things I do to her satisfaction; it's a mercy we're not going +to live with her. Lord Maxwell is a dear; but she and I would never get +on. Every way of thinking she has, rubs me up the wrong way; and as for +her view of me, I am just a tare sown among her wheat. Perhaps she is +right enough!" + +Marcella leant her cheek pensively on one hand, and with the other +played with the things on the mantelpiece. + +Mary looked at her, and then half smiled, half sighed. + +"I think it is a very good thing you are to be married soon," she said, +with her little air of wisdom, which offended nobody. "Then you'll know +your own mind. When is it to be?" + +"The end of February--after the election." + +"Two months," mused Mary. + +"Time enough to throw it all up in, you think?" said Marcella, +recklessly, putting on her gloves for departure. "Perhaps you'll be +pleased to hear that I _am_ going to a meeting of Mr. Raeburn's next +week?" + +"I _am_ glad. You ought to go to them all." + +"Really, Mary! How am I to lift you out of this squaw theory of +matrimony? Allow me to inform you that the following evening I am going +to one of Mr. Wharton's--here in the schoolroom!" + +She enjoyed her friend's disapproval. + +"By yourself, Marcella? It isn't seemly!" + +"I shall take a maid. Mr. Wharton is going to tell us how the people +can--get the land, and how, when they have got it, all the money that +used to go in rent will go in taking off taxes and making life +comfortable for the poor." She looked at Mary with a teasing smile. + +"Oh! I dare say he will make his stealing sound very pretty," said Mary, +with unwonted scorn, as she opened the front door for her friend. + +Marcella flashed out. + +"I know you are a saint, Mary," she said, turning back on the path +outside to deliver her last shaft. "I am often not so sure whether you +are a Christian!" + +Then she hurried off without another word, leaving the flushed and +shaken Mary to ponder this strange dictum. + + * * * * * + +Marcella was just turning into the straight drive which led past the +church on the left to Mellor House, when she heard footsteps behind her, +and, looking round, she saw Edward Hallin. + +"Will you give me some lunch, Miss Boyce, in return for a message? I am +here instead of Aldous, who is very sorry for himself, and will be over +later. I am to tell you that he went down to the station to meet a +certain box. The box did not come, but will come this afternoon; so he +waits for it, and will bring it over." + +Marcella flushed, smiled, and said she understood. Hallin moved on +beside her, evidently glad of the opportunity of a talk with her. + +"We are all going together to the Gairsley meeting next week, aren't we? +I am so glad you are coming. Aldous will do his best." + +There was something very winning in his tone to her. It implied both +his old and peculiar friendship for Aldous, and his eager wish to find a +new friend in her--to adopt her into their comradeship. Something very +winning, too, in his whole personality--in the loosely knit, nervous +figure, the irregular charm of feature, the benignant eyes and +brow--even in the suggestions of physical delicacy, cheerfully +concealed, yet none the less evident. The whole balance of Marcella's +temper changed in some sort as she talked to him. She found herself +wanting to please, instead of wanting to conquer, to make an effect. + +"You have just come from the village, I think?" said Hallin. "Aldous +tells me you take a great interest in the people?" + +He looked at her kindly, the look of one who saw all his +fellow-creatures nobly, as it were, and to their best advantage. + +"One may take an interest," she said, in a dissatisfied voice, poking at +the snow crystals on the road before her with the thorn-stick she +carried, "but one can do so little. And I don't know anything; not even +what I want myself." + +"No; one can do next to nothing. And systems and theories don't matter, +or, at least, very little. Yet, when you and Aldous are together, there +will be more chance of _doing_, for you than for most. You will be two +happy and powerful people! His power will be doubled by happiness; I +have always known that." + +Marcella was seized with shyness, looked away, and did not know what to +answer. At last she said abruptly--her head still turned to the woods +on her left-- + +"Are you sure he is going to be happy?" + +"Shall I produce his letter to me?" he said, bantering--"or letters? For +I knew a great deal about you before October 5" (their engagement-day), +"and suspected what was going to happen long before Aldous did. No; +after all, no! Those letters are my last bit of the old friendship. But +the new began that same day," he hastened to add, smiling: "It may be +richer than the old; I don't know. It depends on you." + +"I don't think--I am a very satisfactory friend," said Marcella, still +awkward, and speaking with difficulty. + +"Well, let me find out, won't you? I don't think Aldous would call me +exacting. I believe he would give me a decent character, though I tease +him a good deal. You must let me tell you sometime what he did for +me--what he was to me--at Cambridge? I shall always feel sorry for +Aldous's wife that she did not know him at college." + +A shock went through Marcella at the word--that tremendous word--wife. +As Hallin said it, there was something intolerable in the claim it made! + +"I should like you to tell me," she said faintly. Then she added, with +more energy and a sudden advance of friendliness, "But you really must +come in and rest. Aldous told me he thought the walk from the Court was +too much for you. Shall we take this short way?" + +And she opened a little gate leading to a door at the side of the house +through the Cedar Garden. The narrow path only admitted of single file, +and Hallin followed her, admiring her tall youth and the fine black and +white of her head and cheek as she turned every now and then to speak to +him. He realised more vividly than before the rare, exciting elements of +her beauty, and the truth in Aldous's comparison of her to one of the +tall women in a Florentine fresco. But he felt himself a good deal +baffled by her, all the same. In some ways, so far as any man who is not +the lover can understand such things, he understood why Aldous had +fallen in love with her; in others, she bore no relation whatever to the +woman his thoughts had been shaping all these years as his friend's fit +and natural wife. + +Luncheon passed as easily as any meal could be expected to do, of which +Mr. Boyce was partial president. During the preceding month or two he +had definitely assumed the character of an invalid, although to +inexperienced eyes like Marcella's there did not seem to be very much +the matter. But, whatever the facts might be, Mr. Boyce's adroit use of +them had made a great difference to his position in his own household. +His wife's sarcastic freedom of manner was less apparent; and he was +obviously less in awe of her. Meanwhile he was as sore as ever towards +the Raeburns, and no more inclined to take any particular pleasure in +Marcella's prospects, or to make himself agreeable towards his future +son-in-law. He and Mrs. Boyce had been formally asked in Miss Raeburn's +best hand to the Court ball, but he had at once snappishly announced his +intention of staying at home. Marcella sometimes looked back with +astonishment to his eagerness for social notice when they first came to +Mellor. Clearly the rising irritability of illness had made it doubly +unpleasant to him to owe all that he was likely to get on that score to +his own daughter; and, moreover, he had learnt to occupy himself more +continuously on his own land and with his own affairs. + +As to the state of the village, neither Marcella's entreaties nor +reproaches had any effect upon him. When it appeared certain that he +would be summoned for some specially flagrant piece of neglect he would +spend a few shillings on repairs; otherwise not a farthing. All that +filial softening towards him of which Marcella had been conscious in the +early autumn had died away in her. She said to herself now plainly and +bitterly that it was a misfortune to belong to him; and she would have +pitied her mother most heartily if her mother had ever allowed her the +smallest expression of such a feeling. As it was, she was left to wonder +and chafe at her mother's new-born mildness. + +In the drawing-room, after luncheon, Hallin came up to Marcella in a +corner, and, smiling, drew from his pocket a folded sheet of foolscap. + +"I made Aldous give me his speech to show you, before to-morrow night," +he said. "He would hardly let me take it, said it was stupid, and that +you would not agree with it. But I wanted you to see how he does these +things. He speaks now, on an average, two or three times a week. Each +time, even for an audience of a score or two of village folk, he writes +out what he has to say. Then he speaks it entirely without notes. In +this way, though he has not much natural gift, he is making himself +gradually an effective and practical speaker. The danger with him, of +course, is lest he should be over-subtle and over-critical--not simple +and popular enough." + +Marcella took the paper half unwillingly and glanced over it in silence. + +"You are sorry he is a Tory, is that it?" he said to her, but in a lower +voice, and sitting down beside her. + +Mrs. Boyce, just catching the words from where she sat with her work, at +the further side of the room, looked up with a double wonder--wonder at +Marcella's folly, wonder still more at the deference with which men like +Aldous Raeburn and Hallin treated her. It was inevitable, of +course--youth and beauty rule the world. But the mother, under no spell +herself, and of keen, cool wit, resented the intellectual confusion, the +lowering of standards involved. + +"I suppose so," said Marcella, stupidly, in answer to Hallin's question, +fidgeting the papers under her hand. Then his curious confessor's gift, +his quiet questioning look with its sensitive human interest to all +before him, told upon her. + +"I am sorry he does not look further ahead, to the great changes that +must come," she added hurriedly. "This is all about details, +palliatives. I want him to be more impatient." + +"Great political changes you mean?" + +She nodded; then added-- + +"But only for the sake, of course, of great social changes to come +after." + +He pondered a moment. + +"Aldous has never believed in _great_ changes coming suddenly. He +constantly looks upon me as rash in the things _I_ adopt and believe in. +But for the contriving, unceasing effort of every day to make that part +of the social machine in which a man finds himself work better and more +equitably, I have never seen Aldous's equal--for the steady passion, the +persistence, of it." + +She looked up. His pale face had taken to itself glow and fire; his eyes +were full of strenuous, nay, severe expression. Her foolish pride +rebelled a little. + +"Of course, I haven't seen much of that yet," she said slowly. + +His look for a moment was indignant, incredulous, then melted into a +charming eagerness. + +"But you will! naturally you will!--see everything. I hug myself +sometimes now for pure pleasure that some one besides his grandfather +and I will know what Aldous is and does. Oh! the people on the estate +know; his neighbours are beginning to know; and now that he is going +into Parliament, the country will know some day, if work and high +intelligence have the power I believe. But I am impatient! In the first +place--I may say it to you, Miss Boyce!--I want Aldous to come out of +that _manner_ of his to strangers, which is the only bit of the true +Tory in him; _you_ can get rid of it, no one else can--How long shall I +give you?--And in the next, I want the world not to be wasting itself on +baser stuff when it might be praising Aldous!" + +"Does he mean Mr. Wharton?" thought Marcella, quickly. "But this +world--our world--hates him and runs him down." + +But she had no time to answer, for the door opened to admit Aldous, +flushed and bright-eyed, looking round the room immediately for her, and +bearing a parcel in his left hand. + +"Does she love him at all?" thought Hallin, with a nervous stiffening of +all his lithe frame, as he walked away to talk to Mrs. Boyce, "or, in +spite of all her fine talk, is she just marrying him for his money and +position!" + +Meanwhile, Aldous had drawn Marcella into the Stone Parlour and was +standing by the fire with his arm covetously round her. + +"I have lost two hours with you I might have had, just because a +tiresome man missed his train. Make up for it by liking these pretty +things a little, for my sake and my mother's." + +He opened the jeweller's case, took out the fine old pearls--necklace +and bracelets--it contained, and put them into her hand. They were his +first considerable gift to her, and had been chosen for association's +sake, seeing that his mother had also worn them before her marriage. + +She flushed first of all with a natural pleasure, the girl delighting in +her gaud. Then she allowed herself to be kissed, which was, indeed, +inevitable. Finally she turned them over and over in her hands; and he +began to be puzzled by her. + +"They are much too good for me. I don't know whether you ought to give +me such precious things. I am dreadfully careless and forgetful. Mamma +always says so." + +"I shall want you to wear them so often that you won't have a chance of +forgetting them," he said gaily. + +"Will you? Will you want me to wear them so often?" she asked, in an odd +voice. "Anyway, I should like to have just these, and nothing else. I am +glad that we know nobody, and have no friends, and that I shall have so +few presents. You won't give me many jewels, will you?" she said +suddenly, insistently, turning to him. "I shouldn't know what to do with +them. I used to have a magpie's wish for them; and now--I don't know, +but they don't give me pleasure. Not these, of course--not these!" she +added hurriedly, taking them up and beginning to fasten the bracelets on +her wrists. + +Aldous looked perplexed. + +"My darling!" he said, half laughing, and in the tone of the apologist, +"You know we _have_ such a lot of things. And I am afraid my grandfather +will want to give them all to you. Need one think so much about it? It +isn't as though they had to be bought fresh. They go with pretty gowns, +don't they, and other people like to see them?" + +"No, but it's what they imply--the wealth--the _having_ so much while +other people want so much. Things begin to oppress me so!" she broke +out, instinctively moving away from him that she might express herself +with more energy. "I like luxuries so desperately, and when I get them I +seem to myself now the vulgarest creature alive, who has no right to an +opinion or an enthusiasm, or anything else worth having. You must not +let me like them--you must help me not to care about them!" + +Raeburn's eye as he looked at her was tenderness itself. He could of +course neither mock her, nor put what she said aside. This question she +had raised, this most thorny of all the personal questions of the +present--the ethical relation of the individual to the World's Fair and +its vanities--was, as it happened, a question far more sternly and +robustly real to him than it was to her. Every word in his few +sentences, as they stood talking by the fire, bore on it for a practised +ear the signs of a long wrestle of the heart. + +But to Marcella it sounded tame; her ear was haunted by the fragments of +another tune which she seemed to be perpetually trying to recall and +piece together. Aldous's slow minor made her impatient. + +He turned presently to ask her what she had been doing with her +morning--asking her with a certain precision, and observing her +attentively. She replied that she had been showing Mr. Wharton the +house, that he had walked down with her to the village, and was gone to +a meeting at Widrington. Then she remarked that he was very good +company, and very clever, but dreadfully sure of his own opinion. +Finally she laughed, and said drily: + +"There will be no putting him down all the same. I haven't told anybody +yet, but he saved my life this morning." + +Aldous caught her wrists. + +"Saved your life! Dear--What do you mean?" + +She explained, giving the little incident all--perhaps more than--its +dramatic due. He listened with evident annoyance, and stood pondering +when she came to an end. + +"So I shall be expected to take quite a different view of him +henceforward?" he inquired at last, looking round at her, with a very +forced smile. + +"I am sure I don't know that it matters to him what view anybody takes +of him," she cried, flushing. "He certainly takes the frankest views of +other people, and expresses them." + +And while she played with the pearls in their box she gave a vivid +account of her morning's talk with the Radical candidate for West +Brookshire, and of their village expedition. + +There was a certain relief in describing the scorn with which her acts +and ideals had been treated; and, underneath, a woman's curiosity as to +how Aldous would take it. + +"I don't know what business he had to express himself so frankly," said +Aldous, turning to the fire and carefully putting it together. "He +hardly knows you--it was, I think, an impertinence." + +He stood upright, with his back to the hearth, a strong, capable, +frowning Englishman, very much on his dignity. Such a moment must surely +have become him in the eyes of a girl that loved him. Marcella proved +restive under it. + +"No; it's very natural," she protested quickly. "When people are so much +in earnest they don't stop to think about impertinence! I never met any +one who dug up one's thoughts by the roots as he does." + +Aldous was startled by her flush, her sudden attitude of opposition. His +intermittent lack of readiness overtook him, and there was an awkward +silence. Then, pulling himself together with a strong hand, he left the +subject and began to talk of her straw-plaiting scheme, of the Gairsley +meeting, and of Hallin. But in the middle Marcella unexpectedly said: + +"I wish you would tell me, seriously, what reasons you have for not +liking Mr. Wharton?--other than politics, I mean?" + +Her black eyes fixed him with a keen insistence. + +He was silent a moment with surprise; then he said: + +"I had rather not rake up old scores." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and he was roused to come and put his arm +round her again, she shrinking and turning her reddened face away. + +"Dearest," he said, "you shall put me in charity with all the world. But +the worst of it is," he added, half laughing, "that I don't see how I am +to help disliking him doubly henceforward for having had the luck to put +that fire out instead of me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A few busy and eventful weeks, days never forgotten by Marcella in after +years, passed quickly by. Parliament met in the third week of January. +Ministers, according to universal expectation, found themselves +confronted by a damaging amendment on the Address, and were defeated by +a small majority. A dissolution and appeal to the country followed +immediately, and the meetings and speech-makings, already active +throughout the constituencies, were carried forward with redoubled +energy. In the Tudley End division, Aldous Raeburn was fighting a +somewhat younger opponent of the same country-gentleman stock--a former +fag indeed of his at Eton--whose zeal and fluency gave him plenty to do. +Under ordinary circumstances Aldous would have thrown himself with all +his heart and mind into a contest which involved for him the most +stimulating of possibilities, personal and public. But, as these days +went over, he found his appetite for the struggle flagging, and was +harassed rather than spurred by his adversary's activity. The real truth +was that he could not see enough of Marcella! A curious uncertainty and +unreality, moreover, seemed to have crept into some of their relations; +and it had begun to gall and fever him that Wharton should be staying +there, week after week, beside her, in her father's house, able to +spend all the free intervals of the fight in her society, strengthening +an influence which Raeburn's pride and delicacy had hardly allowed him +as yet, in spite of his instinctive jealousy from the beginning, to take +into his thoughts at all, but which was now apparent, not only to +himself but to others. + +In vain did he spend every possible hour at Mellor he could snatch from +a conflict in which his party, his grandfather, and his own personal +fortunes were all deeply interested. In vain--with a tardy instinct that +it was to Mr. Boyce's dislike of himself, and to the wilful fancy for +Wharton's society which this dislike had promoted, that Wharton's long +stay at Mellor was largely owing--did Aldous subdue himself to +propitiations and amenities wholly foreign to a strong character long +accustomed to rule without thinking about it. Mr. Boyce showed himself +not a whit less partial to Wharton than before; pressed him at least +twice in Raeburn's hearing to make Mellor his head-quarters so long as +it suited him, and behaved with an irritable malice with regard to some +of the details of the wedding arrangements, which neither Mrs. Boyce's +indignation nor Marcella's discomfort and annoyance could restrain. +Clearly there was in him a strong consciousness that by his attentions +to the Radical candidate he was asserting his independence of the +Raeburns, and nothing for the moment seemed to be more of an object with +him, even though his daughter was going to marry the Raeburns' heir. +Meanwhile, Wharton was always ready to walk or chat or play billiards +with his host in the intervals of his own campaign; and his society had +thus come to count considerably among the scanty daily pleasures of a +sickly and disappointed man. Mrs. Boyce did not like her guest, and took +no pains to disguise it, least of all from Wharton. But it seemed to be +no longer possible for her to take the vigorous measures she would once +have taken to get rid of him. + +In vain, too, did Miss Raeburn do her best for the nephew to whom she +was still devoted, in spite of his deplorable choice of a wife. She took +in the situation as a whole probably sooner than anybody else, and she +instantly made heroic efforts to see more of Marcella, to get her to +come oftener to the Court, and in many various ways to procure the poor +deluded Aldous more of his betrothed's society. She paid many chattering +and fussy visits to Mellor--visits which chafed Marcella--and before +long, indeed, roused a certain suspicion in the girl's wilful mind. +Between Miss Raeburn and Mrs. Boyce there was a curious understanding. +It was always tacit, and never amounted to friendship, still less to +intimacy. But it often yielded a certain melancholy consolation to +Aldous Raeburn's great-aunt. It was clear to her that this strange +mother was just as much convinced as she was that Aldous was making a +great mistake, and that Marcella was not worthy of him. But the +engagement being there--a fact not apparently to be undone--both ladies +showed themselves disposed to take pains with it, to protect it against +aggression. Mrs. Boyce found herself becoming more of a _chaperon_ than +she had ever yet professed to be; and Miss Raeburn, as we have said, +made repeated efforts to capture Marcella and hold her for Aldous, her +lawful master. + +But Marcella proved extremely difficult to manage. In the first place +she was a young person of many engagements. Her village scheme absorbed +a great deal of time. She was deep in a varied correspondence, in the +engagement of teachers, the provision of work-rooms, the collecting and +registering of workers, the organisation of local committees and so +forth. New sides of the girl's character, new capacities and +capabilities were coming out; new forms of her natural power over her +fellows were developing every day; she was beginning, under the +incessant stimulus of Wharton's talk, to read and think on social and +economic subjects, with some system and coherence, and it was evident +that she took a passionate mental pleasure in it all. And the more +pleasure these activities gave her, the less she had to spare for those +accompaniments of her engagement and her position that was to be, which +once, as Mrs. Boyce's sharp eyes perceived, had been quite normally +attractive to her. + +"Why do you take up her time so, with all these things?" said Miss +Raeburn impatiently to Lady Winterbourne, who was now Marcella's +obedient helper in everything she chose to initiate. "She doesn't care +for anything she _ought_ to care about at this time, and Aldous sees +nothing of her. As for her trousseau, Mrs. Boyce declares she has had to +do it all. Marcella won't even go up to London to have her wedding-dress +fitted!" + +Lady Winterbourne looked up bewildered. + +"But I can't make her go and have her wedding-dress fitted, Agneta! And +I always feel you don't know what a fine creature she is. You don't +really appreciate her. It's splendid the ideas she has about this work, +and the way she throws herself into it." + +"I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, indignantly. "That's just what I object +to. Why can't she throw herself into being in love with Aldous! That's +her business, I imagine, just now--if she were a young woman like +anybody else one had ever seen--instead of holding aloof from everything +he does, and never being there when he wants her. Oh! I have no patience +with her. But, of course, I must--" said Miss Raeburn, hastily +correcting herself--"of course, I must have patience." + +"It will all come right, I am sure, when they are married," said Lady +Winterbourne, rather helplessly. + +"That's just what my brother says," cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "He +won't hear a word--declares she is odd and original, and that Aldous +will soon know how to manage her. It's all very well; nowadays men +_don't_ manage their wives; that's all gone with the rest. And I am +sure, my dear, if she behaves after she is married as she is doing now, +with that most objectionable person Mr. Wharton--walking, and talking, +and taking up his ideas, and going to his meetings--she'll be a handful +for any husband." + +"Mr. Wharton!" said Lady Winterbourne, astonished. Her absent black +eyes, the eyes of the dreamer, of the person who lives by a few intense +affections, saw little or nothing of what was going on immediately under +them. "Oh! but that is because he is staying in the house, and he is a +Socialist; she calls herself one--" + +"My _dear_," said Miss Raeburn, interrupting emphatically; +"if--you--had--now--an unmarried daughter at home--engaged or not--would +you care to have Harry Wharton hanging about after her?" + +"Harry Wharton?" said the other, pondering; "he is the Levens' cousin, +isn't he? he used to stay with them. I don't think I have seen him since +then. But yes, I do remember; there was something--something +disagreeable?" + +She stopped with a hesitating, interrogative air. No one talked less +scandal, no one put the uglinesses of life away from her with a hastier +hand than Lady Winterbourne. She was one of the most consistent of moral +epicures. + +"Yes, _extremely_ disagreeable," said Miss Raeburn, sitting bolt +upright. "The man has no principles--never had any, since he was a child +in petticoats. I know Aldous thinks him unscrupulous in politics and +everything else. And then, just when you are worked to death, and have +hardly a moment for your own affairs, to have a man of that type always +at hand to spend odd times with your lady love--flattering her, engaging +her in his ridiculous schemes, encouraging her in all the extravagances +she has got her head twice too full of already, setting her against your +own ideas and the life she will have to live--you will admit that it is +not exactly soothing!" + +"Poor Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, thoughtfully, looking far ahead +with her odd look of absent rigidity, which had in reality so little to +do with a character essentially soft; "but you see he _did_ know all +about her opinions. And I don't think--no, I really don't think--I could +speak to her." + +In truth, this woman of nearly seventy--old in years, but wholly young +in temperament--was altogether under Marcella's spell--more at ease with +her already than with most of her own children, finding in her +satisfaction for a hundred instincts, suppressed or starved by her own +environment, fascinated by the girl's friendship, and eagerly grateful +for her visits. Miss Raeburn thought it all both incomprehensible and +silly. + +"Apparently no one can!" cried that lady in answer to her friend's +demurrer; "is all the world afraid of her?" + +And she departed in wrath. But she knew, nevertheless, that she was just +as much afraid of Marcella as anybody else. In her own sphere at the +Court, or in points connected with what was due to the family, or to +Lord Maxwell especially, as the head of it, this short, capable old lady +could hold her own amply with Aldous's betrothed, could maintain, +indeed, a sharp and caustic dignity, which kept Marcella very much in +order. Miss Raeburn, on the defensive, was strong; but when it came to +attacking Marcella's own ideas and proceedings, Lord Maxwell's sister +became shrewdly conscious of her own weaknesses. She had no wish to +measure her wits on any general field with Marcella's. She said to +herself that the girl was too clever and would talk you down. + +Meanwhile, things went untowardly in various ways. Marcella disciplined +herself before the Gairsley meeting, and went thither resolved to give +Aldous as much sympathy as she could. But the performance only repelled +a mind over which Wharton was every day gaining more influence. There +was a portly baronet in the chair; there were various Primrose Dames on +the platform and among the audience; there was a considerable +representation of clergy; and the labourers present seemed to Marcella +the most obsequious of their kind. Aldous spoke well--or so the audience +seemed to think; but she could feel no enthusiasm for anything that he +said. She gathered that he advocated a Government inspection of +cottages, more stringent precautions against cattle disease, better +technical instruction, a more abundant provision of allotments and small +freeholds, &c.; and he said many cordial and wise-sounding things in +praise of a progress which should go safely and wisely from step to +step, and run no risks of dangerous reaction. But the assumptions on +which, as she told herself rebelliously, it all went--that the rich and +the educated must rule, and the poor obey; that existing classes and +rights, the forces of individualism and competition, must and would go +on pretty much as they were; that great houses and great people, the +English land and game system, and all the rest of our odious class +paraphernalia were in the order of the universe; these ideas, conceived +as the furniture of Aldous's mind, threw her again into a ferment of +passionate opposition. And when the noble baronet in the chair--to her +eye, a pompous, frock-coated stick, sacrificing his after-dinner sleep +for once, that he might the more effectually secure it in the +future--proposed a vote of confidence in the Conservative candidate; +when the vote was carried with much cheering and rattling of feet; when +the Primrose Dames on the platform smiled graciously down upon the +meeting as one smiles at good children in their moments of pretty +behaviour; and when, finally, scores of toil-stained labourers, young +and old, went up to have a word and a hand-shake with "Muster Raeburn," +Marcella held herself aloof and cold, with a look that threatened +sarcasm should she be spoken to. Miss Raeburn, glancing furtively round +at her, was outraged anew by her expression. + +"She will be a thorn in all our sides," thought that lady. "Aldous is a +fool!--a poor dear noble misguided fool!" + +Then on the way home, she and Aldous drove together. Marcella tried to +argue, grew vehement, and said bitter things for the sake of victory, +till at last Aldous, tired, worried, and deeply wounded, could bear it +no longer. + +"Let it be, dear, let it be!" he entreated, snatching at her hand as +they rolled along through a stormy night. "We grope in a dark world--you +see some points of light in it, I see others--won't you give me credit +for doing what I can--seeing what I can? I am sure--_sure_--you will +find it easier to bear with differences when we are quite together--when +there are no longer all these hateful duties and engagements--and +persons--between us." + +"Persons! I don't know what you mean!" said Marcella. + +Aldous only just restrained himself in time. Out of sheer fatigue and +slackness of nerve he had been all but betrayed into some angry speech +on the subject of Wharton, the echoes of whose fantastic talk, as it +seemed to him, were always hanging about Mellor when he went there. But +he did refrain, and was thankful. That he was indeed jealous and +disturbed, that he had been jealous and disturbed from the moment Harry +Wharton had set foot in Mellor, he himself knew quite well. But to play +the jealous part in public was more than the Raeburn pride could bear. +There was the dread, too, of defining the situation--of striking some +vulgar irrevocable note. + +So he parried Marcella's exclamation by asking her whether she had any +idea how many human hands a parliamentary candidate had to shake between +breakfast and bed; and then, having so slipped into another tone, he +tried to amuse himself and her by some of the daily humours of the +contest. She lent herself to it and laughed, her look mostly turned away +from him, as though she were following the light of the carriage lamps +as it slipped along the snow-laden hedges, her hand lying limply in his. +But neither were really gay. His soreness of mind grew as in the pauses +of talk he came to realise more exactly the failure of the evening--of +his very successful and encouraging meeting--from his own private point +of view. + +"Didn't you like that last speech?" he broke out suddenly--"that +labourer's speech? I thought you would. It was entirely his own +idea--nobody asked him to do it." + +In reality Gairsley represented a corner of the estate which Aldous had +specially made his own. He had spent much labour and thought on the +improvement of what had been a backward district, and in particular he +had tried a small profit-sharing experiment upon a farm there which he +had taken into his own hands for the purpose. The experiment had met +with fair success, and the labourer in question, who was one of the +workers in it, had volunteered some approving remarks upon it at the +meeting. + +"Oh! it was very proper and respectful!" said Marcella, hastily. + +The carriage rolled on some yards before Aldous replied. Then he spoke +in a drier tone than he had ever yet used to her. + +"You do it injustice, I think. The man is perfectly independent, and an +honest fellow. I was grateful to him for what he said." + +"Of course, I am no judge!" cried Marcella, quickly--repentantly. "Why +did you ask me? I saw everything crooked, I suppose--it was your +Primrose Dames--they got upon my nerves. Why did you have them? I didn't +mean to vex and hurt you--I didn't indeed--it was all the other way--and +now I have." + +She turned upon him laughing, but also half crying, as he could tell by +the flutter of her breath. + +He vowed he was not hurt, and once more changed both talk and tone. They +reached the drive's end without a word of Wharton. But Marcella went to +bed hating herself, and Aldous, after his solitary drive home, sat up +long and late, feverishly pacing and thinking. + + * * * * * + +Then next evening how differently things fell! + +Marcella, having spent the afternoon at the Court, hearing all the +final arrangements for the ball, and bearing with Miss Raeburn in a way +which astonished herself, came home full of a sense of duty done, and +announced to her mother that she was going to Mr. Wharton's meeting in +the Baptist chapel that evening. + +"Unnecessary, don't you think?" said Mrs. Boyce, lifting her eyebrows. +"However, if you go, I shall go with you." + +Most mothers, dealing with a girl of twenty-one, under the +circumstances, would have said, "I had rather you stayed at home." Mrs. +Boyce never employed locutions of this kind. She recognised with perfect +calmness that Marcella's bringing up, and especially her independent +years in London, had made it impossible. + +Marcella fidgeted. + +"I don't know why you should, mamma. Papa will be sure to want you. Of +course, I shall take Deacon." + +"Please order dinner a quarter of an hour earlier, and tell Deacon to +bring down my walking things to the hall," was all Mrs. Boyce said in +answer. + +Marcella walked upstairs with her head very stiff. So her mother, and +Miss Raeburn too, thought it necessary to keep watch on her. How +preposterous! She thought of her free and easy relations with her +Kensington student-friends, and wondered when a more reasonable idea of +the relations between men and women would begin to penetrate English +country society. + +Mr. Boyce talked recklessly of going too. + +"Of course, I know he will spout seditious nonsense," he said irritably +to his wife, "but it's the fellow's power of talk that is so +astonishing. _He_ isn't troubled with your Raeburn heaviness." + +Marcella came into the room as the discussion was going on. + +"If papa goes," she said in an undertone to her mother as she passed +her, "it will spoil the meeting. The labourers will turn sulky. I +shouldn't wonder if they did or said something unpleasant. As it is, +_you_ had much better not come, mamma. They are sure to attack the +cottages--and other things." + +Mrs. Boyce took no notice as far as she herself was concerned, but her +quiet decision at last succeeded in leaving Mr. Boyce safely settled by +the fire, provided as usual with a cigarette and a French novel. + +The meeting was held in a little iron Baptist chapel, erected some few +years before on the outskirts of the village, to the grief and scandal +of Mr. Harden. There were about a hundred and twenty labourers present, +and at the back some boys and girls, come to giggle and make a +noise--nobody else. The Baptist minister, a smooth-faced young man, +possessed, as it turned out, of opinions little short of Wharton's own +in point of vigour and rigour, was already in command. A few late +comers, as they slouched in, stole side looks at Marcella and the veiled +lady in black beside her, sitting in the corner of the last bench; and +Marcella nodded to one or two of the audience, Jim Hurd amongst them. +Otherwise no one took any notice of them. It was the first time that +Mrs. Boyce had been inside any building belonging to the village. + +Wharton arrived late. He had been canvassing at a distance, and neither +of the Mellor ladies had seen him all day. He slipped up the bench with +a bow and a smile to greet them. "I am done!" he said to Marcella, as he +took off his hat. "My voice is gone, my mind ditto. I shall drivel for +half an hour and let them go. Did you ever see such a stolid set?" + +"You will rouse them," said Marcella. + +Her eyes were animated, her colour high, and she took no account at all +of his plea of weariness. + +"You challenge me? I must rouse them--that was what you came to see? Is +that it?" + +She laughed and made no answer. He left her and went up to the +minister's desk, the men shuffling their feet a little, and rattling a +stick here and there as he did so. + +The young minister took the chair and introduced the speaker. He had a +strong Yorkshire accent, and his speech was divided between the most +vehement attacks, couched in the most Scriptural language, upon capital +and privilege--that is to say, on landlords and the land system, on +State churches and the "idle rich," interspersed with quavering returns +upon himself, as though he were scared by his own invective. "My +brothers, let us be _calm_!" he would say after every burst of passion, +with a long deep-voiced emphasis on the last word; "let us, above all +things, be _calm_!"--and then bit by bit voice and denunciation would +begin to mount again towards a fresh climax of loud-voiced attack, only +to sink again to the same lamb-like refrain. Mrs. Boyce's thin lip +twitched, and Marcella bore the good gentleman a grudge for providing +her mother with so much unnecessary amusement. + +As for Wharton, at the opening of his speech he spoke both awkwardly and +flatly; and Marcella had a momentary shock. He was, as he said, tired, +and his wits were not at command. He began with the general political +programme of the party to which--on its extreme left wing--he proclaimed +himself to belong. This programme was, of course, by now a newspaper +commonplace of the stalest sort. He himself recited it without +enthusiasm, and it was received without a spark, so far as appeared, of +interest or agreement. The minister gave an "hear, hear," of a loud +official sort; the men made no sign. + +"They might be a set of Dutch cheeses!" thought Marcella, indignantly, +after a while. "But, after all, why should they care for all this? I +shall have to get up in a minute and stop those children romping." + +But through all this, as it were, Wharton was only waiting for his +second wind. There came a moment when, dropping his quasi-official and +high political tone, he said suddenly with another voice and emphasis: + +"Well now, my men, I'll be bound you're thinking, 'That's all pretty +enough!--we haven't got anything against it--we dare say it's all right; +but we don't care a brass ha'porth about any of it! If that's all you'd +got to say to us, you might have let us bide at home. We don't have none +too much time to rest our bones a bit by the fire, and talk to the +missus and the kids. Why didn't you let us alone, instead of bringing us +out in the cold?' + +"Well, but it _isn't_ all I've got to say--and you know it--because +I've spoken to you before. What I've been talking about is all true, and +all important, and you'll see it some day when you're fit. But what can +men in your position know about it, or care about it? What do any of you +want, but _bread_--" + +--He thundered on the desk-- + +"--a bit of decent _comfort_--a bit of _freedom_--freedom from tyrants +who call themselves your betters!--a bit of rest in your old age, a home +that's something better than a dog-hole, a wage that's something better +than starvation, an honest share in the wealth you are making every day +and every hour for other people to gorge and plunder!" + +He stopped a moment to see how _that_ took. A knot of young men in a +corner rattled their sticks vigorously. The older men had begun at any +rate to look at the speaker. The boys on the back benches instinctively +stopped scuffling. + +Then he threw himself into a sort of rapid question-and-answer. What +were their wages?--eleven shillings a week? + +"Not they!" cried a man from the middle of the chapel. "Yer mus' reckon +it wet an' dry. I wor turned back two days las' week, an' two days this, +_fower_ shillin' lost each week--that's what I call skinnin' ov yer." + +Wharton nodded at him approvingly. By now he knew the majority of the +men in each village by name, and never forgot a face or a biography. +"You're right there, Watkins. Eleven shillings, then, when it isn't +less, never more, and precious often less; and harvest money--the +people that are kind enough to come round and ask you to vote Tory for +them make a deal of that, don't they?--and a few odds and ends here and +there--precious few of them! There! that's about it for wages, isn't it? +Thirty pounds a year, somewhere about, to keep a wife and children +on--and for ten hours a day work, not counting meal times--that's it, I +think. Oh, you _are_ well off!--aren't you?" + +He dropped his arms, folded, on the desk in front of him, and paused to +look at them, his bright kindling eye running over rank after rank. A +chuckle of rough laughter, bitter and jeering, ran through the benches. +Then they broke out and applauded him. + +Well, and about their cottages? + +His glance caught Marcella, passed to her mother sitting stiffly +motionless under her veil. He drew himself up, thought a moment, then +threw himself far forward again over the desk as though the better to +launch what he had to say, his voice taking a grinding determined note. + +He had been in all parts of the division, he said; seen everything, +inquired into everything. No doubt, on the great properties there had +been a good deal done of late years--public opinion had effected +something, the landlords had been forced to disgorge some of the gains +wrested from labour, to pay for the decent housing of the labourer. But +did anybody suppose that _enough_ had been done? Why, he had seen +_dens_--aye, on the best properties--not fit for the pigs that the +farmers wouldn't let the labourers keep, lest they should steal their +straw for the littering of them!--where a man was bound to live the +life of a beast, and his children after him-- + +A tall thin man of about sixty rose in his place, and pointed a long +quavering finger at the speaker. + +"What is it, Darwin? speak up!" said Wharton, dropping at once into the +colloquial tone, and stooping forward to listen. + +"My sleepin' room's six foot nine by seven foot six. We have to shift +our bed for the rain's comin' in, an' yer may see for yoursels ther +ain't much room to shift it in. An' beyont us ther's a room for the +chillen, same size as ourn, an' no window, nothin' but the door into us. +Ov a summer night the chillen, three on 'em, is all of a sweat afore +they're asleep. An' no garden, an' no chance o' decent ways nohow. An' +if yer ask for a bit o' repairs yer get sworn at. An' that's all that +most on us can get out of Squire Boyce!" + +There was a hasty whisper among some of the men round him, as they +glanced over their shoulders at the two ladies on the back bench. One or +two of them half rose, and tried to pull him down. Wharton looked at +Marcella; it seemed to him he saw a sort of passionate satisfaction on +her pale face, and in the erect carriage of her head. Then she stooped +to the side and whispered to her mother. Mrs. Boyce shook her head and +sat on, immovable. All this took but a second or two. + +"Ah, well," said Wharton, "we won't have names; that'll do us no good. +It's not the _men_ you've got to go for so much--though we shall go for +them too before long when we've got the law more on our side. It's the +system. It's the whole way of dividing the wealth that _you_ made, you +and your children--by your work, your hard, slavish, incessant +work--between you and those who _don't_ work, who live on your labour +and grow fat on your poverty! What we want is _a fair division_. There +_ought_ to be wealth enough--there _is_ wealth enough for all in this +blessed country. The earth gives it; the sun gives it: labour extracts +and piles it up. Why should one class take three-fourths of it and leave +you and your fellow-workers in the cities the miserable pittance which +is all you have to starve and breed on? Why?--_why_? I say. +Why!--because you are a set of dull, jealous, poor-spirited _cowards_, +unable to pull together, to trust each other, to give up so much as a +pot of beer a week for the sake of your children and your liberties and +your class--there, _that's_ why it is, and I tell it you straight out!" + +He drew himself up, folded his arms across his chest, and looked at +them--scorn and denunciation in every line of his young frame, and the +blaze of his blue eye. A murmur ran through the room. Some of the men +laughed excitedly. Darwin sprang up again. + +"You keep the perlice off us, an' gie us the cuttin' up o' their +bloomin' parks an' we'll do it fast enough," he cried. + +"Much good that'll do you, just at present," said Wharton, +contemptuously. "Now, you just listen to me." + +And, leaning forward over the desk again, his finger pointed at the +room, he went through the regular Socialist programme as it affects the +country districts--the transference of authority within the villages +from the few to the many, the landlords taxed more and more heavily +during the transition time for the provision of house room, water, +light, education and amusement for the labourer; and ultimately land and +capital at the free disposal of the State, to be supplied to the worker +on demand at the most moderate terms, while the annexed rent and +interest of the capitalist class relieves him of taxes, and the +disappearance of squire, State parson, and plutocrat leaves him master +in his own house, the slave of no man, the equal of all. And, as a first +step to this new Jerusalem--_organisation_!--self-sacrifice enough to +form and maintain a union, to vote for Radical and Socialist candidates +in the teeth of the people who have coals and blankets to give away. + +"Then I suppose you think you'd be turned out of your cottages, +dismissed your work, made to smart for it somehow. Just you try! There +are people all over the country ready to back you, if you'd only back +yourselves. But you _won't_. You won't fight--that's the worst of you; +that's what makes all of us _sick_ when we come down to talk to you. You +won't spare twopence halfpenny a week from boozing--not you!--to +subscribe to a union, and take the first little step towards filling +your stomachs and holding your heads up as free men. What's the good of +your grumbling? I suppose you'll go on like that--grumbling and starving +and cringing--and talking big of the things you could do if you +would:--and all the time not one honest effort--not one!--to better +yourselves, to pull the yoke off your necks! By the Lord! I tell you +it's a _damned_ sort of business talking to fellows like you!" + +Marcella started as he flung the words out with a bitter, nay, a brutal, +emphasis. The smooth-faced minister coughed loudly with a sudden +movement, half got up to remonstrate, and then thought better of it. +Mrs. Boyce for the first time showed some animation under her veil. Her +eyes followed the speaker with a quick attention. + +As for the men, as they turned clumsily to stare at, to laugh, or talk +to each other, Marcella could hardly make out whether they were angered +or fascinated. Whichever it was, Wharton cared for none of them. His +blood was up; his fatigue thrown off. Standing there in front of them, +his hands in his pockets, pale with the excitement of speaking, his +curly head thrown out against the whitened wall of the chapel, he lashed +into the men before him, talking their language, their dialect even; +laying bare their weaknesses, sensualities, indecisions; painting in the +sombrest colours the grim truths of their melancholy lives. + +Marcella could hardly breathe. It seemed to her that, among these +cottagers, she had never lived till now--under the blaze of these +eyes--within the vibration of this voice. Never had she so realised the +power of this singular being. He was scourging, dissecting, the +weather-beaten men before him, as, with a difference, he had scourged, +dissected her. She found herself exulting in his powers of tyranny, in +the naked thrust of his words, so nervous, so pitiless. And then by a +sudden flash she thought of him by Mrs. Hurd's fire, the dying child on +his knee, against his breast. "Here," she thought, while her pulses +leapt, "is the leader for me--for these. Let him call, I will follow." + +It was as though he followed the ranging of her thought, for suddenly, +when she and his hearers least expected it, his tone changed, his storm +of speech sank. He fell into a strain of quiet sympathy, encouragement, +hope; dwelt with a good deal of homely iteration on the immediate +practical steps which each man before him could, if he would, take +towards the common end; spoke of the help and support lying ready for +the country labourers throughout democratic England if they would but +put forward their own energies and quit themselves like men; pointed +forward to a time of plenty, education, social peace; and so--with some +good-tempered banter of his opponent, old Dodgson, and some precise +instructions as to how and where they were to record their votes on the +day of election--came to an end. Two or three other speeches followed, +and among them a few stumbling words from Hurd. Marcella approved +herself and applauded him, as she recognised a sentence or two taken +bodily from the _Labour Clarion_ of the preceding week. Then a +resolution pledging the meeting to support the Liberal candidate was +passed unanimously amid evident excitement. It was the first time that +such a thing had ever happened in Mellor. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Boyce treated her visitor on their way home with a new respect, +mixed, however, as usual, with her prevailing irony. For one who knew +her, her manner implied, not that she liked him any more, but that a +man so well trained to his own profession must always hold his own. + +As for Marcella, she said little or nothing. But Wharton, in the dark of +the carriage, had a strange sense that her eye was often on him, that +her mood marched with his, and that if he could have spoken her response +would have been electric. + +When he had helped her out of the carriage, and they stood in the +vestibule--Mrs. Boyce having walked on into the hall--he said to her, +his voice hoarse with fatigue: + +"Did I do your bidding, did I rouse them?" + +Marcella was seized with sudden shyness. + +"You rated them enough." + +"Well, did you disapprove?" + +"Oh, no! it seems to be your way." + +"My proof of friendship? Well, can there be a greater? Will you show me +some to-morrow?" + +"How can I?" + +"Will you criticise?--tell me where you thought I was a fool to-night, +or a hypocrite? Your mother would." + +"I dare say!" said Marcella, her breath quickening; "but don't expect it +from me." + +"Why?" + +"Because--because I don't pretend. I don't know whether you roused them, +but you roused _me_." + +She swept on before him into the dark hall, without giving him a moment +for reply, took her candle, and disappeared. + +Wharton found his own staircase, and went up to bed. The light he +carried showed his smiling eyes bent on the ground, his mouth still +moving as though with some pleasant desire of speech. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Wharton was sitting alone in the big Mellor drawing-room, after dinner. +He had drawn one of the few easy chairs the room possessed to the fire, +and with his feet on the fender, and one of Mr. Boyce's French novels on +his knee, he was intensely enjoying a moment of physical ease. The work +of these weeks of canvassing and speaking had been arduous, and he was +naturally indolent. Now, beside this fire and at a distance, it amazed +him that any motive whatever, public or private, should ever have been +strong enough to take him out through the mire on these winter nights to +spout himself hoarse to a parcel of rustics. "What did I do it for?" he +asked himself; "what am I going to do it for again to-morrow?" + +Ten o'clock. Mr. Boyce was gone to bed. No more entertaining of _him_ to +be done; one might be thankful for that mercy. Miss Boyce and her mother +would, he supposed, be down directly. They had gone up to dress at nine. +It was the night of the Maxwell Court ball, and the carriage had been +ordered for half-past ten. In a few minutes he would see Miss Boyce in +her new dress, wearing Raeburn's pearls. He was extraordinarily +observant, and a number of little incidents and domestic arrangements +bearing on the feminine side of Marcella's life had been apparent to +him from the beginning. He knew, for instance, that the trousseau was +being made at home, and that during the last few weeks the lady for whom +it was destined had shown an indifference to the progress of it which +seemed to excite a dumb annoyance in her mother. Curious woman, Mrs. +Boyce! + +He found himself listening to every opening door, and already, as it +were, gazing at Marcella in her white array. He was not asked to this +ball. As he had early explained to Miss Boyce, he and Miss Raeburn had +been "cuts" for years, for what reason he had of course left Marcella to +guess. As if Marcella found any difficulty in guessing--as if the +preposterous bigotries and intolerances of the Ladies' League were not +enough to account for any similar behaviour on the part of any similar +high-bred spinster! As for this occasion, she was far too proud both on +her own behalf and Wharton's to say anything either to Lord Maxwell or +his sister on the subject of an invitation for her father's guest. + +It so happened, however, that Wharton was aware of certain other reasons +for his social exclusion from Maxwell Court. There was no necessity, of +course, for enlightening Miss Boyce on the point. But as he sat waiting +for her, Wharton's mind went back to the past connected with those +reasons. In that past Raeburn had had the whip-hand of him; Raeburn had +been the moral superior dictating indignant terms to a young fellow +detected in flagrant misconduct. Wharton did not know that he bore him +any particular grudge. But he had never liked Aldous, as a boy, that he +could remember; naturally he had liked him less since that old affair. +The remembrance of it had made his position at Mellor particularly sweet +to him from the beginning; he was not sure that it had not determined +his original acceptance of the offer made to him by the Liberal +Committee to contest old Dodgson's seat. And during the past few weeks +the exhilaration and interest of the general position--considering all +things--had been very great. Not only was he on the point of ousting the +Maxwell candidate from a seat which he had held securely for +years--Wharton was perfectly well aware by now that he was trespassing +on Aldous Raeburn's preserves in ways far more important, and infinitely +more irritating! He and Raeburn had not met often at Mellor during these +weeks of fight. Each had been too busy. But whenever they had come +across each other Wharton had clearly perceived that his presence in the +house, his growing intimacy with Marcella Boyce, the free-masonry of +opinion between them, the interest she took in his contest, the village +friendships they had in common, were all intensely galling to Aldous +Raeburn. + +The course of events, indeed, had lately produced in Wharton a certain +excitement--recklessness even. He had come down into these parts to +court "the joy of eventful living"--politically and personally. But the +situation had proved to be actually far more poignant and personal than +he had expected. This proud, crude, handsome girl--to her certainly it +was largely due that the days had flown as they had. He was perfectly, +one might almost say gleefully, aware that at the present moment it was +he and not Aldous Raeburn who was intellectually her master. His mind +flew back at first with amusement, then with a thrill of something else, +over their talks and quarrels. He smiled gaily as he recalled her fits +of anger with him, her remonstrances, appeals--and then her awkward +inevitable submissions when he had crushed her with sarcasm or with +facts. Ah! she would go to this ball to-night; Aldous Raeburn would +parade her as his possession; but she would go with thoughts, ambitions, +ideals, which, as they developed, would make her more and more difficult +for a Raeburn to deal with. And in those thoughts and ambitions the man +who had been her tormentor, teacher, and companion during six rushing +weeks knew well that he already counted for much. He had cherished in +her all those "divine discontents" which were already there when he +first knew her; taught her to formulate them, given her better reasons +for them; so that by now she was a person with a far more defined and +stormy will than she had been to begin with. Wharton did not +particularly know why he should exult; but he did exult. At any rate, he +was prodigiously tickled--by the whole position. + +A step, a rustle outside--he hastily shut his book and listened. + +The door opened, and Marcella came in--a white vision against the heavy +blue of the walls. With her came, too, a sudden strong scent of flowers, +for she carried a marvellous bunch of hot-house roses, Aldous's gift, +which had just arrived by special messenger. + +Wharton sprang up and placed a chair for her. + +"I had begun to believe the ball only existed in my own imagination!" +he said gaily. "Surely you are very late." + +Then he saw that she looked disturbed. + +"It was papa," she said, coming to the fire, and looking down into it. +"It has been another attack of pain--not serious, mamma says; she is +coming down directly. But I wonder why they come, and why he thinks +himself so ill--do you know?" she added abruptly, turning to her +companion. + +Wharton hesitated, taken by surprise. During the past weeks, what with +Mr. Boyce's confidence and his own acuteness, he had arrived at a very +shrewd notion of what was wrong with his host. But he was not going to +enlighten the daughter. + +"I should say your father wants a great deal of care--and is nervous +about himself," he said quietly. "But he will get the care--and your +mother knows the whole state of the case." + +"Yes, she knows," said Marcella. "I wish I did." + +And a sudden painful expression--of moral worry, remorse--passed across +the girl's face. Wharton knew that she had often been impatient of late +with her father, and incredulous of his complaints. He thought he +understood. + +"One can often be of more use to a sick person if one is not too well +acquainted with what ails them," he said. "Hope and cheerfulness are +everything in a case like your father's. He will do well." + +"If he does he won't owe any of it--" + +She stopped as impulsively as she had begun. "To me," she meant to have +said; then had retreated hastily, before her own sense of something +unduly intimate and personal. Wharton stood quietly beside her, saying +nothing, but receiving and soothing her self-reproach just as surely as +though she had put it into words. + +"You are crushing your flowers, I think," he said suddenly. + +And indeed her roses were dangling against her dress, as if she had +forgotten all about them. + +She raised them carelessly, but he bent to smell them, and she held them +out. + +"Summer!" he said, plunging his face into them with a long breath of +sensuous enjoyment. "How the year sweeps round in an instant! And all +the effect of a little heat and a little money. Will you allow me a +philosopher's remark?" + +He drew back from her. His quick inquisitive but still respectful eye +took in every delightful detail. + +"If I don't give you leave, my experience is that you will take it!" she +said, half laughing, half resentful, as though she had old aggressions +in mind. + +"You admit the strength of the temptation? It is very simple, no one +could help making it. To be spectator of the _height_ of anything--the +best, the climax--makes any mortal's pulses run. Beauty, success, +happiness, for instance?" + +He paused smiling. She leant a thin hand on the mantelpiece and looked +away; Aldous's pearls slipped backwards along her white arm. + +"Do you suppose to-night will be the height of happiness?" she said at +last with a little scorn. "These functions don't present themselves to +_me_ in such a light." + +Wharton could have laughed out--her pedantry was so young and +unconscious. But he restrained himself. + +"I shall be with the majority to-night," he said demurely. "I may as +well warn you." + +Her colour rose. No other man had ever dared to speak to her with this +assurance, this cool scrutinising air. She told herself to be indignant; +the next moment she _was_ indignant, but with herself for remembering +conventionalities. + +"Tell me one thing," said Wharton, changing his tone wholly. "I know you +went down hurriedly to the village before dinner. Was anything wrong?" + +"Old Patton is very ill," she said, sighing. "I went to ask after him; +he may die any moment. And the Hurds' boy too." + +He leant against the mantelpiece, talking to her about both cases with a +quick incisive common-sense--not unkind, but without a touch of +unnecessary sentiment, still less of the superior person--which +represented one of the moods she liked best in him. In speaking of the +poor he always took the tone of comradeship, of a plain equality, and +the tone was, in fact, genuine. + +"Do you know," he said presently, "I did not tell you before, but I am +certain that Hurd's wife is afraid of you, that she has a secret from +you?" + +"From me! how could she? I know every detail of their affairs." + +"No matter. I listened to what she said that day in the cottage when I +had the boy on my knee. I noticed her face, and I am quite certain. She +has a secret, and above all a secret from you." + +Marcella looked disturbed for a moment, then she laughed. + +"Oh, no!" she said, with a little superior air. "I assure you I know her +better than you." + +Wharton said no more. + +"Marcella!" called a distant voice from the hall. + +The girl gathered up her white skirts and her flowers in haste. + +"Good-night!" + +"Good-night! I shall hear you come home and wonder how you have sped. +One word, if I may! Take your _role_ and play it. There is nothing +subjects dislike so much as to see royalty decline its part." + +She laughed, blushed, a little proudly and uncertainly, and went without +reply. As she shut the door behind her, a sudden flatness fell upon her. +She walked through the dark Stone Parlour outside, seeing still the +firmly-knit lightly-made figure--boyish, middle-sized, yet never +insignificant--the tumbled waves of fair hair, the eyes so keenly blue, +the face with its sharp mocking lines, its powers of sudden charm. Then +self-reproach leapt, and possessed her. She quickened her pace, hurrying +into the hall, as though from something she was ashamed or afraid of. + +In the hall a new sensation awaited her. Her mother, fully dressed, +stood waiting by the old billiard-table for her maid, who had gone to +fetch her a cloak. + +Marcella stopped an instant in surprise and delight, then ran up to her. +"Mamma, how _lovely_ you look! I haven't seen you like that, not since I +was a child. I remember you then once, in a low dress, a white dress, +with flowers, coming into the nursery. But that black becomes you so +well, and Deacon has done your hair beautifully!" + +She took her mother's hand and kissed her cheek, touched by an emotion +which had many roots. There was infinite relief in this tender natural +outlet; she seemed to recover possession of herself. + +Mrs. Boyce bore the kiss quietly. Her face was a little pinched and +white. But the unusual display Deacon had been allowed to make of her +pale golden hair, still long and abundant; the unveiling of the shapely +shoulders and neck, little less beautiful than her daughter's; the +elegant lines of the velvet dress, all these things, had very nobly +transformed her. Marcella could not restrain her admiration and delight. +Mrs. Boyce winced, and, looking upward to the gallery, which ran round +the hall, called Deacon impatiently. + +"Only, mamma," said Marcella, discontentedly, "I don't like that little +chain round your neck. It is not equal to the rest, not worthy of it." + +"I have nothing else, my dear," said Mrs. Boyce, drily. "Now, Deacon, +don't be all night!" + +Nothing else? Yet, if she shut her eyes, Marcella could perfectly recall +the diamonds on the neck and arms of that white figure of her +childhood--could see herself as a baby playing with the treasures of her +mother's jewel-box. + +Nowadays, Mrs. Boyce was very secretive and reserved about her personal +possessions. Marcella never went into her room unless she was asked, and +would never have thought of treating it or its contents with any +freedom. + +The mean chain which went so ill with the costly hoarded dress--it +recalled to Marcella all the inexorable silent miseries of her mother's +past life, and all the sordid disadvantages and troubles of her own +youth. She followed Mrs. Boyce out to the carriage in silence--once more +in a tumult of sore pride and doubtful feeling. + + * * * * * + +Four weeks to her wedding-day! The words dinned in her ears as they +drove along. Yet they sounded strange to her, incredible almost. How +much did she know of Aldous, of her life that was to be--above all, how +much of herself? She was not happy--had not been happy or at ease for +many days. Yet in her restlessness she could think nothing out. +Moreover, the chain that galled and curbed her was a chain of character. +In spite of her modernness, and the complexity of many of her motives, +there was certain inherited simplicities of nature at the bottom of her. +In her wild demonic childhood you could always trust Marcie Boyce, if +she had given you her word--her schoolfellows knew that. If her passions +were half-civilised and southern, her way of understanding the point of +honour was curiously English, sober, tenacious. So now. Her sense of +bond to Aldous had never been in the least touched by any of her +dissatisfactions and revolts. Yet it rushed upon her to-night with +amazement, and that in four weeks she was going to marry him! Why? +how?--what would it really _mean_ for him and for her? It was as though +in mid-stream, she were trying to pit herself for an instant against the +current which had so far carried them all on, to see what it might be +like to retrace a step, and could only realise with dismay the force +and rapidity of the water. + +Yet all the time another side of her was well aware that she was at that +moment the envy of half a county, that in another ten minutes hundreds +of eager and critical eyes would be upon her; and her pride was rising +to her part. The little incident of the chain had somehow for the moment +made the ball and her place in it more attractive to her. + + * * * * * + +They had no sooner stepped from their carriage than Aldous, who was +waiting in the outer hall, joyously discovered them. Till then he had +been walking aimlessly amid the crowd of his own guests, wondering when +she would come, how she would like it. This splendid function had been +his grandfather's idea; it would never have entered his own head for a +moment. Yet he understood his grandfather's wish to present his heir's +promised bride in this public ceremonious way to the society of which +she would some day be the natural leader. He understood, too, that there +was more in the wish than met the ear; that the occasion meant to Lord +Maxwell, whether Dick Boyce were there or no, the final condoning of +things past and done with, a final throwing of the Maxwell shield over +the Boyce weakness, and full adoption of Marcella into her new family. + +All this he understood and was grateful for. But how would _she_ +respond? How would she like it--this parade that was to be made of +her--these people that must be introduced to her? He was full of +anxieties. + +Yet in many ways his mind had been easier of late. During the last week +she had been very gentle and good to him--even Miss Raeburn had been +pleased with her. There had been no quoting of Wharton when they met; +and he had done his philosopher's best to forget him. He trusted her +proudly, intensely; and in four weeks she would be his wife. + +"Can you bear it?" he said to her in a laughing whisper as she and her +mother emerged from the cloak-room. + +"Tell me what to do," she said, flushing. "I will do my best. What a +crowd! Must we stay very long?" + +"Ah, my dear Mrs. Boyce," cried Lord Maxwell, meeting them on the steps +of the inner quadrangular corridor--"Welcome indeed! Let me take you in. +Marcella! with Aldous's permission!" he stooped his white head gallantly +and kissed her on the cheek--"Remember I am an old man; if I choose to +pay you compliments, you will have to put up with them!" + +Then he offered Mrs. Boyce his arm, a stately figure in his ribbon and +cross of the Bath. A delicate red had risen to that lady's thin cheek in +spite of her self-possession. "Poor thing," said Lord Maxwell to himself +as he led her along--"poor thing!--how distinguished and charming still! +One sees to-night what she was like as a girl." + +Aldous and Marcella followed. They had to pass along the great corridor +which ran round the quadrangle of the house. The antique marbles which +lined it were to-night masked in flowers, and seats covered in red had +been fitted in wherever it was possible, and were now crowded with +dancers "sitting out." From the ball-room ahead came waves of +waltz-music; the ancient house was alive with colour and perfume, with +the sounds of laughter and talk, lightly fretting, and breaking the +swaying rhythms of the band. Beyond the windows of the corridor, which +had been left uncurtained because of the beauty of the night, the stiff +Tudor garden with its fountains, which filled up the quadrangle, was +gaily illuminated under a bright moon; and amid all the varied colour of +lamps, drapery, dresses, faces, the antique heads ranged along the walls +of the corridor--here Marcus Aurelius, there Trajan, there Seneca--and +the marble sarcophagi which broke the line at intervals, stood in cold, +whitish relief. + +Marcella passed along on Aldous's arm, conscious that people were +streaming into the corridor from all the rooms opening upon it, and that +every eye was fixed upon her and her mother. "Look, there she is," she +heard in an excited girl's voice as they passed Lord Maxwell's library, +now abandoned to the crowd like all the rest. "Come, quick! There--I +told you she was lovely!" + +Every now and then some old friend, man or woman, rose smiling from the +seats along the side, and Aldous introduced his bride. + +"On her dignity!" said an old hunting squire to his daughter when they +had passed. "Shy, no doubt--very natural! But nowadays girls, when +they're shy, don't giggle and blush as they used to in _my_ young days; +they look as if you meant to insult them, and they weren't going to +allow it! Oh, very handsome--very handsome--of course. But you can see +she's advanced--peculiar--or what d'ye call it?--woman's rights, I +suppose, and all that kind of thing? Like to see you go in for it, +Nettie, eh!" + +"She's _awfully_ handsome," sighed his pink-cheeked, insignificant +little daughter, still craning her neck to look--"very simply dressed +too, except for those lovely pearls. She does her hair very oddly, so +low down--in those plaits. Nobody does it like that nowadays." + +"That's because nobody has such a head," said her brother, a young +Hussar lieutenant, beside her, in the tone of connoisseurship. "By +George, she's ripping--she's the best-looking girl I've seen for a good +long time. But she's a Tartar, I'll swear--looks it, anyway." + +"Every one says she has the most extraordinary opinions," said the girl, +eagerly. "She'll manage him, don't you think? I'm sure he's very meek +and mild." + +"Don't know that," said the young man, twisting his moustache with the +air of exhaustive information. "Raeburn's a very good fellow--excellent +fellow--see him shooting, you know--that kind of thing. I expect he's +got a will when he wants it. The mother's handsome, too, and looks a +lady. The father's kept out of the way, I see. Rather a blessing for the +Raeburns. Can't be pleasant, you know, to get a man like that in the +family. Look after your spoons--that kind of thing." + +Meanwhile Marcella was standing beside Miss Raeburn, at the head of the +long ball-room, and doing her best to behave prettily. One after +another she bowed to, or shook hands with, half the magnates of the +county--the men in pink, the women in the new London dresses, for which +this brilliant and long-expected ball had given so welcome an excuse. +They knew little or nothing of her, except that she was clearly +good-looking, that she was that fellow Dick Boyce's daughter and was +reported to be "odd." Some, mostly men, who said their conventional few +words to her, felt an amused admiration for the skill and rapidity with +which she had captured the _parti_ of the county; some, mostly women, +were already jealous of her. A few of the older people here and there, +both men and women--but after all they shook hands like the rest!--knew +perfectly well that the girl must be going through an ordeal, were +touched by the signs of thought and storm in the face, and looked back +at her with kind eyes. + +But of these last Marcella realised nothing. What she was saying to +herself was that, if they knew little of her, she knew a great deal of +many of them. In their talks over the Stone Parlour fire she and Wharton +had gone through most of the properties, large and small, of his +division, and indeed of the divisions round, by the help of the +knowledge he had gained in his canvass, together with a blue-book--one +of the numberless!--recently issued, on the state of the midland +labourer. He had abounded in anecdote, sarcasm, reflection, based partly +on his own experiences, partly on his endless talks with the +working-folk, now in the public-house, now at their own chimney-corner. +Marcella, indeed, had a large unsuspected acquaintance with the county +before she met it in the flesh. She knew that a great many of these men +who came and spoke to her were doing their best according to their +lights, that improvements were going on, that times were mending. But +there were abuses enough still, and the abuses were far more vividly +present to her than the improvements. In general, the people who +thronged these splendid rooms were to her merely the incompetent members +of a useless class. The nation would do away with them in time! +Meanwhile it might at least be asked of them that they should practise +their profession of landowning, such as it was, with greater conscience +and intelligence--that they should not shirk its opportunities or idle +them away. And she could point out those who did both--scandalously, +intolerably. Once or twice she thought passionately of Minta Hurd, +washing and mending all day, in her damp cottage; or of the Pattons in +"the parish house," thankful after sixty years of toil for a hovel where +the rain came through the thatch, and where the smoke choked you, +unless, with the thermometer below freezing-point, you opened the door +to the blast. Why should _these_ people have all the gay clothes, the +flowers, the jewels, the delicate food--all the delight and all the +leisure? And those, nothing! Her soul rose against what she saw as she +stood there, going through her part. Wharton's very words, every +inflection of his voice was in her ears, playing chorus to the scene. + +But when these first introductions, these little empty talks of three or +four phrases apiece, and all of them alike, were nearly done with, +Marcella looked eagerly round for Mary Harden. There she was, sitting +quietly against the wall in a remote corner, her plain face all smiles, +her little feet dancing under the white muslin frock which she had +fashioned for herself with so much pain under Marcella's directions. +Miss Raeburn was called away to find an arm-chair for some dowager of +importance; Marcella took advantage of the break and of the end of a +dance to hurry down the room to Mary. Aldous, who was talking to old Sir +Charles Leven, Frank's father, a few steps off, nodded and smiled to her +as he saw her move. + +"Have you been dancing, Mary?" she said severely. + +"I wouldn't for worlds! I never was so much amused in my life. Look at +those girls--those sisters--in the huge velvet sleeves, like coloured +balloons!--and that old lady in the pink tulle and diamonds.--I do so +want to get her her cloak! _And_ those Lancers!--I never could have +imagined people danced like that. They didn't dance them--they romped +them! It wasn't beautiful--was it?" + +"Why do you expect an English crowd to do anything beautiful? If we +could do it, we should be too ashamed." + +"But it _is_ beautiful, all the same, you scornful person!" cried Mary, +dragging her friend down beside her. "How pretty the girls are! And as +for the diamonds, I never saw anything so wonderful. I wish I could have +made Charles come!" + +"Wouldn't he?" + +"No"--she looked a little troubled--"he couldn't think it would be +quite right. But I don't know--a sight like this takes me off my feet, +shakes me up, and does _me_ a world of good!" + +"You dear, simple thing!" said Marcella, slipping her hand into Mary's +as it lay on the bench. + +"Oh, you needn't be so superior!" cried Mary,--"not for another year at +least. I don't believe you are much more used to it than I am!" + +"If you mean," said Marcella, "that I was never at anything so big and +splendid as this before, you are quite right." + +And she looked round the room with that curious, cold air of personal +detachment from all she saw, which had often struck Mary, and to-night +made her indignant. + +"Then enjoy it!" she said, laughing and frowning at the same time. +"That's a much more plain duty for _you_ than it was for Charles to stay +at home--there! Haven't you been dancing?" + +"No, Mr. Raeburn doesn't dance. But he thinks he can get through the +next Lancers if I will steer him." + +"Then I shall find a seat where I can look at you," said Mary, +decidedly. "Ah, there is Mr. Raeburn coming to introduce somebody to +you. I knew they wouldn't let you sit here long." + +Aldous brought up a young Guardsman, who boldly asked Miss Boyce for the +pleasure of a dance. Marcella consented; and off they swept into a room +which was only just beginning to fill for the new dance, and where, +therefore, for the moment the young grace of both had free play. +Marcella had been an indefatigable dancer in the old London days at +those students' parties, with their dyed gloves and lemonade suppers, +which were running in her head now, as she swayed to the rhythm of this +perfect band. The mere delight in movement came back to her; and while +they danced, she danced with all her heart. Then in the pauses she would +lean against the wall beside her partner, and rack her brain to find a +word to say to him. As for anything that _he_ said, every word--whether +of Ascot, or the last Academy, or the new plays, or the hunting and the +elections--sounded to her more vapid than the last. + +Meanwhile Aldous stood near Mary Harden and watched the dancing figure. +He had never seen her dance before. Mary shyly stole a look at him from +time to time. + +"Well," he said at last, stooping to his neighbour, "what are you +thinking of?" + +"I think she is a dream!" said Mary, flushing with the pleasure of being +able to say it. They were great friends, he and she, and to-night +somehow she was not a bit afraid of him. + +Aldous's eye sparkled a moment; then he looked down at her with a kind +smile. + +"If you suppose I am going to let you sit here all night, you are very +much mistaken. Marcella gave me precise instructions. I am going off +this moment to find somebody." + +"Mr. Raeburn--don't!" cried Mary, catching at him. But he was gone, and +she was left in trepidation, imagining the sort of formidable young man +who was soon to be presented to her, and shaking at the thought of him. + +When the dance was over Marcella returned to Miss Raeburn, who was +standing at the door into the corridor and had beckoned to her. She went +through a number of new introductions, and declared to herself that she +was doing all she could. Miss Raeburn was not so well satisfied. + +"Why can't she smile and chatter like other girls?" thought Aunt Neta, +impatiently. "It's her 'ideas,' I suppose. What rubbish! There, +now--just see the difference!" + +For at the moment Lady Winterbourne came up, and instantly Marcella was +all smiles and talk, holding her friend by both hands, clinging to her +almost. + +"Oh, do come here!" she said, leading her into a corner. "There's such a +crowd, and I say all the wrong things. There!" with a sigh of relief. +"Now I feel myself protected." + +"I mustn't keep you," said Lady Winterbourne, a little taken aback by +her effusion. "Everybody is wanting to talk to you." + +"Oh, I know! There is Miss Raeburn looking at me severely already. But I +must do as I like a little." + +"You ought to do as Aldous likes," said Lady Winterbourne, suddenly, in +her deepest and most tragic voice. It seemed to her a moment had come +for admonition, and she seized it hastily. + +Marcella stared at her in surprise. She knew by now that when Lady +Winterbourne looked most forbidding she was in reality most shy. But +still she was taken aback. + +"Why do you say that, I wonder?" she asked, half reproachfully. "I have +been behaving myself quite nicely--I have indeed; at least, as nicely as +I knew how." + +Lady Winterbourne's tragic air yielded to a slow smile. + +"You look very well, my dear. That white becomes you charmingly; so do +the pearls. I don't wonder that Aldous always knows where you are." + +Marcella raised her eyes and caught those of Aldous fixed upon her from +the other side of the room. She blushed, smiled slightly, and looked +away. + +"Who is that tall man just gone up to speak to him?" she asked of her +companion. + +"That is Lord Wandle," said Lady Winterbourne, "and his plain second +wife behind him. Edward always scolds me for not admiring him. He says +women know nothing at all about men's looks, and that Lard Wandle was +the most splendid man of his time. But I always think it an unpleasant +face." + +"Lord Wandle!" exclaimed Marcella, frowning. "Oh, _please_ come with me, +dear Lady Winterbourne! I know he is asking Aldous to introduce him, and +I won't--no I will _not_--be introduced to him." + +And laying hold of her astonished companion, she drew her hastily +through a doorway near, walked quickly, still gripping her, through two +connected rooms beyond, and finally landed her and herself on a sofa in +Lord Maxwell's library, pursued meanwhile through all her hurried course +by the curious looks of an observant throng. + +"That man!--no, that would really have been _too_ much!" said Marcella, +using her large feather fan with stormy energy. + +"What _is_ the matter with you, my dear?" said Lady Winterbourne in her +amazement; "and what is the matter with Lord Wandle?" + +"You must know!" said Marcella, indignantly. "Oh, you _must_ have seen +that case in the paper last week--that _shocking_ case! A woman and two +children died in one of his cottages of blood-poisoning--nothing in the +world but his neglect--his _brutal_ neglect!" Her breast heaved; she +seemed almost on the point of weeping. "The agent was appealed to--did +nothing. Then the clergyman wrote to him direct, and got an answer. The +answer was published. For cruel insolence I never saw anything like it! +He ought to be in prison for manslaughter--and he comes _here_! And +people laugh and talk with him!" + +She stopped, almost choked by her own passion. But the incident, after +all, was only the spark to the mine. + +Lady Winterbourne stared at her helplessly. + +"Perhaps it isn't true," she suggested. "The newspapers put in so many +lies, especially about _us_--the landlords. Edward says one ought never +to believe them. Ah, here comes Aldous." + +Aldous, indeed, with some perplexity on his brow, was to be seen +approaching, looking for his betrothed. Marcella dropped her fan and sat +erect, her angry colour fading into whiteness. + +"My darling! I couldn't think what had become of you. May I bring Lord +Wandle and introduce him to you? He is an old friend here, and my +godfather. Not that I am particularly proud of the relationship," he +said, dropping his voice as he stooped over her. "He is a soured, +disagreeable fellow, and I hate many of the things he does. But it is an +old tie, and my grandfather is tender of such things. Only a word or +two; then I will get rid of him." + +"Aldous, I _can't_," said Marcella, looking up at him. "How could I? I +saw that case. I must be rude to him." + +Aldous looked considerably disturbed. + +"It was very bad," he said slowly. "I didn't know you had seen it. What +shall I do? I promised to go back for him." + +"Lord Wandle--Miss Boyce!" said Miss Raeburn's sharp little voice behind +Aldous. Aldous, moving aside in hasty dismay, saw his aunt, looking very +determined, presenting her tall neighbour, who bowed with old-fashioned +deference to the girl on the sofa. + +Lady Winterbourne looked with trepidation at Marcella. But the social +instinct held, to some extent. Ninety-nine women can threaten a scene of +the kind Lady Winterbourne dreaded, for one that can carry it through. +Marcella wavered; then, with her most forbidding air, she made a +scarcely perceptible return of Lord Wandle's bow. + +"Did you escape in here out of the heat?" he asked her. "But I am afraid +no one lets you escape to-night. The occasion is too interesting." + +Marcella made no reply. Lady Winterbourne threw in a nervous remark on +the crowd. + +"Oh, yes, a great crush," said Lord Wandle. "Of course, we all come to +see Aldous happy. How long is it, Miss Boyce, since you settled at +Mellor?" + +"Six months." + +She looked straight before her and not at him as she answered, and her +tone made Miss Raeburn's blood boil. + +Lord Wandle--a battered, coarsened, but still magnificent-looking man of +sixty--examined the speaker an instant from half-shut eyes, then put up +his hand to his moustache with a half-smile. + +"You like the country?" + +"Yes." + +As she spoke her reluctant monosyllable, the girl had really no +conception of the degree of hostility expressed in her manner. Instead +she was hating herself for her own pusillanimity. + +"And the people?" + +"Some of them." + +And straightway she raised her fierce black eyes to his, and the man +before her understood, as plainly as any one need understand, that, +whoever else Miss Boyce might like, she did not like Lord Wandle, and +wished for no more conversation with him. + +Her interrogator turned to Aldous with smiling _aplomb_. + +"Thank you, my dear Aldous. Now let me retire. No one must _monopolise_ +your charming lady." + +And again he bowed low to her, this time with an ironical emphasis not +to be mistaken, and walked away. + +Lady Winterbourne saw him go up to his wife, who had followed him at a +distance, and speak to her roughly with a frown. They left the room, and +presently, through the other door of the library which opened on the +corridor, she saw them pass, as though they were going to their +carriage. + +Marcella rose. She looked first at Miss Raeburn--then at Aldous. + +"Will you take me away?" she said, going up to him; "I am tired--take me +to your room." + +He put her hand inside his arm, and they pushed their way through the +crowd. Outside in the passage they met Hallin. He had not seen her +before, and he put out his hand. But there was something distant in his +gentle greeting which struck at this moment like a bruise on Marcella's +quivering nerves. It came across her that for some time past he had made +no further advances to her; that his first eager talk of friendship +between himself and her had dropped; that his _acceptance_ of her into +his world and Aldous's was somehow suspended--in abeyance. She bit her +lip tightly and hurried Aldous along. Again the same lines of gay, +chatting people along the corridor, and on either side of the wide +staircase--greetings, introduction--a nightmare of publicity. + +"Rather pronounced--to carry him off like that," said a clergyman to his +wife with a kindly smile, as the two tall figures disappeared along the +upper gallery. "She will have him all to herself before long." + + * * * * * + +Aldous shut the door of his sitting-room behind them. Marcella quickly +drew her hand out of his arm, and going forward to the mantelpiece +rested both elbows upon it and hid her face. + +He looked at her a moment in distress and astonishment, standing a +little apart. Then he saw that she was crying. The colour flooded into +his face, and going up to her he took her hand, which was all she would +yield him, and, holding it to his lips, said in her ear every soothing +tender word that love's tutoring could bring to mind. In his emotion he +told himself and her that he admired and loved her the more for the +incident downstairs, for the temper she had shown! She alone among them +all had had the courage to strike the true stern Christian note. As to +the annoyance such courage might bring upon him and her in the +future--even as to the trouble it might cause his own dear folk--what +real matter? In these things she should lead. + +What could love have asked better than such a moment? Yet Marcella's +weeping was in truth the weeping of despair. This man's very sweetness +to her, his very assumption of the right to comfort and approve her, +roused in her a desperate stifled sense of bonds that should never have +been made, and that now could not be broken. It was all plain to her at +last. His touch had no thrill for her; his frown no terror. She had +accepted him without loving him, coveting what he could give her. And +now it seemed to her that she cared nothing for anything he could +give!--that the life before her was to be one series of petty conflicts +between her and a surrounding circumstance which must inevitably in the +end be too strong for her, conflicts from which neither heart nor +ambition could gain anything. She had desired a great position for what +she might do with it. But could she do with it! She would be +subdued--oh! very quickly!--to great houses and great people, and all +the vapid pomp and idle toil of wealth. All that picture of herself, +stooping from place and power, to bind up the wounds of the people, in +which she had once delighted, was to her now a mere flimsy vulgarity. +She had been shown other ideals--other ways--and her pulses were still +swaying under the audacity--the virile inventive force of the showman. +Everything she had once desired looked flat to her; everything she was +not to have, glowed and shone. Poverty, adventure, passion, the joys of +self-realisation--these she gave up. She would become Lady Maxwell, make +friends with Miss Raeburn, and wear the family diamonds! + +Then, in the midst of her rage with herself and fate, she drew herself +away, looked up, and caught full the eyes of Aldous Raeburn. Conscience +stung and burned. What was this life she had dared to trifle with--this +man she had dared to treat as a mere pawn in her own game? She gave way +utterly, appalled at her own misdoing, and behaved like a penitent +child. Aldous, astonished and alarmed by her emotions and by the wild +incoherent things she said, won his way at last to some moments of +divine happiness, when, leaving her trembling hand in his, she sat +submissively beside him, gradually quieting down, summoning back her +smiles and her beauty, and letting him call her all the fond names he +would. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Scarcely a word was exchanged between Marcella and her mother on the +drive home. Yet under ordinary circumstances Marcella's imagination +would have found some painful exercise in the effort to find out in what +spirit her mother had taken the evening--the first social festivity in +which Richard Boyce's wife had taken part for sixteen years. In fact, +Mrs. Boyce had gone through it very quietly. After her first public +entry on Lord Maxwell's arm she had sat in her corner, taking keen note +of everything, enjoying probably the humours of her kind. Several old +acquaintances who had seen her at Mellor as a young wife in her first +married years had come up with some trepidation to speak to her. She had +received them with her usual well-bred indifference, and they had gone +away under the impression that she regarded herself as restored to +society by this great match that her daughter was making. Lady +Winterbourne had been shyly and therefore formidably kind to her; and +both Lord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn had been genuinely interested in +smoothing the effort to her as much as they could. She meanwhile watched +Marcella--except through the encounter with Lord Wandle, which she did +not see--and found some real pleasure in talking both to Aldous and to +Hallin. + +Yet all through she was preoccupied, and towards the end very anxious +to get home, a state of mind which prevented her from noticing +Marcella's changed looks after her reappearance with Aldous in the +ball-room, as closely as she otherwise might have done. Yet the mother +_had_ observed that the end of Marcella's progress had been somewhat +different from the beginning; that the girl's greetings had been +gentler, her smiles softer; and that in particular she had taken some +pains, some wistful pains, to make Hallin talk to her. Lord +Maxwell--ignorant of the Wandle incident--was charmed with her, and +openly said so, both to the mother and Lady Winterbourne, in his hearty +old man's way. Only Miss Raeburn held indignantly aloof, and would not +pretend, even to Mrs. Boyce. + +And now Marcella was tired--dead tired, she said to herself, both in +mind and body. She lay back in the carriage, trying to sink herself in +her own fatigue, to forget everything, to think of nothing. Outside the +night was mild, and the moon clear. For some days past, after the break +up of the long frost, there had been heavy rain. Now the rain had +cleared away, and in the air there was already an early promise of +spring. As she walked home from the village that afternoon she had felt +the buds and the fields stirring. + +When they got home, Mrs. Boyce turned to her daughter at the head of the +stairs, "Shall I unlace your dress, Marcella?" + +"Oh no, thank you. Can I help you?" + +"No. Good-night." + +"Mamma!" Marcella turned and ran after her. "I should like to know how +papa is. I will wait here if you will tell me." + +Mrs. Boyce looked surprised. Then she went into her room and shut the +door. Marcella waited outside, leaning against the old oak gallery which +ran round the hall, her candle the one spot of light and life in the +great dark house. + +"He seems to have slept well," said Mrs. Boyce, reappearing, and +speaking under her breath. "He has not taken the opiate I left for him, +so he cannot have been in pain. Good-night." + +Marcella kissed her and went. Somehow, in her depression of nerve and +will, she was loth to go away by herself. The loneliness of the night, +and of her wing of the house, weighed upon her; the noises made by the +old boards under her steps, the rustling draughts from the dark passages +to right and left startled and troubled her; she found herself +childishly fearing lest her candle should go out. + +Yet, as she descended the two steps to the passage outside her door, she +could have felt little practical need of it, for the moonlight was +streaming in through its uncovered windows, not directly, but reflected +from the Tudor front of the house which ran at right angles to this +passage, and was to-night a shining silver palace, every battlement, +window, and moulding in sharpest light and shade under the radiance of +the night. Beneath her feet, as she looked out into the Cedar Garden, +was a deep triangle of shadow, thrown by that part of the building in +which she stood; and beyond the garden the barred black masses of the +cedars closing up the view lent additional magic to the glittering +unsubstantial fabric of the moonlit house, which was, as it were, +embosomed and framed among them. She paused a moment, struck by the +strangeness and beauty of the spectacle. The Tudor front had the air of +some fairy banqueting-hall lit by unearthly hands for some weird +gathering of ghostly knights. Then she turned to her room, impatiently +longing in her sick fatigue to be quit of her dress and ornaments and +tumble into sleep. + +Yet she made no hurry. She fell on the first chair that offered. Her +candle behind her had little power over the glooms of the dark +tapestried room, but it did serve to illuminate the lines of her own +form, as she saw it reflected in the big glass of her wardrobe, straight +in front of her. She sat with her hands round her knees, absently +looking at herself, a white long-limbed apparition struck out of the +darkness. But she was conscious of nothing save one mounting +overwhelming passionate desire, almost a cry. + +Mr. Wharton must go away--he _must_--or she could not bear it. + +Quick alternations of insight, memory, self-recognition, self-surrender, +rose and broke upon her. At last, physical weariness recalled her. She +put up her hands to take off her pearls. + +As she did so, she started, hearing a noise that made her turn her head. +Just outside her door a little spiral staircase led down from her +corridor to the one below, which ran at the back of the old library, and +opened into the Cedar Garden at its further end. + +Steps surely--light steps--along the corridor outside, and on the +staircase. Nor did they die away. She could still hear them,--as she +sat, arrested, straining her ears,--pacing slowly along the lower +passage. + +Her heart, after its pause, leapt into fluttering life. This room of +hers, the two passages, the library, and the staircase, represented that +part of the house to which the ghost stories of Mellor clung most +persistently. Substantially the block of building was of early Tudor +date, but the passages and the staircase had been alterations made with +some clumsiness at the time of the erection of the eighteenth-century +front, with a view to bringing these older rooms into the general plan. +Marcella, however, might demonstrate as she pleased that the Boyce who +was supposed to have stabbed himself on the staircase died at least +forty years before the staircase was made. None the less, no servant +would go alone, if she could help it, into either passage after dark; +and there was much excited marvelling how Miss Boyce could sleep where +she did. Deacon abounded in stories of things spiritual and peripatetic, +of steps, groans, lights in the library, and the rest. Marcella had +consistently laughed at her. + +Yet all the same she had made in secret a very diligent pursuit of this +ghost, settling in the end to a certain pique with him that he would not +show himself to so ardent a daughter of the house. She had sat up +waiting for him; she had lingered in the corridor outside, and on the +stairs, expecting him. By the help of a favourite carpenter she had made +researches into roofs, water-pipes, panelling, and old cupboards, in the +hope of finding a practical clue to him. In vain. + +Yet here were the steps--regular, soft, unmistakable. The colour rushed +back into her cheeks! Her eager healthy youth forgot its woes, flung off +its weariness, and panted for an adventure, a discovery. Springing up, +she threw her fur wrap round her again, and gently opened the door, +listening. + +For a minute, nothing--then a few vague sounds as of something living +and moving down below--surely in the library? Then the steps again. +Impossible that it should be any one breaking in. No burglar would walk +so leisurely. She closed her door behind her, and, gathering her white +satin skirts about her, she descended the staircase. + +The corridor below was in radiant moonlight, chequered by the few pieces +of old furniture it contained, and the black and white of the old +portrait prints hanging on the walls. At first her seeking, excited eyes +could make out nothing. Then in a flash they perceived the figure of +Wharton at the further end near the garden door, leaning against one of +the windows. He was apparently looking out at the moonlit house, and she +caught the faint odour of a cigarette. + +Her first instinct was to turn and fly. But Wharton had seen her. As he +looked about him at the sound of her approach, the moon, which was just +rounding the corner of the house, struck on her full, amid the shadows +of the staircase, and she heard his exclamation. + +Dignity--a natural pride--made her pause. She came forward slowly--he +eagerly. + +"I heard footsteps," she said, with a coldness under which he plainly +saw her embarrassment. "I could not suppose that anybody was still up, +so I came down to see." + +He was silent a moment, scanning her with laughing eyes. Then he shook +his head. "Confess you took me for the ghost?" he said. + +She hesitated; then must laugh too. She herself had told him the +stories, so that his guess was natural. + +"Perhaps I did," she said. "One more disappointment! Good-night." + +He looked after her a quick undecided moment as she made a step in front +of him, then at the half-burnt cigarette he held in his hand, threw the +end away with a hasty gesture, overtook her and walked beside her along +the corridor. + +"I heard you and your mother come in," he said, as though explaining +himself. "Then I waited till I thought you must both be asleep, and came +down here to look at that wonderful effect on the old house." He pointed +to the silver palace outside. "I have a trick of being sleepless--a +trick, too, of wandering at night. My own people know it, and bear with +me, but I am abashed that you should have found me out. Just tell me--in +one word--how the ball went?" + +He paused at the foot of the stairs, his hands on his sides, as keenly +wide-awake as though it were three o'clock in the afternoon instead of +three in the morning. + +Womanlike, her mood instantly shaped itself to his. + +"It went very well," she said perversely, putting her satin-slippered +foot on the first step. "There were six hundred people upstairs, and +four hundred coachmen and footmen downstairs, according to our man. +Everybody said it was splendid." + +His piercing enigmatic gaze could not leave her. As he had often frankly +warned her, he was a man in quest of sensations. Certainly, in this +strange meeting with Aldous Raeburn's betrothed, in the midst of the +sleep-bound house, he had found one. Her eyes were heavy, her cheek +pale. But in this soft vague light--white arms and neck now hidden, now +revealed by the cloak she had thrown about her glistening satin--she was +more enchanting than he had ever seen her. His breath quickened. + +He said to himself that he would make Miss Boyce stay and talk to him. +What harm--to her or to Raeburn? Raeburn would have chances enough +before long. Why admit his monopoly before the time? She was not in love +with him! As to Mrs. Grundy--absurd! What in the true reasonableness of +things was to prevent human beings from conversing by night as well as +by day? + +"One moment"--he said, delaying her. "You must be dead tired--too tired +for romance. Else I should say to you, turn aside an instant and look at +the library. It is a sight to remember." + +Inevitably she glanced behind her, and saw that the library door was +ajar. He flung it open, and the great room showed wide, its high domed +roof lost in shadow, while along the bare floor and up the latticed +books crept, here streaks and fingers, and there wide breadths of light +from the unshuttered and curtainless windows. + +"Isn't it the very poetry of night and solitude?" he said, looking in +with her. "You love the place; but did you ever see it so lovable? The +dead are here; you did right to come and seek them! Look at your +namesake, in that ray. To-night she lives! She knows that is her husband +opposite--those are her books beside her. And the rebel!"--he pointed +smiling to the portrait of John Boyce. "When you are gone I shall shut +myself up here--sit in his chair, invoke him--and put my speech +together. I am nervous about to-morrow" (he was bound, as she knew, to a +large Labour Congress in the Midlands, where he was to preside), "and +sleep will make no terms with me. Ah!--how strange! Who can that be +passing the avenue?" + +He made a step or two into the room, and put up his hand to his brow, +looking intently. Involuntarily, yet with a thrill, Marcella followed. +They walked to the window. + +"It is _Hurd_!" she cried in a tone of distress, pressing her face +against the glass. "Out at this time, and with a gun! Oh, dear, dear!" + +There could be no question that it was Hurd. Wharton had seen him linger +in the shadowy edge of the avenue, as though reconnoitring, and now, as +he stealthily crossed the moonlit grass, his slouching dwarf's figure, +his large head, and the short gun under his arm, were all plainly +visible. + +"What do you suppose he is after?" said Wharton, still gazing, his hands +in his pockets. + +"I don't know; he wouldn't poach on _our_ land; I'm sure he wouldn't! +Besides, there is nothing to poach."--Wharton smiled.--"He must be +going, after all, to Lord Maxwell's coverts! They are just beyond the +avenue, on the side of the hill. Oh! it is too disappointing! Can we do +anything?" + +She looked at her companion with troubled eyes. This incursion of +something sadly and humanly real seemed suddenly to have made it natural +to be standing beside him there at that strange hour. Her conscience was +soothed. + +Wharton shook his head. + +"I don't see what we could do. How strong the instinct is! I told you +that woman had a secret. Well, it is only one form--the squalid +peasant's form--of the same instinct which sends the young fellows of +our class ruffling it and chancing it all over the world. It is the +instinct to take one's fling, to get out of the rut, to claim one's +innings against the powers that be--Nature, or the law, or convention." + +"I know all that--I never blame them!"--cried Marcella--"but just now it +is so monstrous--so dangerous! Westall specially alert--and this gang +about! Besides, I got him work from Lord Maxwell, and made him promise +me--for the wife and children's sake." + +Wharton shrugged his shoulders. + +"I should think Westall is right, and that the gang have got hold of +him. It is what always happens. The local man is the catspaw.--So you +are sorry for him--this man?" he said in another tone, facing round upon +her. + +She looked astonished, and drew herself up nervously, turning at the +same time to leave the room. But before she could reply he hurried on: + +"He--may escape his risk. Give your pity, Miss Boyce, rather to +one--who has not escaped!" + +"I don't know what you mean," she said, unconsciously laying a hand on +one of the old chairs beside her to steady herself. "But it is too late +to talk. Good-night, Mr. Wharton." + +"Good-bye," he said quietly, yet with a low emphasis, at the same time +moving out of her path. She stopped, hesitating. Beneath the lace and +faded flowers on her breast he could see how her heart beat. + +"Not good-bye? You are coming back after the meeting?" + +"I think not. I must not inflict myself--on Mrs. Boyce--any more. You +will all be very busy during the next three weeks. It would be an +intrusion if I were to come back at such a time--especially--considering +the fact"--he spoke slowly--"that I am as distasteful as I now know +myself to be, to your future husband. Since you all left to-night the +house has been very quiet. I sat over the fire thinking. It grew clear +to me. I must go, and go at once. Besides--a lonely man as I am must not +risk his nerve. His task is set him, and there are none to stand by him +if he fails." + +She trembled all over. Weariness and excitement made normal self-control +almost impossible. + +"Well, then, I must say thank you," she said indistinctly, "for you have +taught me a great deal." + +"You will unlearn it!" he said gaily, recovering his self-possession, so +it seemed, as she lost hers. "Besides, before many weeks are over you +will have heard hard things of me. I know that very well. I can say +nothing to meet them. Nor should I attempt anything. It may sound +brazen, but that past of mine, which I can see perpetually present in +Aldous Raeburn's mind, for instance, and which means so much to his good +aunt, means to me just nothing at all! The doctrine of identity must be +true--I must be the same person I was then. But, all the same, what I +did then does not matter a straw to me now. To all practical purposes I +am another man. I was then a youth, idle, _desoeuvre_, playing with all +the keys of life in turn. I have now unlocked the path that suits me. +Its quest has transformed me--as I believe, ennobled me. I do not ask +Raeburn or any one else to believe it. It is my own affair. Only, if we +ever meet again in life, you and I, and you think you have reason to ask +humiliation of me, do not ask it, do not expect it. The man you will +have in your mind has nothing to do with me. I will not be answerable +for his sins." + +As he said these things he was leaning lightly forward, looking up at +her, his arms resting on the back of one of the old chairs, one foot +crossed over the other. The attitude was easy calm itself. The +tone--indomitable, analytic, reflective--matched it. Yet, all the same, +her woman's instinct divined a hidden agitation, and, woman-like, +responded to that and that only. + +"Mr. Raeburn will never tell me old stories about anybody," she said +proudly. "I asked him once, out--out of curiosity--about you, and he +would tell me nothing." + +"Generous!" said Wharton, drily. "I am grateful." + +"No!" cried Marcella, indignantly, rushing blindly at the outlet for +emotion. "No!--you are not grateful; you are always judging him +harshly--criticising, despising what he does." + +Wharton was silent a moment. Even in the moonlight she could see the +reddening of his cheek. + +"So be it," he said at last. "I submit. You must know best. But you? are +you always content? Does this _milieu_ into which you are passing always +satisfy you? To-night, did your royalty please you? will it soon be +enough for you?" + +"You know it is not enough," she broke out, hotly; "it is insulting that +you should ask in that tone. It means that you think me a +hypocrite!--and I have given you no cause--" + +"Good heavens, no!" he exclaimed, interrupting her, and speaking in a +low, hurried voice. "I had no motive, no reason for what I +said--none--but this, that you are going--that we are parting. I spoke +in gibes to make you speak--somehow to strike--to reach you. To-morrow +it will be too late!" + +And before, almost, she knew that he had moved, he had stooped forward, +caught a fold of her dress, pressed it to his lips, and dropped it. + +"Don't speak," he said brokenly, springing up, and standing before her +in her path. "You shall forgive me--I will compel it! See! here we are +on this moonlit space of floor, alone, in the night. Very probably we +shall never meet again, except as strangers. Put off convention, and +speak to me, soul to soul! You are not happy altogether in this +marriage. I know it. You have as good as confessed it. Yet you will go +through with it. You have given your word--your honour holds you. I +recognise that it holds you. I say nothing, not a syllable, against your +bond! But here, to-night, tell me, promise me that you will make this +marriage of yours serve _our_ hopes and ends, the ends that you and I +have foreseen together--that it shall be your instrument, not your +chain. We have been six weeks together. You say you have learnt from me; +you have! you have given me your mind, your heart to write on, and I +have written. Henceforward you will never look at life as you might have +done if I had not been here. Do you think I triumph, that I boast? Ah!" +he drew in his breath--"What if in helping you, and teaching you--for I +have helped and taught you!--I have undone myself? What if I came here +the slave of impersonal causes, of ends not my own? What if I +leave--maimed--in face of the battle? Not your fault? No, perhaps not! +but, at least, you owe me some gentleness now, in these last words--some +kindness in farewell." + +He came closer, held out his hands. With one of her own she put his +back, and lifted the other dizzily to her forehead. + +"Don't come near me!" she said, tottering. "What is it? I cannot see. +Go!" + +And guiding herself, as though blindfold, to a chair, she sank upon it, +and her head dropped. It was the natural result of a moment of intense +excitement coming upon nerves already strained and tried to their +utmost. She fought desperately against her weakness; but there was a +moment when all around her swam, and she knew nothing. + +Then came a strange awakening. What was this room, this weird light, +these unfamiliar forms of things, this warm support against which her +cheek lay? She opened her eyes languidly. They met Wharton's half in +wonder. He was kneeling beside her, holding her. But for an instant she +realised nothing except his look, to which her own helplessly replied. + +"Once!" she heard him whisper. "Once! Then nothing more--for ever." + +And stooping, slowly, deliberately, he kissed her. + +In a stinging flow, life, shame, returned upon her. She struggled to her +feet, pushing him from her. + +"You dared," she said, "_dared_ such a thing!" + +She could say no more; but her attitude, fiercely instinct, through all +her physical weakness, with her roused best self, was speech enough. He +did not venture to approach her. She walked away. He heard the door +close, hurrying steps on the little stairs, then silence. + +He remained where she had left him, leaning against the latticed wall +for some time. When he moved it was to pick up a piece of maidenhair +which had dropped from her dress. + +"That was a scene!" he said, looking at it, and at the trembling of his +own hand. "It carries one back to the days of the Romantics. Was I +Alfred de Musset?--and she George Sand? Did any of them ever taste a +more poignant moment than I--when she--lay upon my breast? To be +helpless--yet yield nothing--it challenged me! Yet I took no +advantage--none. When she _looked_--when her eye, her _soul_, was, for +that instant, mine, then!--Well!--the world has rushed with me since I +saw her on the stairs; life can bring me nothing of such a quality +again. What did I say?--how much did I mean? My God! how can I tell? I +began as an actor, did I finish as a man?" + +He paced up and down, thinking; gradually, by the help of an iron will +quieting down each rebellious pulse. + +"That poacher fellow did me a good turn. _Dare_! the word galled. But, +after all, what woman could say less? And what matter? I have held her +in my arms, in a setting--under a moon--worthy of her. Is not life +enriched thereby beyond robbery? And what harm? Raeburn is not injured. +_She_ will never tell--and neither of us will ever forget. Ah!--what was +that?" + +He walked quickly to the window. What he had heard had been a dull +report coming apparently from the woods beyond the eastern side of the +avenue. As he reached the window it was followed by a second. + +"That poacher's gun?--no doubt!"--he strained his eyes in +vain--"Collision perhaps--and mischief? No matter! I have nothing to do +with it. The world is all lyric for me to-night. I can hear in it no +other rhythm." + + * * * * * + +The night passed away. When the winter morning broke, Marcella was lying +with wide sleepless eyes, waiting and pining for it. Her candle still +burnt beside her; she had had no courage for darkness, nor the smallest +desire for sleep. She had gone through shame and anguish. But she would +have scorned to pity herself. Was it not her natural, inevitable +portion? + +"I will tell Aldous everything--_everything_," she said to herself for +the hundredth time, as the light penetrated. "Was _that_ only seven +striking--_seven_--impossible!" + +She sat up haggard and restless, hardly able to bear the thought of the +hours that must pass before she could see Aldous--put all to the touch. + +Suddenly she remembered Hurd--then old Patton. + +"He was dying last night," she thought, in her moral torment--her +passion to get away from herself. "Is he gone? This is the hour when old +people die--the dawn. I will go and see--go at once." + +She sprang up. To baffle this ache within her by some act of repentance, +of social amends, however small, however futile--to propitiate herself, +if but by a hairbreadth--this, no doubt, was the instinct at work. She +dressed hastily, glad of the cold, glad of the effort she had to make +against the stiffness of her own young bones--glad of her hunger and +faintness, of everything physically hard that had to be fought and +conquered. + +In a very short time she had passed quietly downstairs and through the +hall, greatly to the amazement of William, who opened the front door for +her. Once in the village road the damp raw air revived her greatly. She +lifted her hot temples to it, welcoming the waves of wet mist that swept +along the road, feeling her youth come back to her. + +Suddenly as she was nearing the end of a narrow bit of lane between +high hedges, and the first houses of the village were in sight, she was +stopped by a noise behind her--a strange unaccountable noise as of +women's voices, calling and wailing. It startled and frightened her, and +she stood in the middle of the road waiting. + +Then she saw coming towards her two women running at full speed, crying +and shouting, their aprons up to their faces. + +"What is it? What is the matter?" she asked, going to meet them, and +recognising two labourers' wives she knew. + +"Oh! miss--oh! miss!" said the foremost, too wrapt up in her news to be +surprised at the sight of her. "They've just found him--they're bringin' +ov 'im home; they've got a shutter from Muster Wellin! 'im at Disley +Farm. It wor close by Disley wood they found 'em. And there's one ov 'is +men they've sent off ridin' for the inspector--here he come, miss! Come +out o' th' way!" + +They dragged her back, and a young labourer galloped past them on a farm +colt, urging it on to its full pace, his face red and set. + +"Who is found?" cried Marcella--"What is it?" + +"Westall, miss--Lor' bless you--Shot him in the head they did--blowed +his brains right out--and Charlie Dynes--oh! he's knocked about +shamful--the doctor don't give no hopes of him. Oh deary--deary me! And +we're goin' for Muster Harden--ee must tell the widder--or Miss +Mary--none on us can!" + +"And who did it?" said Marcella, pale with horror, holding her. + +"Why the poachers, miss. Them as they've bin waitin' for all along--and +they do say as Jim Hurd's in it. Oh Lord, oh Lord!" + +Marcella stood petrified, and let them hurry on. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The lane was still again, save for the unwonted sounds coming from the +groups which had gathered round the two women, and were now moving +beside them along the village street a hundred yards ahead. + +Marcella stood in a horror of memory--seeing Hurd's figure cross the +moonlit avenue from dark to dark. Where was he? Had he escaped? Suddenly +she set off running, stung by the thought of what might have already +happened under the eyes of that unhappy wife, those wretched children. + +As she entered the village, a young fellow ran up to her in breathless +excitement. "They've got 'im, miss. He'd come straight home--'adn't made +no attempt to run. As soon as Jenkins" (Jenkins was the policeman) +"heared of it, ee went straight across to 'is house, an' caught 'im. Ee +wor goin' to make off--'is wife 'ad been persuadin' ov 'im all night. +But they've got him, miss, sure enough!" + +The lad's exultation was horrible. Marcella waved him aside and ran on. +A man on horseback appeared on the road in front of her leading from +Widrington to the village. She recognised Aldous Raeburn, who had +checked his horse in sudden amazement as he saw her talking to the boy. + +"My darling! what are you here for? Oh! go home--go _home_!--out of +this horrible business. They have sent for me as a magistrate. Dynes is +alive--I _beg_ you!--go home!" + +She shook her head, out of breath and speechless with running. At the +same moment she and he, looking to the right, caught sight of the crowd +standing in front of Hurd's cottage. + +A man ran out from it, seeing the horse and its rider. + +"Muster Raeburn! Muster Raeburn! They've cotched 'im; Jenkins has got +'im." + +"Ah!" said Aldous, drawing a long, stern breath; "he didn't try to get +off then? Marcella!--you are not going there--to that house!" + +He spoke in a tone of the strongest remonstrance. Her soul rose in anger +against it. + +"I am going to _her_" she said panting;--"don't wait." + +And she left him and hurried on. + +As soon as the crowd round the cottage saw her coming, they divided to +let her pass. + +"She's quiet now, miss," said a woman to her significantly, nodding +towards the hovel. "Just after Jenkins got in you could hear her crying +out pitiful." + +"That was when they wor a-handcuffin' him," said a man beside her. + +Marcella shuddered. + +"Will they let me in?" she asked. + +"They won't let none ov _us_ in," said the man. "There's Hurd's sister," +and he pointed to a weeping woman supported by two others. "They've kep' +her out. But here's the inspector, miss; you ask him." + +The inspector, a shrewd officer of long experience, fetched in haste +from a mile's distance, galloped up, and gave his horse to a boy. + +Marcella went up to him. + +He looked at her with sharp interrogation. "You are Miss Boyce? Miss +Boyce of Mellor?" + +"Yes, I want to go to the wife; I will promise not to get in your way." + +He nodded. The crowd let them pass. The inspector knocked at the door, +which was cautiously unlocked by Jenkins, and the two went in together. + +"She's a queer one," said a thin, weasel-eyed man in the crowd to his +neighbour. "To think o' her bein' in it--at this time o' day. You could +see Muster Raeburn was a tellin' of her to go 'ome. But she's allus +pampered them Hurds." + +The speaker was Ned Patton, old Patton's son, and Hurd's companion on +many a profitable night-walk. It was barely a week since he had been out +with Hurd on another ferreting expedition, some of the proceeds of which +were still hidden in Patton's outhouse. But at the present moment he was +one of the keenest of the crowd, watching eagerly for the moment when he +should see his old comrade come out, trapped and checkmated, bound +safely and surely to the gallows. The natural love of incident and +change which keeps life healthy had been starved in him by his +labourer's condition. This sudden excitement had made a brute of him. + +The man next him grimaced, and took his pipe out of his mouth a moment. + +"_She_ won't be able to do nothin' for 'im! There isn't a man nor boy +in this 'ere place as didn't know as ee hated Westall like pison, and +would be as like as not to do for 'im some day. That'll count agen 'im +now terrible strong! Ee wor allus one to blab, ee wor." + +"Well, an' Westall said jus' as much!" struck in another voice; "theer +wor sure to be a fight iv ever Westall got at 'im--on the job. You +see--they may bring it in manslarter after all." + +"'Ow does any one know ee wor there at all? who seed him?" inquired a +white-haired elderly man, raising a loud quavering voice from the middle +of the crowd. + +"Charlie Dynes seed 'im," cried several together. + +"How do yer know ee seed 'im?" + +From the babel of voices which followed the white-haired man slowly +gathered the beginnings of the matter. Charlie Dynes, Westall's +assistant, had been first discovered by a horsekeeper in Farmer Wellin's +employment as he was going to his work. The lad had been found under a +hedge, bleeding and frightfully injured, but still alive. Close beside +him was the dead body of Westall with shot-wounds in the head. On being +taken to the farm and given brandy, Dynes was asked if he had recognised +anybody. He had said there were five of them, "town chaps"; and then he +had named Hurd quite plainly--whether anybody else, nobody knew. It was +said he would die, and that Mr. Raeburn had gone to take his deposition. + +"An' them town chaps got off, eh?" said the elderly man. + +"Clean!" said Patton, refilling his pipe. "Trust them!" + +Meanwhile, inside this poor cottage Marcella was putting out all the +powers of the soul. As the door closed behind her and the inspector, she +saw Hurd sitting handcuffed in the middle of the kitchen, watched by a +man whom Jenkins, the local policeman, had got in to help him, till some +more police should arrive. Jenkins was now upstairs searching the +bedroom. The little bronchitic boy sat on the fender, in front of the +untidy fireless grate, shivering, his emaciated face like a yellowish +white mask, his eyes fixed immovably on his father. Every now and then +he was shaken with coughing, but still he looked--with the dumb devoted +attention of some watching animal. + +Hurd, too, was sitting silent. His eyes, which seemed wider open and +more brilliant than usual, wandered restlessly from thing to thing about +the room; his great earth-stained hands in their fetters twitched every +now and then on his knee. Haggard and dirty as he was, there was a +certain aloofness, a dignity even, about the misshapen figure which +struck Marcella strangely. Both criminal and victim may have it--this +dignity. It means that a man feels himself set apart from his kind. + +Hurd started at sight of Marcella. "I want to speak to her," he said +hoarsely, as the inspector approached him--"to that lady"--nodding +towards her. + +"Very well," said the inspector; "only it is my duty to warn you that +anything you say now will be taken down and used as evidence at the +inquest." + +Marcella came near. As she stood in front of him, one trembling ungloved +hand crossed over the other, the diamond in her engagement ring +catching the light from the window sparkled brightly, diverting even for +the moment the eyes of the little fellow against whom her skirts were +brushing. + +"Ee might ha' killed me just as well as I killed 'im," said Hurd, +bending over to her and speaking with difficulty from the dryness of his +mouth. "I didn't mean nothink o' what happened. He and Charlie came on +us round Disley Wood. He didn't take no notice o' them. It was they as +beat Charlie. But he came straight on at me--all in a fury--a +blackguardin' ov me, with his stick up. I thought he was for beatin' my +brains out, an' I up with my gun and fired. He was so close--that was +how he got it all in the head. But ee might 'a' killed me just as well." + +He paused, staring at her with a certain anguished intensity, as though +he were watching to see how she took it--nay, trying its effect both on +her and himself. He did not look afraid or cast down--nay, there was a +curious buoyancy and steadiness about his manner for the moment which +astonished her. She could almost have fancied that he was more alive, +more of a _man_ than she had ever seen him--mind and body better fused, +more at command. + +"Is there anything more you wish to say to me?" she asked him, after +waiting. + +Then suddenly his manner changed. Their eyes met. Hers, with all their +subtle inheritance of various expression, their realised character, as +it were, searched his, tried to understand them--those peasant eyes, so +piercing to her strained sense in their animal urgency and shame. _Why_ +had he done this awful thing?--deceived her--wrecked his wife?--that was +what her look asked. It seemed to her too _childish_--too _stupid_ to be +believed. + +"I haven't made nobbut a poor return to _you_, miss," he said in a +shambling way, as though the words were dragged out of him. Then he +threw up his head again. "But I didn't mean nothink o' what happened," +he repeated, doggedly going off again into a rapid yet, on the whole, +vivid and consecutive account of Westall's attack, to which Marcella +listened, trying to remember every word. + +"Keep that for your solicitor," the inspector said at last, interrupting +him; "you are only giving pain to Miss Boyce. You had better let her go +to your wife." + +Hurd looked steadily once more at Marcella. "It be a bad end I'm come +to," he said, after a moment. "But I thank you kindly all the same. +_They'll_ want seein' after." He jerked his head towards the boy, then +towards the outhouse or scullery where his wife was. "She takes it +terr'ble hard. She wanted me to run. But I said, 'No, I'll stan' it +out.' Mr. Brown at the Court'll give you the bit wages he owes me. But +they'll have to go on the Union. Everybody'll turn their backs on them +now." + +"I will look after them," said Marcella, "and I will do the best I can +for you. Now I will go to Mrs. Hurd." + +Minta Hurd was sitting in a corner of the outhouse on the clay floor, +her head leaning against the wall. The face was turned upward, the eyes +shut, the mouth helplessly open. When Marcella saw her, she knew that +the unhappy woman had already wept so much in the hours since her +husband came back to her that she could weep no more. The two little +girls in the scantiest of clothing, half-fastened, sat on the floor +beside her, shivering and begrimed--watching her. They had been crying +at the tops of their voices, but were now only whimpering miserably, and +trying at intervals to dry their tear-stained cheeks with the skirts of +their frocks. The baby, wrapped in an old shawl, lay on its mother's +knee, asleep and unheeded. The little lean-to place, full of odds and +ends of rubbish, and darkened overhead by a string of damp clothes--was +intolerably cold in the damp February dawn. The children were blue; the +mother felt like ice as Marcella stooped to touch her. Outcast misery +could go no further. + +The mother moaned as she felt Marcella's hand, then started wildly +forward, straining her thin neck and swollen eyes that she might see +through the two open doors of the kitchen and the outhouse. + +"They're not taking him away?" she said fiercely. "Jenkins swore to me +they'd give me notice." + +"No, he's still there," said Marcella, her voice shaking. "The +inspector's come. You shall have notice." + +Mrs. Hurd recognised her voice, and looked up at her in amazement. + +"You must put this on," said Marcella, taking off the short fur cape she +wore. "You are perished. Give me the baby, and wrap yourself in it." + +But Mrs. Hurd put it away from her with a vehement hand. + +"I'm not cold, miss--I'm burning hot. He made me come in here. He said +he'd do better if the children and I ud go away a bit. An' I couldn't go +upstairs, because--because--" she hid her face on her knees. + +Marcella had a sudden sick vision of the horrors this poor creature must +have gone through since her husband had appeared to her, splashed with +the blood of his enemy, under that same marvellous moon which-- + +Her mind repelled its own memories with haste. Moreover, she was aware +of the inspector standing at the kitchen door and beckoning to her. She +stole across to him so softly that Mrs. Hurd did not hear her. + +"We have found all we want," he said in his official tone, but under his +breath--"the clothes anyway. We must now look for the gun. Jenkins is +first going to take him off to Widrington. The inquest will be held +to-morrow here, at 'The Green Man.' We shall bring him over." Then he +added in another voice, touching his hat, "I don't like leaving you, +miss, in this place. Shall Jenkins go and fetch somebody to look after +that poor thing? They'll be all swarming in here as soon as we've gone." + +"No, I'll stay for a while. I'll look after her. They won't come in if +I'm here. Except his sister--Mrs. Mullins--she may come in, of course, +if she wants." + +The inspector hesitated. + +"I'm going now to meet Mr. Raeburn, miss. I'll tell him that you're +here." + +"He knows," said Marcella, briefly. "Now are you ready?" + +He signed assent, and Marcella went back to the wife. + +"Mrs. Hurd," she said, kneeling on the ground beside her, "they're +going." + +The wife sprang up with a cry and ran into the kitchen, where Hurd was +already on his feet between Jenkins and another policeman, who were to +convey him to the gaol at Widrington. But when she came face to face +with her husband something--perhaps the nervous appeal in his strained +eyes--checked her, and she controlled herself piteously. She did not +even attempt to kiss him. With her eyes on the ground, she put her hand +on his arm. "They'll let me come and see you, Jim?" she said, trembling. + +"Yes; you can find out the rules," he said shortly. "Don't let them +children cry. They want their breakfast to warm them. There's plenty of +coal. I brought a sack home from Jellaby's last night myself. Good-bye." + +"Now, march," said the inspector, sternly, pushing the wife back. + +Marcella put her arm round the shaking woman. The door opened; and +beyond the three figures as they passed out, her eye passed to the +waiting crowd, then to the misty expanse of common and the dark woods +behind, still wrapped in fog. + +When Mrs. Hurd saw the rows of people waiting within a stone's throw of +the door she shrank back. Perhaps it struck her, as it struck Marcella, +that every face was the face of a foe. Marcella ran to the door as the +inspector stepped out, and locked it after him. Mrs. Hurd, hiding +herself behind a bit of baize curtain, watched the two policemen mount +with Hurd into the fly that was waiting, and then followed it with her +eyes along the bit of straight road, uttering sounds the while of low +anguish, which wrung the heart in Marcella's breast. Looking back in +after days it always seemed to her that for this poor soul the true +parting, the true wrench between life and life, came at this moment. + +She went up to her, her own tears running over. + +"You must come and lie down," she said, recovering herself as quickly as +possible. "You and the children are both starved, and you will want your +strength if you are to help him. I will see to things." + +She put the helpless woman on the wooden settle by the fireplace, +rolling up her cloak to make a pillow. + +"Now, Willie, you sit by your mother. Daisy, where's the cradle? Put the +baby down and come and help me make the fire." + +The dazed children did exactly as they were told, and the mother lay +like a log on the settle. Marcella found coal and wood under Daisy's +guidance, and soon lit the fire, piling on the fuel with a lavish hand. +Daisy brought her water, and she filled the kettle and set it on to +boil, while the little girl, still sobbing at intervals like some little +weeping automaton, laid the breakfast. Then the children all crouched +round the warmth, while Marcella rubbed their cold hands and feet, and +"mothered" them. Shaken as she was with emotion and horror, she was yet +full of a passionate joy that this pity, this tendance was allowed to +her. The crushing weight of self-contempt had lifted. She felt morally +free and at ease. + +Already she was revolving what she could do for Hurd. It was as clear +as daylight to her that there had been no murder but a free fight--an +even chance between him and Westall. The violence of a hard and +tyrannous man had provoked his own destruction--so it stood, for her +passionate protesting sense. That at any rate must be the defence, and +some able man must be found to press it. She thought she would write to +the Cravens and consult them. Her thoughts carefully avoided the names +both of Aldous Raeburn and of Wharton. + +She was about to make the tea when some one knocked at the door. It +proved to be Hurd's sister, a helpless woman, with a face swollen by +crying, who seemed to be afraid to come into the cottage, and afraid to +go near her sister-in-law. Marcella gave her money, and sent her for +some eggs to the neighbouring shop, then told her to come back in half +an hour and take charge. She was an incapable, but there was nothing +better to be done. "Where is Miss Harden?" she asked the woman. The +answer was that ever since the news came to the village the rector and +his sister had been with Mrs. Westall and Charlie Dyne's mother. Mrs. +Westall had gone into fit after fit; it had taken two to hold her, and +Charlie's mother, who was in bed recovering from pneumonia, had also +been very bad. + +Again Marcella's heart contracted with rage rather than pity. Such wrack +and waste of human life, moral and physical! for what? For the +protection of a hateful sport which demoralised the rich and their +agents, no less than it tempted and provoked the poor! + +When she had fed and physically comforted the children, she went and +knelt down beside Mrs. Hurd, who still lay with closed eyes in +heavy-breathing stupor. + +"Dear Mrs. Hurd," she said, "I want you to drink this tea and eat +something." + +The half-stupefied woman signed refusal. But Marcella insisted. + +"You have got to fight for your husband's life," she said firmly, "and +to look after your children. I must go in a very short time, and before +I go you must tell me all that you can of this business. Hurd would tell +you to do it. He knows and you know that I am to be trusted. I want to +save him. I shall get a good lawyer to help him. But first you must take +this--and then you must talk to me." + +The habit of obedience to a "lady," established long ago in years of +domestic service, held. The miserable wife submitted to be fed, looked +with forlorn wonder at the children round the fire, and then sank back +with a groan. In her tension of feeling Marcella for an impatient moment +thought her a poor creature. Then with quick remorse she put her arms +tenderly round her, raised the dishevelled grey-streaked head on her +shoulder, and stooping, kissed the marred face, her own lips quivering. + +"You are not alone," said the girl with her whole soul. "You shall never +be alone while I live. Now tell me." + +She made the white and gasping woman sit up in a corner of the settle, +and she herself got a stool and established herself a little way off, +frowning, self-contained, and determined to make out the truth. + +"Shall I send the children upstairs?" she asked. + +"No!" said the boy, suddenly, in his husky voice, shaking his head with +energy, "I'm not a-going." + +"Oh! he's safe--is Willie," said Mrs. Hurd, looking at him, but +strangely, and as it were from a long distance, "and the others is too +little." + +Then gradually Marcella got the story out of her--first, the misery of +alarm and anxiety in which she had lived ever since the Tudley End raid, +owing first to her knowledge of Hurd's connection with it, and with the +gang that had carried it out; then to her appreciation of the quick and +ghastly growth of the hatred between him and Westall; lastly, to her +sense of ingratitude towards those who had been kind to them. + +"I knew we was acting bad towards you. I told Jim so. I couldn't hardly +bear to see you come in. But there, miss,--I couldn't do anything. I +tried, oh! the Lord knows I tried! There was never no happiness between +us at last, I talked so. But I don't believe he could help himself--he's +not made like other folks, isn't Jim--" + +Her features became convulsed again with the struggle for speech. +Marcella reached out for the toil-disfigured hand that was fingering and +clutching at the edge of the settle, and held it close. Gradually she +made out that although Hurd had not been able of course to conceal his +night absences from his wife, he had kept his connection with the Oxford +gang absolutely dark from her, till, in his wild exultation over +Westall's discomfiture in the Tudley End raid, he had said things in his +restless snatches of sleep which had enabled her to get the whole truth +out of him by degrees. Her reproaches, her fears, had merely angered and +estranged him; her nature had had somehow to accommodate itself to his, +lest affection should lose its miserable all. + +As to this last fatal attack on the Maxwell coverts, it was clear to +Marcella, as she questioned and listened, that the wife had +long foreseen it, and that she now knew much more about it +than--suddenly--she would allow herself to say. For in the midst of her +out-pourings she drew herself together, tried to collect and calm +herself, looked at Marcella with an agonised, suspicious eye, and fell +silent. + +"I don't know nothing about it, miss," she stubbornly declared at last, +with an inconsequent absurdity which smote Marcella's pity afresh. "How +am I to know? There was seven o' them Oxford fellows at Tudley End--that +I know. Who's to say as Jim was with 'em at all last night? Who's to say +as it wasn't them as--" + +She stopped, shivering. Marcella held her reluctant hand. + +"You don't know," she said quietly, "that I saw your husband in here for +a minute before I came in to you, and that he told me, as he had already +told Jenkins, that it was in a struggle with him that Westall was shot, +but that he had fired in self-defence because Westall was attacking him. +You don't know, too, that Charlie Dynes is alive, and says he saw +Hurd--" + +"Charlie Dynes!" Mrs. Hurd gave a shriek, and then fell to weeping and +trembling again, so that Marcella had need of patience. + +"If you can't help me more," she said at last in despair, "I don't know +what we shall do. Listen to me. Your husband will be charged with +Westall's murder. That I am sure of. He says it was not murder--that it +happened in a fight. I believe it. I want to get a lawyer to prove it. I +am your friend--you know I am. But if you are not going to help me by +telling me what you know of last night I may as well go home--and get +your sister-in-law to look after you and the children." + +She rose as she spoke. Mrs. Hurd clutched at her. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, looking straight before her vacantly at the +children, who at once began to cry again. "_Oh, my God_! Look here, +miss"--her voice dropped, her swollen eyes fixed themselves on +Marcella--the words came out in a low, hurried stream--"It was just +after four o'clock I heard that door turn; I got up in my nightgown and +ran down, and there was Jim. 'Put that light out,' he says to me, sharp +like. 'Oh, Jim,' says I, 'wherever have you been? You'll be the death o' +me and them poor children!' 'You go to bed,' says he to me, 'and I'll +come presently.' But I could see him, 'cos of the moon, almost as plain +as day, an' I couldn't take my eyes off him. And he went about the +kitchen so strange like, puttin' down his hat and takin' it up again, +an' I saw he hadn't got his gun. So I went up and caught holt on him. +An' he gave me a push back. 'Can't you let me alone?' he says; 'you'll +know soon enough.' An' then I looked at my sleeve where I'd touched +him--oh, my God! my God!" + +Marcella, white to the lips and shuddering too, held her tight. She had +the _seeing_ faculty which goes with such quick, nervous natures, and +she saw the scene as though she had been there--the moonlit cottage, the +miserable husband and wife, the life-blood on the woman's sleeve. + +Mrs. Hurd went on in a torrent of half-finished sentences and fragments +of remembered talk. She told her husband's story of the encounter with +the keepers as he had told it to her, of course with additions and +modifications already struck out by the agony of inventive pain; she +described how she had made him take his blood-stained clothes and hide +them in a hole in the roof; then how she had urged him to strike across +country at once and get a few hours start before the ghastly business +was known. But the more he talked to her the more confident he became of +his own story, and the more determined to stay and brave it out. +Besides, he was shrewd enough to see that escape for a man of his +deformity was impossible, and he tried to make her understand it so. But +she was mad and blind with fear, and at last, just as the light was +coming in, he told her roughly, to end their long wrestle, that he +should go to bed and get some sleep. She would make a fool of him, and +he should want all his wits. She followed him up the steep ladder to +their room, weeping. And there was little Willie sitting up in bed, +choking with the phlegm in his throat, and half dead of fright because +of the voices below. + +"And when Hurd see him, he went and cuddled him up, and rubbed his legs +and feet to warm them, an' I could hear him groanin'. And I says to him, +'Jim, if you won't go for my sake, will you go for the boy's?' For you +see, miss, there was a bit of money in the house, an' I thought he'd +hide himself by day and walk by night, and so get to Liverpool perhaps, +and off to the States. An' it seemed as though my head would burst with +listening for people comin', and him taken up there like a rat in a +trap, an' no way of provin' the truth, and everybody agen him, because +of the things he'd said. And he burst out a-cryin', an' Willie cried. +An' I came an' entreated of him. An' he kissed me; an' at last he said +he'd go. An' I made haste, the light was getting so terrible strong; an' +just as he'd got to the foot of the stairs, an' I was holding little +Willie in my arms an' saying good-bye to him--" + +She let her head sink against the settle. There was no more to say, and +Marcella asked no more questions--she sat thinking. Willie stood, a +wasted, worn figure, by his mother, stroking her face; his hoarse +breathing was for the time the only sound in the cottage. + +Then Marcella heard a loud knock at the door. She got up and looked +through the casement window. The crowd had mostly dispersed, but a few +people stood about on the green, and a policeman was stationed outside +the cottage. On the steps stood Aldous Raeburn, his horse held behind +him by a boy. + +She went and opened the door. + +"I will come," she said at once. "There--I see Mrs. Mullins crossing the +common. Now I can leave her." + +Aldous, taking off his hat, closed the door behind him and stood with +his hand on Marcella's arm, looking at the huddled woman on the settle, +at the pale children. There was a solemnity in his expression, a mixture +of judgment and pity which showed that the emotion of other scenes +also--scenes through which he had just passed--was entering into it. + +"Poor unhappy souls," he said slowly, under his breath. "You say that +you have got some one to see after her. She looks as though it might +kill her, too." + +Marcella nodded. Now that her task, for the moment, was nearly over, she +could hardly restrain herself nervously or keep herself from crying. +Aldous observed her with disquiet as she put on her hat. His heart was +deeply stirred. She had chosen more nobly for herself than he would have +chosen for her, in thus daring an awful experience for the sake of +mercy. His moral sense, exalted and awed by the sight of death, +approved, worshipped her. His man's impatience pined to get her away, to +cherish and comfort hen Why, she could hardly have slept three hours +since they parted on the steps of the Court, amidst the crowd of +carriages! + +Mrs. Mullins came in still scared and weeping, and dropping frightened +curtseys to "Muster Raeburn." Marcella spoke to her a little in a +whisper, gave some counsels which filled Aldous with admiration for the +girl's practical sense and thoughtfulness, and promised to come again +later. Mrs. Hurd neither moved nor opened her eyes. + +"Can you walk?" said Aldous, bending over her, as they stood outside the +cottage. "I can see that you are worn out. Could you sit my horse if I +led him?" + +"No, let us walk." + +They went on together, followed by the eyes of the village, the boy +leading the horse some distance behind. + +"Where have you been?" said Marcella, when they had passed the village. +"Oh, _please_ don't think of my being tired! I had so much rather know +it all. I must know it all." + +She was deathly pale, but her black eyes flashed impatience and +excitement. She even drew her hand out of the arm where Aldous was +tenderly holding it, and walked on erect by herself. + +"I have been with poor Dynes," said Aldous, sadly; "we had to take his +deposition. He died while I was there." + +"He died?" + +"Yes. The fiends who killed him had left small doubt of that. But he +lived long enough, thank God, to give the information which will, I +think, bring them to justice!" + +The tone of the magistrate and the magnate goaded Marcella's quivering +nerves. + +"What is justice?" she cried; "the system that wastes human lives in +protecting your tame pheasants?" + +A cloud came over the stern clearness of his look. He gave a bitter +sigh--the sigh of the man to whom his own position in life had been, as +it were, one long scruple. + +"You may well ask that!" he said. "You cannot imagine that I did not +ask it of myself a hundred times as I stood by that poor fellow's +bedside." + +They walked on in silence. She was hardly appeased. There was a deep, +inner excitement in her urging her towards difference, towards attack. +At last he resumed: + +"But whatever the merits of our present game system may be, the present +case is surely clear--horribly clear. Six men, with at least three guns +among them, probably more, go out on a pheasant-stealing expedition. +They come across two keepers, one a lad of seventeen, who have nothing +but a light stick apiece. The boy is beaten to death, the keeper shot +dead at the first brush by a man who has been his life-long enemy, and +threatened several times in public to 'do for him.' If that is not +brutal and deliberate murder, it is difficult to say what is!" + +Marcella stood still in the misty road trying to command herself. + +"It was _not_ deliberate," she said at last with difficulty; "not in +Hurd's case. I have heard it all from his own mouth. It was a +_struggle_--he might have been killed instead of Westall--Westall +attacked, Hurd defended himself." + +Aldous shook his head. + +"Of course Hurd would tell you so," he said sadly, "and his poor wife. +He is not a bad or vicious fellow, like the rest of the rascally pack. +Probably when he came to himself, after the moment of rage, he could not +simply believe what he had done. But that makes no difference. It was +murder; no judge or jury could possibly take any other view. Dynes's +evidence is clear, and the proof of motive is overwhelming." + +Then, as he saw her pallor and trembling, he broke off in deep distress. +"My dear one, if I could but have kept you out of this!" + +They were alone in the misty road. The boy with the horse was out of +sight. He would fain have put his arm round her, have consoled and +supported her. But she would not let him. + +"Please understand," she said in a sort of gasp, as she drew herself +away, "that I do _not_ believe Hurd is guilty--that I shall do my very +utmost to defend him. He is to me the victim of unjust, abominable laws! +If _you_ will not help me to protect him--then I must look to some one +else." + +Aldous felt a sudden stab of suspicion--presentiment. + +"Of course he will be well defended; he will have every chance; that you +may be sure of," he said slowly. + +Marcella controlled herself, and they walked on. As they entered the +drive of Mellor, Aldous thought passionately of those divine moments in +his sitting-room, hardly yet nine hours old. And now--_now_!--she walked +beside him as an enemy. + +The sound of a step on the gravel in front of them made them look up. +Past, present, and future met in the girl's bewildered and stormy sense +as she recognised Wharton. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +The first sitting of the Birmingham Labour Congress was just over, and +the streets about the hall in which it had been held were beginning to +fill with the issuing delegates. Rain was pouring down and umbrellas +were plentiful. + +Harry Wharton, accompanied by a group of men, left the main entrance of +the hall,--releasing himself with difficulty from the friendly crowd +about the doors--and crossed the street to his hotel. + +"Well, I'm glad you think I did decently," he said, as they mounted the +hotel stairs. "What a beastly day, and how stuffy that hall was! Come in +and have something to drink." + +He threw open the door of his sitting-room as he spoke. The four men +with him followed him in. + +"I must go back to the hall to see two or three men before everybody +disperses," said the one in front. "No refreshment for me, thank you, +Mr. Wharton. But I want to ask a question--what arrangements have you +made for the reporting of your speech?" + +The man who spoke was thin and dark, with a modest kindly eye. He wore a +black frock coat, and had the air of a minister. + +"Oh, thank you, Bennett, it's all right. The _Post_, the _Chronicle_, +and the _Northern Guardian_ will have full copies. I sent them off +before the meeting. And my own paper, of course. As to the rest they may +report it as they like. I don't care." + +"They'll all have it," said another man, bluntly. "It's the best speech +you've ever made--the best president's speech we've had yet, I +say,--don't you think so?" + +The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Both +nodded. + +"Hallin's speech last year was first-rate," he continued, "but somehow +Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just +now is _fight_--and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!" + +And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one to +another. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowded +hall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men present +indeed--though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in the +rest--had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenly +conscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emerged +successfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they went +over the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene which +had followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip. +Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his own +expense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving, +contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just delivered +had been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridor +at Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his own +room, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, and +make two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its range +nor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. The +programme of labour for the next five years had never been better +presented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin's +presidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in the +memory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, and +knew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellows +who would otherwise have stood in his way. + +Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He had +already betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to the +New Unionism, and affected a costume in character--fustian trousers, +flannel shirt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculated +to set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun life +as a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recently +formed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to be +already on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would win a +seat in the coming Parliament. + +The other two men were Molloy, secretary to the congress, short, +smooth-faced, and wiry, a man whose pleasant eye and manner were often +misleading, since he was in truth one of the hottest fighting men of a +fighting movement; and Wilkins, a friend of Casey's--ex-iron worker, +Union official, and Labour candidate for a Yorkshire division--an +uneducated, passionate fellow, speaking with a broad, Yorkshire accent, +a bad man of affairs, but honest, and endowed with the influence which +comes of sincerity, together with a gift for speaking and superhuman +powers of physical endurance. + +"Well, I'm glad it's over," said Wharton, throwing himself into a chair +with a long breath, and at the same time stretching out his hand to ring +the bell. "Casey, some whisky? No? Nor you, Wilkins? nor Molloy? As for +you, Bennett, I know it's no good asking you. By George! our +grandfathers would have thought us a poor lot! Well, some coffee at any +rate you must all of you have before you go back. Waiter! coffee. By the +way, I have been seeing something of Hallin, Bennett, down in the +country." + +He took out his cigarette case as he spoke, and offered it to the +others. All refused except Molloy. Casey took his half-smoked pipe out +of his pocket and lit up. He was not a teetotaler as the others were, +but he would have scorned to drink his whisky and water at the expense +of a "gentleman" like Wharton, or to smoke the "gentleman's" cigarettes. +His class-pride was irritably strong. Molloy, who was by nature +anybody's equal, took the cigarette with an easy good manners, which +made Casey look at him askance. + +Mr. Bennett drew his chair close to Wharton's. The mention of Hallin had +roused a look of anxiety in his quick dark eyes. + +"How is he, Mr. Wharton? The last letter I had from him he made light of +his health. But you know he only just avoided a breakdown in that strike +business. We only pulled him through by the skin of his teeth--Mr. +Raeburn and I." + +"Oh, he's no constitution; never had, I suppose. But he seemed much as +usual. He's staying with Raeburn, you know, and I've been staying with +the father of the young lady whom Raeburn 's going to marry." + +"Ah! I've heard of that," said Bennett, with a look of interest. "Well, +Mr. Raeburn isn't on our side, but for judgment and fair dealing there +are very few men of his class and circumstances I would trust as I would +him. The lady should be happy." + +"Of course," said Wharton, drily. "However, neither she nor Raeburn are +very happy just at this moment. A horrible affair happened down there +last night. One of Lord Maxwell's gamekeepers and a 'helper,' a lad of +seventeen, were killed last night in a fight with poachers. I only just +heard the outlines of it before I came away, but I got a telegram just +before going into congress, asking me to defend the man charged with the +murder." + +A quick expression of repulsion and disgust crossed Bennett's face. + +"There have been a whole crop of such cases lately," he said. "How shall +we ever escape from the _curse_ of this game system?" + +"We shan't escape it," said Wharton, quietly, knocking the end off his +cigarette, "not in your lifetime or mine. When we get more Radicals on +the bench we shall lighten the sentences; but that will only exasperate +the sporting class into finding new ways of protecting themselves. Oh! +the man will be hung--that's quite clear to me. But it will be a good +case--from the public point of view--will work up well--" + +He ran his hand through his curls, considering. + +"Will work up admirably," he added in a lower tone of voice, as though +to himself, his eyes keen and brilliant as ever, in spite of the marks +of sleeplessness and fatigue visible in the rest of the face, though +only visible there since he had allowed himself the repose of his +cigarette and arm-chair. + +"Are yo' comin' to dine at the 'Peterloo' to-night, Mr. Wharton?" said +Wilkins, as Wharton handed him a cup of coffee; "but of coorse you +are--part of yower duties, I suppose?" + +While Molloy and Casey were deep in animated discussion of the great +meeting of the afternoon he had been sitting silent against the edge of +the table--a short-bearded sombre figure, ready at any moment to make a +grievance, to suspect a slight. + +"I'm afraid I can't," said Wharton, bending forward and speaking in a +tone of concern; "that was just what I was going to ask you all--if you +would make my excuses to-night? I have been explaining to Bennett. I +have an important piece of business in the country--a labourer has been +getting into trouble for shooting a keeper; they have asked me to defend +him. The assizes come on in little more than a fortnight, worse luck! so +that the time is short--" + +And he went on to explain that, by taking an evening train back to +Widrington, he could get the following (Saturday) morning with the +solicitor in charge of the case, and be back in Birmingham, thanks to +the convenience of a new line lately opened, in time for the second +meeting of the congress, which was fixed for the early afternoon. + +He spoke with great cordiality and persuasiveness. Among the men who +surrounded him, his youth, good looks, and easy breeding shone out +conspicuous. In the opinion of Wilkins, indeed, who followed his every +word and gesture, he was far too well dressed and too well educated. A +day would soon come when the labour movement would be able to show these +young aristocrats the door. Not yet, however. + +"Well, I thowt you wouldn't dine with us," he said, turning away with a +blunt laugh. + +Bennett's mild eye showed annoyance. "Mr. Wharton has explained himself +very fully, I think," he said, turning to the others. "We shall miss him +at dinner--but this matter seems to be one of life and death. And we +mustn't forget anyway that Mr. Wharton is fulfilling this engagement at +great inconvenience to himself. We none of us knew when we elected him +last year that he would have to be fighting his election at the same +time. Next Saturday, isn't it?" + +Bennett rose as he spoke and carefully buttoned his coat. It was curious +to contrast his position among his fellows--one of marked ascendency and +authority--with his small insignificant physique. He had a gentle +deprecating eye, and the heart of a poet. He played the flute and +possessed the gift of repeating verse--especially Ebenezer Eliot's Corn +Law Rhymes--so as to stir a great audience to enthusiasm or tears. The +Wesleyan community of his native Cheshire village owned no more +successful class-leader, and no humbler Christian. At the same time he +could hold a large business meeting sternly in check, was the secretary +of one of the largest and oldest Unions in the country, had been in +Parliament for years, and was generally looked upon even by the men who +hated his "moderate" policy, as a power not to be ignored. + +"Next Saturday. Yes!" said Wharton, nodding in answer to his inquiry. + +"Well, are you going to do it?" said Casey, looking round at him. + +"Oh, yes!" said Wharton, cheerfully; "oh, yes! we shall do it. We shall +settle old Dodgson, I think." + +"Are the Raeburns as strong as they were?" asked Molloy, who knew +Brookshire. + +"What landlord is? Since '84 the ground is mined for them all--good and +bad--and they know it." + +"The mine takes a long time blowing up--too long for my patience," said +Wilkins, gruffly. "How the country can go on year after year paying its +tribute to these plunderers passes my comprehension. But you may attack +them as you please. You will never get any forrarder so long as +Parliament and the Cabinet is made up of them and their hangers on." + +Wharton looked at him brightly, but silently, making a little assenting +inclination of the head. He was not surprised that anything should pass +Wilkins's comprehension, and he was determined to give him no opening +for holding forth. + +"Well, we'll let you alone," said Bennett. "You'll have very little time +to get off in. We'll make your excuses, Mr. Wharton. You may be sure +everybody is so pleased with your speech we shall find them all in a +good temper. It was grand!--let me congratulate you again. Good-night--I +hope you'll get your poacher off!" + +The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;--Molloy, +with an eager business reference to the order of the day for +Saturday,--"Give me your address at Widrington; I'll post you everything +to-night, so that you may have it all under your eye"--Casey, with the +off-hand patronage of the man who would not for the world have his +benevolence mistaken for servility,--and Wilkins with as gruff a nod and +as limp a shake of the hand as possible. It might perhaps have been read +in the manner of the last two, that although this young man had just +made a most remarkable impression, and was clearly destined to go far, +they were determined not to yield themselves to him a moment before they +must. In truth, both were already jealous of him; whereas Molloy, +absorbed in the business of the congress, cared for nothing except to +know whether in the next two days' debates Wharton would show himself as +good a chairman as he was an orator; and Bennett, while saying no word +that he did not mean, was fully conscious of an inner judgment, which +pronounced five minutes of Edward Hallin's company to be worth more to +him than anything which this brilliant young fellow could do or say. + + * * * * * + +Wharton saw them out, then came back and threw himself again into his +chair by the window. The venetian blinds were not closed, and he looked +out on a wide and handsome street of tall red-brick houses and shops, +crowded with people and carriages, and lit with a lavishness of gas +which overcame even the February dark and damp. But he noticed nothing, +and even the sensation of his triumph was passing off. He was once more +in the Mellor drive; Aldous Raeburn and Marcella stood in front of him; +the thrill of the moment beat once more in his pulse. + +He buried his head in his hands and thought. The news of the murder had +reached him from Mr. Boyce. The master of Mellor had heard the news from +William, the man-servant, at half-past seven, and had instantly knocked +up his guest, by way of sharing the excitement with which his own feeble +frame was throbbing. + +"By Gad! I never heard such an _atrocious_ business," said the invalid, +his thin hand shaking against his dressing-gown. "That's what your +Radical notions bring us to! We shall have them plundering and burning +the country houses next." + +"I don't think my Radical notions have much to do with it," said +Wharton, composedly. + +But there was a red spot in his cheeks which belied his manner. So when +he--_they_--saw Hurd cross the avenue he was on his way to this deed of +blood. The shot that he, Wharton, had heard had been the shot which slew +Westall? Probably. Well, what was the bearing of it? Could she keep her +own counsel or would they find themselves in the witness box? The idea +quickened his pulse amazingly. + +"Any clue? Any arrests?" he asked of his host. "Why, I told you," said +Boyce, testily, though as a matter of fact he had said nothing. "They +have got that man Hurd. The ruffian has been a marked man by the keepers +and police, they tell me, for the last year or more. And there's my +daughter has been pampering him and his wife all the time, and +_preaching_ to me about them! She got Raeburn even to take him on at the +Court. I trust it will be a lesson to her." + +Wharton drew a breath of relief. So the man was in custody, and there +was other evidence. Good! There was no saying what a woman's conscience +might be capable of, even against her friends and herself. + +When Mr. Boyce at last left him free to dress and make his preparations +for the early train, by which the night before, after the ladies' +departure for the ball, he had suddenly made up his mind to leave +Mellor, it was some time before Wharton could rouse himself to action. +The situation absorbed him. Miss Boyce's friend was now in imminent +danger of his neck, and Miss Boyce's thoughts must be of necessity +concentrated upon his plight and that of his family. He foresaw the +passion, the _saeva indignatio_, that she must ultimately throw--the +general situation being what it was--into the struggle for Hurd's life. +Whatever the evidence might be, he would be to her either victim or +champion--and Westall, of course, merely the Holofernes of the piece. + +How would Raeburn take it? Ah, well! the situation must develop. It +occurred to him, however, that he would catch an earlier train to +Widrington than the one he had fixed on, and have half an hour's talk +with a solicitor who was a good friend of his before going on to +Birmingham. Accordingly, he rang for William--who came, all staring and +dishevelled, fresh from the agitation of the servants' hall--gave orders +for his luggage to be sent after him, got as much fresh information as +he could from the excited lad, plunged into his bath, and finally +emerged, fresh and vigorous in every nerve, showing no trace whatever of +the fact that two hours of broken sleep had been his sole portion for a +night, in which he had gone through emotions and sustained a travail of +brain either of which would have left their mark on most men. + + * * * * * + +Then the meeting in the drive! How plainly he saw them both--Raeburn +grave and pale, Marcella in her dark serge skirt and cap, with an eye +all passion and a cheek white as her hand. + +"A tragic splendour enwrapped her!--a fierce heroic air. She was the +embodiment of the moment--of the melancholy morning with its rain and +leafless woods--of the human anguish throbbing in the little village. +And I, who had seen her last in her festal dress, who had held her warm +perfumed youth in my arms, who had watched in her white breast the +heaving of the heart that I--_I_ had troubled!--how did I find it +possible to stand and face her? But I did. It rushed through me at once +_how_ I would make her forgive me--how I would regain possession of her. +I had thought the play was closed: it was suddenly plain to me that the +second act was but just beginning. She and Raeburn had already come to +words--I knew it directly I saw them. This business will divide them +more and more. His _conscience_ will come in--and a Raeburn's conscience +is the devil! + +"By now he hates me; every word I speak to him--still more every word +to her--galls him. But he controlled himself when I made him tell me the +story--I had no reason to complain--though every now and then I could +see him wince under the knowledge I must needs show of the persons and +places concerned--a knowledge I could only have got from _her_. And she +stood by meanwhile like a statue. Not a word, not a look, so far, though +she had been forced to touch my hand. But my instinct saved me. I roused +her--I played upon her! I took the line that I was morally certain +_she_ had been taking in their _tete-a-tete_. Why not a scuffle?--a +general scrimmage?--in which it was matter of accident who fell? The man +surely was inoffensive and gentle, incapable of deliberate murder. And +as to the evidence of hatred, it told both ways. He stiffened and was +silent. What a fine brow he has--a look sometimes, when he is moved, of +antique power and probity! But she--she trembled--animation came back. +She would almost have spoken to me--but I did well not to prolong it--to +hurry on." + +Then he took the telegram out of his pocket which had been put into his +hands as he reached the hotel, his mouth quivering again with the +exultation which he had felt when he had received it. It recalled to his +ranging memory all the details of his hurried interview with the little +Widrington solicitor, who had already scented a job in the matter of +Hurd's defence. This man--needy, shrewd, and well equipped with local +knowledge--had done work for Wharton and the party, and asked nothing +better than to stand well with the future member for the division. +"There is a lady," Wharton had said, "the daughter of Mr. Boyce of +Mellor, who is already very much interested in this fellow and his +family. She takes this business greatly to heart. I have seen her this +morning, but had no time to discuss the matter with her. She will, I +have little doubt, try to help the relations in the arrangements for the +defence. Go to her this morning--tell her that the case has my +sympathy--that, as she knows, I am a barrister, and, if she wishes it, I +will defend Hurd. I shall be hard put to it to get up the case with the +election coming on, but I will do it--for the sake of the public +interest involved. You understand? Her father is a Tory--and she is just +about to marry Mr. Raeburn. Her position, therefore, is difficult. +Nevertheless, she will feel strongly--she does feel strongly about this +case, and about the whole game system--and I feel moved to support her. +She will take her own line, whatever happens. See her--see the wife, +too, who is entirely under Miss Boyce's influence--and wire to me at my +hotel at Birmingham. If they wish to make other arrangements, well and +good. I shall have all the more time to give to the election." + +Leaving this commission behind him, he had started on his journey. At +the end of it a telegram had been handed to him on the stairs of his +hotel: + +"Have seen the lady, also Mrs. Hurd. You are urgently asked to undertake +defence." + +He spread it out before him now, and pondered it. The bit of flimsy +paper contained for him the promise of all he most coveted,--influence, +emotion, excitement. "She will have returns upon herself," he thought +smiling, "when I see her again. She will be dignified, resentful; she +will suspect everything I say or do--still more, she will suspect +herself. No matter! The situation is in my hands. Whether I succeed or +fail, she will be forced to work with me, to consult with me--she will +owe me gratitude. What made her consent?--she must have felt it in some +sort a humiliation. Is it that Raeburn has been driving her to strong +measures--that she wants, woman-like, to win, and thought me after all +her best chance, and put her pride in her pocket? Or is it?--ah! one +should put _that_ out of one's head. It's like wine--it unsteadies one. +And for a thing like this one must go into training. Shall I write to +her--there is just time now, before I start--take the lofty tone, the +equal masculine tone, which I have noticed she likes?--ask her pardon +for an act of madness--before we go together to the rescue of a life? It +might do--it might go down. But no, I think not! Let the situation +develop itself. Action and reaction--the unexpected--I commit myself to +that. _She_--marry Aldous Raeburn in a month? Well, she may--certainly +she may. But there is no need for me, I think, to take it greatly into +account. Curious! twenty-four hours ago I thought it all done with--dead +and done with. 'So like Provvy,' as Bentham used to say, when he heard +of anything particularly unseemly in the way of natural catastrophe. Now +to dine, and be off! How little sleep can I do with in the next +fortnight?" + +He rang, ordered his cab, and then went to the coffee-room for some +hasty food. As he was passing one of the small tables with which the +room was filled, a man who was dining there with a friend recognised him +and gave him a cold nod. Wharton walked on to the further end of the +room, and, while waiting for his meal, buried himself in the local +evening paper, which already contained a report of his speech. + +"Did you see that man?" asked the stranger of his friend. + +"The small young fellow with the curly hair?" + +"Small young fellow, indeed! He is the wiriest athlete I +know--extraordinary physical strength for his size--and one of the +cleverest rascals out as a politician. I am a neighbour of his in the +country. His property joins mine. I knew his father--a little, dried-up +old chap of the old school--very elegant manners and very +obstinate--worried to death by his wife--oh, my goodness! such a woman!" + +"What's the name?" said the friend, interrupting. + +"Wharton--H.S. Wharton. His mother was a daughter of Lord Westgate, and +_her_ mother was an actress whom the old lord married in his dotage. +Lady Mildred Wharton was like Garrick, only natural when she was acting, +which she did on every possible occasion. A preposterous woman! Old +Wharton ought to have beaten her for her handwriting, and murdered her +for her gowns. Her signature took a sheet of note-paper, and as for her +dress I never could get out of her way. Whatever part of the room I +happened to be in I always found my feet tangled in her skirts. +Somehow, I never could understand how she was able to find so much stuff +of one pattern. But it was only to make you notice her, like all the +rest. Every bit of her was a pose, and the maternal pose was the worst +of all." + +"H.S. Wharton?" said the other. "Why, that's the man who has been +speaking here to-day. I've just been reading the account of it in the +_Evening Star_. A big meeting--called by a joint committee of the +leading Birmingham trades to consider the Liberal election programme as +it affects labour--that's the man--he's been at it hammer and +tongs--red-hot--all the usual devices for harrying the employer out of +existence, with a few trifles--graduated income-tax and land +nationalisation--thrown in. Oh! that's the man, is it?--they say he had +a great reception--spoke brilliantly--and is certainly going to get into +Parliament next week." + +The speaker, who had the air of a shrewd and prosperous manufacturer, +put up his eyeglass to look at this young Robespierre. His +_vis-a-vis_--a stout country gentleman who had been in the army and +knocked about the world before coming into his estate--shrugged his +shoulders. + +"So I hear--he daren't show his nose as a candidate in _our_ part of the +world, though of course he does us all the harm he can. I remember a +good story of his mother--she quarrelled with her husband and all her +relations, his and hers, and then she took to speaking in public, +accompanied by her dear boy. On one occasion she was speaking at a +market town near us, and telling the farmers that as far as she was +concerned she would like to see the big properties cut up to-morrow. The +sooner her father's and husband's estates were made into small holdings +stocked with public capital the better. After it was all over, a friend +of mine, who was there, was coming home in a sort of omnibus that ran +between the town and a neighbouring village. He found himself between +two fat farmers, and this was the conversation--broad Lincolnshire, of +course: 'Did tha hear Lady Mildred Wharton say them things, Willum?' +'Aye, a did.' 'What did tha think, Willum?' 'What did _tha_ think, +George?' 'Wal, _aa_ thowt Laady Mildred Wharton wor a graaet fule, +Willum, if tha asks me.' 'I'll uphowd tha, George! I'll uphowd tha!' +said the other, and then they talked no more for the rest of the +journey." + +The friend laughed. + +"So it was from the dear mamma that the young man got his opinions?" + +"Of course. She dragged him into every absurdity she could from the time +he was fifteen. When the husband died she tried to get the servants to +come in to meals, but the butler struck. So did Wharton himself, who, +for a Socialist, has always showed a very pretty turn for comfort. I am +bound to say he was cut up when she died. It was the only time I ever +felt like being civil to him--in those months after she departed. I +suppose she was devoted to him--which after all is something." + +"Good heavens!" said the other, still lazily turning over the pages of +the newspaper as they sat waiting for their second course, "here is +another poaching murder--in Brookshire--the third I have noticed within +a month. On Lord Maxwell's property--you know them?" + +"I know the old man a little--fine old fellow! They'll make him +President of the Council, I suppose. He can't have much work left in +him; but it is such a popular, respectable name. Ah! I'm sorry; the sort +of thing to distress him terribly." + +"I see the grandson is standing." + +"Oh yes; will get in too. A queer sort of man--great ability and high +character. But you can't imagine him getting on in politics, unless it's +by sheer weight of wealth and family influence. He'll find a scruple in +every bush--never stand the rough work of the House, or get on with the +_men_. My goodness! you have to pull with some queer customers nowadays. +By the way, I hear he is making an unsatisfactory marriage--a girl very +handsome, but with no manners, and like nobody else--the daughter, too, +of an extremely shady father. It's surprising; you'd have thought a man +like Aldous Raeburn would have looked for the pick of things." + +"Perhaps it was she looked for the pick of things!" said the other, with +a blunt laugh. "Waiter, another bottle of champagne." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Marcella was lying on the sofa in the Mellor drawing-room. The February +evening had just been shut out, but she had told William not to bring +the lamps till they were rung for. Even the fire-light seemed more than +she could bear. She was utterly exhausted both in body and mind; yet, as +she lay there with shut eyes, and hands clasped under her cheek, a start +went through her at every sound in the house, which showed that she was +not resting, but listening. She had spent the morning in the Hurds' +cottage, sitting by Mrs. Hurd and nursing the little boy. Minta Hurd, +always delicate and consumptive, was now generally too ill from shock +and misery to be anywhere but in her bed, and Willie was growing +steadily weaker, though the child's spirit was such that he would insist +on dressing, on hearing and knowing everything about his father, and on +moving about the house as usual. Yet every movement of his wasted bones +cost him the effort of a hero, and the dumb signs in him of longing for +his father increased the general impression as of some patient creature +driven by Nature to monstrous and disproportionate extremity. + +The plight of this handful of human beings worked in Marcella like some +fevering torture. She was wholly out of gear physically and morally. +Another practically sleepless night, peopled with images of horror, had +decreased her stock of sane self-control, already lessened by long +conflict of feeling and the pressure of self-contempt. Now, as she lay +listening for Aldous Raeburn's ring and step, she hardly knew whether to +be angry with him for coming so late, or miserable that he should come +at all. That there was a long score to settle between herself and him +she knew well. Shame for an experience which seemed to her maiden sense +indelible--both a weakness and a treachery--lay like a dull weight on +heart and conscience. But she would not realise it, she would not act +upon it. She shook the moral debate from her impatiently. Aldous should +have his due all in good time--should have ample opportunity of deciding +whether he would, after all, marry such a girl as she. Meanwhile his +attitude with regard to the murder exasperated her. Yet, in some strange +way it relieved her to be angry and sore with him--to have a grievance +she could avow, and on which she made it a merit to dwell. His gentle, +yet firm difference of opinion with her on the subject struck her as +something new in him. It gave her a kind of fierce pleasure to fight it. +He seemed somehow to be providing her with excuses--to be coming down to +her level--to be equalling wrong with wrong. + +The door handle turned. At last! She sprang up. But it was only William +coming in with the evening post. Mrs. Boyce followed him. She took a +quiet look at her daughter, and asked if her headache was better, and +then sat down near her to some needlework. During these two days she +had been unusually kind to Marcella. She had none of the little feminine +arts of consolation. She was incapable of fussing, and she never +caressed. But from the moment that Marcella had come home from the +village that morning, a pale, hollow-eyed wreck, the mother had asserted +her authority. She would not hear of the girl's crossing the threshold +again; she had put her on the sofa and dosed her with sal-volatile. And +Marcella was too exhausted to rebel. She had only stipulated that a note +should be sent to Aldous, asking him to come on to Mellor with the news +as soon as the verdict of the coroner's jury should be given. The jury +had been sitting all day, and the verdict was expected in the evening. + +Marcella turned over her letters till she came to one from a London firm +which contained a number of cloth patterns. As she touched it she threw +it aside with a sudden gesture of impatience, and sat upright. + +"Mamma! I have something to say to you." + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Mamma, the wedding must be put off!--it _must_!--for some weeks. I have +been thinking about it while I have been lying here. How _can_ I?--you +can see for yourself. That miserable woman depends on me altogether. How +can I spend my time on clothing and dressmakers? I feel as if I could +think of nothing else--nothing else in the world--but her and her +children." She spoke with difficulty, her voice high and strained. "The +assizes may be held that very week--who knows?--the very day we are +married." + +She stopped, looking at her mother almost threateningly. Mrs. Boyce +showed no sign of surprise. She put her work down. + +"I had imagined you might say something of the kind," she said after a +pause. "I don't know that, from your point of view, it is unreasonable. +But, of course, you must understand that very few people will see it +from your point of view. Aldous Raeburn may--you must know best. But his +people certainly won't; and your father will think it--" + +"Madness," she was going to say, but with her usual instinct for the +moderate fastidious word she corrected it to "foolish." + +Marcella's tired eyes were all wilfulness and defiance. + +"I can't help it. I couldn't do it. I will tell Aldous at once. It must +be put off for a month. And even that," she added with a shudder, "will +be bad enough." + +Mrs. Boyce could not help an unperceived shrug of the shoulders, and a +movement of pity towards the future husband. Then she said drily,-- + +"You must always consider whether it is just to Mr. Raeburn to let a +matter of this kind interfere so considerably with his wishes and his +plans. He must, I suppose, be in London for Parliament within six +weeks." + +Marcella did not answer. She sat with her hands round her knees lost in +perplexities. The wedding, as originally fixed, was now three weeks and +three days off. After it, she and Aldous were to have spent a short +fortnight's honeymoon at a famous house in the north, lent them for the +occasion by a Duke who was a cousin of Aldous's on the mother's side, +and had more houses than he knew what to do with. Then they were to go +immediately up to London for the opening of Parliament. The furnishing +of the Mayfair house was being pressed on. In her new-born impatience +with such things, Marcella had hardly of late concerned herself with it +at all, and Miss Raeburn, scandalised, yet not unwilling, had been doing +the whole of it, subject to conscientious worryings of the bride, +whenever she could be got hold of, on the subject of papers and +curtains. + +As they sat silent, the unspoken idea in the mother's mind was--"Eight +weeks more will carry us past the execution." Mrs. Boyce had already +possessed herself very clearly of the facts of the case, and it was her +perception that Marcella was throwing herself headlong into a hopeless +struggle--together with something else--a confession perhaps of a touch +of greatness in the girl's temper, passionate and violent as it was, +that had led to this unwonted softness of manner, this absence of +sarcasm. + +Very much the same thought--only treated as a nameless horror not to be +recognised or admitted--was in Marcella's mind also, joined however with +another, unsuspected even by Mrs. Boyce's acuteness. "Very likely--when +I tell him--he will not want to marry me at all--and of course I shall +tell him." + +But not yet--certainly not yet. She had the instinctive sense that +during the next few weeks she should want all her dignity with Aldous, +that she could not afford to put herself at a disadvantage with him. To +be troubled about her own sins at such a moment would be like the +meanness of the lazy and canting Christian, who whines about saving his +soul while he ought to be rather occupied with feeding the bodies of his +wife and children. + +A ring at the front door. Marcella rose, leaning one hand on the end of +the sofa--a long slim figure in her black dress--haggard and pathetic. + +When Aldous entered, her face was one question. He went up to her and +took her hand. + +"In the case of Westall the verdict is one of 'Wilful Murder' against +Hurd. In that of poor Charlie Dynes the court is adjourned. Enough +evidence has been taken to justify burial. But there is news to-night +that one of the Widrington gang has turned informer, and the police say +they will have their hands on them all within the next two or three +days." + +Marcella withdrew herself from him and fell back into the corner of the +sofa. Shading her eyes with her hand she tried to be very composed and +business-like. + +"Was Hurd himself examined?" + +"Yes, under the new Act. He gave the account which he gave to you and to +his wife. But the Court--" + +"Did not believe it?" + +"No. The evidence of motive was too strong. It was clear from his own +account that he was out for poaching purposes, that he was leading the +Oxford gang, and that he had a gun while Westall was unarmed. He +admitted too that Westall called on him to give up the bag of pheasants +he held, and the gun. He refused. Then he says Westall came at him, and +he fired. Dick Patton and one or two others gave evidence as to the +language he has habitually used about Westall for months past." + +"Cowards--curs!" cried Marcella, clenching both her hands, a kind of sob +in her throat. + +Aldous, already white and careworn, showed, Mrs. Boyce thought, a ray of +indignation for an instant. Then he resumed steadily-- + +"And Brown, our steward, gave evidence as to his employment since +October. The coroner summed up carefully, and I think fairly, and the +verdict was given about half-past six." + +"They took him back to prison?" + +"Of course. He comes before the magistrates on Thursday." + +"And you will be one!" + +The girl's tone was indescribable. + +Aldous started. Mrs. Boyce reddened with anger, and checking her +instinct to intervene began to put away her working materials that she +might leave them together. While she was still busy Aldous said: + +"You forget; no magistrate ever tries a case in which he is personally +concerned. I shall take no part in the trial. My grandfather, of course, +must prosecute." + +"But it will be a bench of landlords," cried Marcella; "of men with whom +a poacher is already condemned." + +"You are unjust to us, I think," said Aldous, slowly, after a pause, +during which Mrs. Boyce left the room--"to some of us, at any rate. +Besides, as of course you know, the case will be simply sent on for +trial at the assizes. By the way "--his tone changed--"I hear to-night +that Harry Wharton undertakes the defence." + +"Yes," said Marcella, defiantly. "Is there anything to say against it? +You wouldn't wish Hurd not to be defended, I suppose?" + +"Marcella!" + +Even her bitter mood was pierced by the tone. She had never wounded him +so deeply yet, and for a moment he felt the situation intolerable; the +surging grievance and reproach, with which his heart was really full, +all but found vent in an outburst which would have wholly swept away his +ordinary measure and self-control. But then, as he looked at her, it +struck his lover's sense painfully how pale and miserable she was. He +could not scold! But it came home to him strongly that for her own sake +and his it would be better there should be explanations. After all +things had been going untowardly for many weeks. His nature moved slowly +and with much self-doubt, but it was plain to him now that he must make +a stand. + +After his cry, her first instinct was to apologise. Then the words stuck +in her throat. To her, as to him, they seemed to be close on a trial of +strength. If she could not influence him in this matter--so obvious, as +it seemed to her, and so near to her heart--what was to become of that +lead of hers in their married life, on which she had been reckoning from +the beginning? All that was worst in her and all that was best rose to +the struggle. + +But, as he did not speak, she looked up at last. + +"I was waiting," he said in a low voice. + +"What for?" + +"Waiting till you should tell me you did not mean what you said." + +She saw that he was painfully moved; she also saw that he was +introducing something into their relation, an element of proud +self-assertion, which she had never felt in it before. Her own vanity +instantly rebelled. + +"I ought not to have said exactly what I did," she said, almost stifled +by her own excitement, and making great efforts not to play the mere +wilful child; "that I admit. But it has been clear to me from the +beginning that--that"--her words hurried, she took up a book and +restlessly lifted it and let it fall--"you have never looked at this +thing justly. You have looked at the crime as any one must who is a +landowner; you have never allowed for the provocation; you have not let +yourself feel pity--" + +He made an exclamation. + +"Do you know where I was before I went into the inquest?" + +"No," she said defiantly, determined not to be impressed, feeling a +childish irritation at the interruption. + +"I was with Mrs. Westall. Harden and I went in to see her. She is a +hard, silent woman. She is clearly not popular in the village, and no +one comes in to her. Her"--he hesitated--"her baby is expected before +long. She is in such a state of shock and excitement that Clarke thinks +it quite possible she may go out of her mind. I saw her sitting by the +fire, quite silent, not crying, but with a wild eye that means mischief. +We have sent in a nurse to help Mrs. Jellison watch her. She seems to +care nothing about her boy. Everything that that woman most desired in +life has been struck from her at a blow. Why? That a man who was in no +stress of poverty, who had friends and employment, should indulge +himself in acts which he knew to be against the law, and had promised +you and his wife to forego, and should at the same time satisfy a wild +beast's hatred against the man, who was simply defending his master's +property. Have _you_ no pity for Mrs. Westall or her child?" + +He spoke as calmly as he could, making his appeal to reason and moral +sense; but, in reality, every word was charged with electric feeling. + +"I _am_ sorry for her!" cried Marcella, passionately. "But, after all, +how can one feel for the oppressor, or those connected with him, as one +does for the victim?" He shook his head, protesting against the word, +but she rushed on. "You do know--for I told you yesterday--how under the +shelter of this _hateful_ game system Westall made Kurd's life a burden +to him when he was a young man--how he had begun to bully him again this +past year. We had the same sort of dispute the other day about that +murder in Ireland. You were shocked that I would not condemn the +Moonlighters who had shot their landlord from behind a hedge, as you +did. You said the man had tried to do his duty, and that the murder was +brutal and unprovoked. But I thought of the _system_--of the _memories_ +in the minds of the murderers. There _were_ excuses--he suffered for his +father--I am not going to judge that as I judge other murders. So, when +a Czar of Russia is blown up, do you expect one to think only of his +wife and children? No! I will think of the tyranny and the revolt; I +will pray, yes, _pray_ that I might have courage to do as they did! You +may think me wild and mad. I dare say. I am made so. I shall always feel +so!" + +She flung out her words at him, every limb quivering under the emotion +of them. His cool, penetrating eye, this manner she had never yet known +in him, exasperated her. + +"Where was the tyranny in this case?" he asked her quietly. "I agree +with you that there are murders and murders. But I thought your point +was that here was neither murder nor attack, but only an act of +self-defence. That is Hurd's plea." + +She hesitated and stumbled. "I know," she said, "I know. I believe it. +But, even if the attack had been on Hurd's part, I should still find +excuses, because of the system, and because of Westall's hatefulness." + +He shook his head again. + +"Because a man is harsh and masterful, and uses stinging language, is he +to be shot down like a dog?" + +There was a silence. Marcella was lashing herself up by thoughts of the +deformed man in his cell, looking forward after the wretched, +unsatisfied life, which was all society had allowed him, to the violent +death by which society would get rid of him--of the wife yearning her +heart away--of the boy, whom other human beings, under the name of law, +were about to separate from his father for ever. At last she broke out +thickly and indistinctly: + +"The terrible thing is that I cannot count upon you--that now I cannot +make you feel as I do--feel with me. And by-and-by, when I shall want +your help desperately, when your help might be everything--I suppose it +will be no good to ask it." + +He started, and bending forward he possessed himself of both her +hands--her hot trembling hands--and kissed them with a passionate +tenderness. + +"What help will you ask of me that I cannot give? That would be hard to +bear!" + +Still held by him, she answered his question by another: + +"Give me your idea of what will happen. Tell me how you think it will +end." + +"I shall only distress you, dear," he said sadly. + +"No; tell me. You think him guilty. You believe he will be convicted." + +"Unless some wholly fresh evidence is forthcoming," he said reluctantly, +"I can see no other issue." + +"Very well; then he will be sentenced to death. But, after sentence--I +know--that man from Widrington, that solicitor told me--if--if strong +influence is brought to bear--if anybody whose word counts--if Lord +Maxwell and you, were to join the movement to save him--There is sure to +be a movement--the Radicals will take it up. Will you do it--will you +promise me now--for my sake?" + +He was silent. + +She looked at him, all her heart burning in her eyes, conscious of her +woman's power too, and pressing it. + +"If that man is hung," she said pleadingly, "it will leave a mark on my +life nothing will ever smooth out. I shall feel myself somehow +responsible. I shall say to myself, if I had not been thinking about my +own selfish affairs--about getting married--about the straw-plaiting--I +might have seen what was going on. I might have saved these people, who +have been my friends--my _real_ friends--from this horror." + +She drew her hands away and fell back on the sofa, pressing her +handkerchief to her eyes. "If you had seen her this morning!" she said +in a strangled voice. "She was saying, 'Oh, miss, if they do find him +guilty, they can't hang him--not my poor deformed Jim, that never had a +chance of being like the others. Oh, we'll beg so hard. I know there's +many people will speak for him. He was mad, miss, when he did it. He'd +never been himself, not since last winter, when we all sat and starved, +and he was driven out of his senses by thinking of me and the children. +You'll get Mr. Raeburn to speak--won't you, miss?--and Lord Maxwell? It +was their game. I know it was their game. But they'll forgive him. +They're such great people, and so rich--and we--we've always had such a +struggle. Oh, the bad times we've had, and no one know! They'll try and +get him off, miss? Oh, I'll go and _beg_ of them.'" + +She stopped, unable to trust her voice any further. He stooped over her +and kissed her brow. There was a certain solemnity in the moment for +both of them. The pity of human fate overshadowed them. At last he said +firmly, yet with great feeling: + +"I will not prejudge anything, that I promise you. I will keep my mind +open to the last. But--I should like to say--it would not be any easier +to me to throw myself into an agitation for reprieve because this man +was tempted to crime by _my_ property--on _my_ land. I should think it +right to look at it altogether from the public point of view. The +satisfaction of my own private compunctions--of my own private +feelings--is not what I ought to regard. My own share in the +circumstances, in the conditions which made such an act possible does +indeed concern me deeply. You cannot imagine but that the moral problem +of it has possessed me ever since this dreadful thing happened. It +troubled me much before. Now, it has become an oppression--a torture. I +have never seen my grandfather so moved, so distressed, in all my +remembrance of him. Yet he is a man of the old school, with the old +standards. As for me, if ever I come to the estate I will change the +whole system, I will run no risks of such human wreck and ruin as +this--" + +His voice faltered. + +"But," he resumed, speaking steadily again, "I ought to warn you that +such considerations as these will not affect my judgment of this +particular case. In the first place, I have no quarrel with capital +punishment as such. I do not believe we could rightly give it up. Your +attitude properly means that wherever we can legitimately feel pity for +a murderer, we should let him escape his penalty. I, on the other hand, +believe that if the murderer saw things as they truly are, he would +himself _claim_ his own death, as his best chance, his only chance--in +this mysterious universe!--of self-recovery. Then it comes to this--was +the act murder? The English law of murder is not perfect, but it appears +to me to be substantially just, and guided by it--" + +"You talk as if there were no such things as mercy and pity in the +world," she interrupted wildly; "as if law were not made and +administered by men of just the same stuff and fabric as the +lawbreaker!" + +He looked troubled. + +"Ah, but _law_ is something beyond laws or those who administer them," +he said in a lower tone; "and the law--the _obligation-sense_--of our +own race and time, however imperfect it may be, is sacred, not because +it has been imposed upon us from without, but because it has grown up to +what it is, out of our own best life--ours, yet not ours--the best proof +we have, when we look back at it in the large, when we feel its work in +ourselves of some diviner power than our own will--our best clue to what +that power may be!" + +He spoke at first, looking away--wrestling out his thought, as it were, +by himself--then turning back to her, his eyes emphasised the appeal +implied, though not expressed, in what he said--intense appeal to her +for sympathy, forbearance, mutual respect, through all acuteness of +difference. His look both promised and implored. + +He bad spoken to her but very rarely or indirectly as yet of his own +religious or philosophical beliefs. She was in a stage when such things +interested her but little, and reticence in personal matters was so much +the law of his life that even to her expansion was difficult. So +that--inevitably--she was arrested, for the moment, as any quick +perception must be, by the things that unveil character. + +Then an upheaval of indignant feeling swept the impression away. All +that he said might be ideally, profoundly true--_but_--the red blood of +the common life was lacking in every word of it! He ought to be +incapable of saying it _now_. Her passionate question was, how could he +_argue_--how could he hold and mark the ethical balance--when a _woman_ +was suffering, when _children_ were to be left fatherless? Besides--the +ethical balance itself--does it not alter according to the hands that +hold it--poacher or landlord, rich or poor? + +But she was too exhausted to carry on the contest in words. Both felt it +would have to be renewed. But she said to herself secretly that Mr. +Wharton, when he got to work, would alter the whole aspect of affairs. +And she knew well that her vantage-ground as towards Aldous was strong. + +Then at last he was free to turn his whole attention for a little to her +and her physical state, which made him miserable. He had never imagined +that any one, vigorous and healthy as she was, could look so worn out in +so short a time. She let him talk to her--lament, entreat, advise--and +at last she took advantage of his anxiety and her admissions to come to +the point, to plead that the marriage should be put off. + +She used the same arguments that she had done to her mother. + +"How can I bear to be thinking of these things?"--she pointed a shaking +finger at the dress patterns lying scattered on the table--"with this +agony, this death, under my eyes?" + +It was a great blow to him, and the practical inconveniences involved +were great. But the fibre of him--of which she had just felt the +toughness--was delicate and sensitive as her own, and after a very short +recoil he met her with great chivalry and sweetness, agreeing that +everything should be put off for six weeks, till Easter in fact. She +would have been very grateful to him but that something--some secret +thought--checked the words she tried to say. + +"I must go home then," he said, rising and trying to smile. "I shall +have to make things straight with Aunt Neta, and set a great many +arrangements in train. Now, you will _try_ to think of something else? +Let me leave you with a book that I can imagine you will read." + +She let herself be tended and thought for. At the last, just as he was +going, he said: + +"Have you seen Mr. Wharton at all since this happened?" + +His manner was just as usual. She felt that her eye was guilty, but the +darkness of the firelit room shielded her. + +"I have not seen him since we met him in the drive. I saw the solicitor +who is working up the case for him yesterday. He came over to see Mrs. +Hurd and me. I had not thought of asking him, but we agreed that, if he +would undertake it, it would be the best chance." + +"It _is_ probably the best chance," said Aldous, thoughtfully. "I +believe Wharton has not done much at the Bar since he was called, but +that, no doubt, is because he has had so much on his hands in the way of +journalism and politics. His ability is enough for anything, and he will +throw himself into this. I do not think Hurd could do better." + +She did not answer. She felt that he was magnanimous, but felt it +coldly, without emotion. + +He came and stooped over her. + +"Good-night--good-night--tired child--dear heart! When I saw you in that +cottage this morning I thought of the words, 'Give, and it shall be +given unto you.' All that my life can do to pour good measure, pressed +down, running over, into yours, I vowed you then!" + +When the door closed upon him, Marcella, stretched in the darkness, shed +the bitterest tears that had ever yet been hers--tears which transformed +her youth--which baptised her, as it were, into the fulness of our +tragic life. + +She was still weeping when she heard the door softly opened. She sprang +up and dried her eyes, but the little figure that glided in was not one +to shrink from. Mary Harden came and sat down beside her. + +"I knew you would be miserable. Let me come and cry too. I have been my +round--have seen them all--and I came to bring you news." + +"How has she taken--the verdict?" asked Marcella, struggling with her +sobs, and succeeding at last in composing herself. + +"She was prepared for it. Charlie told her when he saw her after you +left this afternoon that she must expect it." + +There was a pause. + +"I shall soon hear, I suppose," said Marcella, in a hardening voice, her +hands round her knees, "what Mr. Wharton is doing for the defence. He +will appear before the magistrates, I suppose." + +"Yes; but Charlie thinks the defence will be mainly reserved. Only a +little more than a fortnight to the assizes! The time is so short. But +now this man has turned informer, they say the case is quite +straightforward. With all the other evidence the police have there will +be no difficulty in trying them all. Marcella!" + +"Yes." + +Had there been light enough to show it, Mary's face would have revealed +her timidity. + +"Marcella, Charlie asked me to give you a message. He begs you not +to--not to make Mrs. Hurd hope too much. He himself believes there is no +hope, and it is not kind." + +"Are you and he like all the rest," cried Marcella, her passion breaking +out again, "only eager to have blood for blood?" + +Mary waited an instant. + +"It has almost broken Charlie's heart," she said at last; "but he thinks +it was murder, and that Hurd will pay the penalty; nay, more "--she +spoke with a kind of religious awe in her gentle voice--"that he ought +to be glad to pay it. He believes it to be God's will, and I have heard +him say that he would even have executions in public again--under +stricter regulations of course--that we may not escape, as we always do +if we can--from all sight and thought of God's justice and God's +punishments." + +Marcella shuddered and rose. She almost threw Mary's hand away from her. + +"Tell your brother from me, Mary," she said, "that his God is to _me_ +just a constable in the service of the English game-laws! If He _is_ +such a one, I at least will fling my Everlasting No at him while I +live." + +And she swept from the room, leaving Mary aghast. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile there was consternation and wrath at Maxwell Court, where +Aldous, on his return from Mellor, had first of all given his great-aunt +the news of the coroner's verdict, and had then gone on to break to her +the putting-off of the marriage. His championship of Marcella in the +matter, and his disavowal of all grievance were so quiet and decided, +that Miss Raeburn had been only able to allow herself a very modified +strain of comment and remonstrance, so long as he was still there to +listen. But she was all the more outspoken when he was gone, and Lady +Winterbourne was sitting with her. Lady Winterbourne, who was at home +alone, while her husband was with a married daughter on the Riviera, had +come over to dine _tete-a-tete_ with her friend, finding it impossible +to remain solitary while so much was happening. + +"Well, my dear," said Miss Raeburn, shortly, as her guest entered the +room, "I may as well tell you at once that Aldous's marriage is put +off." + +"Put off!" exclaimed Lady Winterbourne, bewildered. "Why it was only +Thursday that I was discussing it all with Marcella, and she told me +everything was settled." + +"Thursday!--I dare say!" said Miss Raeburn, stitching away with fiery +energy, "but since then a poacher has murdered one of our gamekeepers, +which makes all the difference." + +"What _do_ you mean, Agneta?" + +"What I say, my dear. The poacher was Marcella's friend, and she cannot +now distract her mind from him sufficiently to marry Aldous, though +every plan he has in the world will be upset by her proceedings. And as +for his election, you may depend upon it she will never ask or know +whether he gets in next Monday or no. That goes without saying. She is +meanwhile absorbed with the poacher's defence, _Mr. Wharton_, of course, +conducting it. This is your modern young woman, my dear--typical, I +should think." + +Miss Raeburn turned her buttonhole in fine style, and at lightning +speed, to show the coolness of her mind, then with a rattling of all her +lockets, looked up and waited for Lady Winterbourne's reflections. + +"She has often talked to me of these people--the Hurds," said Lady +Winterbourne, slowly. "She has always made special friends with them. +Don't you remember she told us about them that day she first came back +to lunch?" + +"Of course I remember! That day she lectured Maxwell, at first sight, +on his duties. She began well. As for these people," said Miss Raeburn, +more slowly, "one is, of course, sorry for the wife and children, though +I am a good deal sorrier for Mrs. Westall, and poor, poor Mrs. Dynes. +The whole affair has so upset Maxwell and me, we have hardly been able +to eat or sleep since. I thought it made Maxwell look dreadfully old +this morning, and with all that he has got before him too! I shall +insist on sending for Clarke to-morrow morning if he does not have a +better night. And now this postponement will be one more trouble--all +the engagements to alter, and the invitations. _Really_! that girl." + +And Miss Raeburn broke off short, feeling simply that the words which +were allowed to a well-bred person were wholly inadequate to her state +of mind. + +"But if she feels it--as you or I might feel such a thing about some one +we knew or cared for, Agneta?" + +"How can she feel it like that?" cried Miss Raeburn, exasperated. "How +can she know any one of--of that class well enough? It is not seemly, I +tell you, Adelaide, and I don't believe it is sincere. It's just done to +make herself conspicuous, and show her power over Aldous. For other +reasons too, if the truth were known!" + +Miss Raeburn turned over the shirt she was making for some charitable +society and drew out some tacking threads with a loud noise which +relieved her. Lady Winterbourne's old and delicate cheek had flushed. + +"I'm sure it's sincere," she said with emphasis. "Do you mean to say, +Agneta, that one can't sympathise, in such an awful thing, with people +of another class, as one would with one's own flesh and blood?" + +Miss Raeburn winced. She felt for a moment the pressure of a democratic +world--a hated, formidable world--through her friend's question. Then +she stood to her guns. + +"I dare say you'll think it sounds bad," she said stoutly; "but in my +young days it would have been thought a piece of posing--of +sentimentalism--something indecorous and unfitting--if a girl had put +herself in such a position. Marcella _ought_ to be absorbed in her +marriage; that is the natural thing. How Mrs. Boyce can allow her to mix +herself with such things as this murder--to _live_ in that cottage, as I +hear she has been doing, passes my comprehension." + +"You mean," said Lady Winterbourne, dreamily, "that if one had been very +fond of one's maid, and she died, one wouldn't put on mourning for her. +Marcella would." + +"I dare say," said Miss Raeburn, snappishly. "She is capable of anything +far-fetched and theatrical." + +The door opened and Hallin came in. He had been suffering of late, and +much confined to the house. But the news of the murder had made a deep +and painful impression upon him, and he had been eagerly acquainting +himself with the facts. Miss Raeburn, whose kindness ran with unceasing +flow along the channels she allowed it, was greatly attached to him in +spite of his views, and she now threw herself upon him for sympathy in +the matter of the wedding. In any grievance that concerned Aldous she +counted upon him, and her shrewd eyes had plainly perceived that he had +made no great friendship with Marcella. + +"I am very sorry for Aldous," he said at once; "but I understand _her_ +perfectly. So does Aldous." + +Miss Raeburn was angrily silent. But when Lord Maxwell, who had been +talking with Aldous, came in, he proved, to her final discomfiture, to +be very much of the same opinion. + +"My dear," he said wearily as he dropped into his chair, his old face +grey and pinched, "this thing is too terrible--the number of widows and +orphans that night's work will make before the end breaks my heart to +think of. It will be a relief not to have to consider festivities while +these men are actually before the courts. What I am anxious about is +that Marcella should not make herself ill with excitement. The man she +is interested in will be hung, must be hung; and with her somewhat +volatile, impulsive nature--" + +He spoke with old-fashioned discretion and measure. Then quickly he +pulled himself up, and, with some trivial question or other, offered his +arm to Lady Winterbourne, for Aldous had just come in, and dinner was +ready. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Nearly three weeks passed--short flashing weeks, crowded with +agitations, inward or outward, for all the persons of this story. + +After the inquiry before the magistrates--conducted, as she passionately +thought, with the most marked animus on the part of the bench and police +towards the prisoners--had resulted in the committal for trial of Hurd +and his five companions, Marcella wrote Aldous Raeburn a letter which +hurt him sorely. + +"Don't come over to see me for a little while," it ran. "My mind is all +given over to feelings which must seem to you--which, I know, do seem to +you--unreasonable and unjust. But they are my life, and when they are +criticised, or even treated coldly, I cannot bear it. When you are not +there to argue with, I can believe, most sincerely, that you have a +right to see this matter as you do, and that it is monstrous of me to +expect you to yield to me entirely in a thing that concerns your sense +of public duty. But don't come now--not before the trial. I will appeal +to you if I think you can help me. I _know_ you will if you can. Mr. +Wharton keeps me informed of everything. I enclose his last two letters, +which will show you the line he means to take up with regard to some of +the evidence." + +Aldous's reply cost him a prodigal amount of pain and difficulty. + +"I will do anything in the world to make these days less of a burden to +you. You can hardly imagine that it is not grievous to me to think of +any trouble of yours as being made worse by my being with you. But still +I understand. One thing only I ask--that you should not imagine the +difference between us greater than it is. The two letters you enclose +have given me much to ponder. If only the course of the trial enables me +with an honest heart to throw myself into your crusade of mercy, with +what joy shall I come and ask you to lead me, and to forgive my own +slower sense and pity! + +"I should like you to know that Hallin is very much inclined to agree +with you, to think that the whole affair was a 'scrimmage,' and that +Hurd at least ought to be reprieved. He would have come to talk it over +with you himself, but that Clarke forbids him anything that interests or +excites him for the present. He has been very ill and suffering for the +last fortnight, and, as you know, when these attacks come on we try to +keep everything from him that could pain or agitate him. But I see that +this whole affair is very much on his mind, in spite of my efforts. + +"... Oh, my darling! I am writing late at night, with your letter open +before me and your picture close to my hand. So many things rise in my +mind to say to you. There will come a time--there _must!_--when I may +pour them all out. Meanwhile, amid all jars and frets, remember this, +that I have loved you better each day since first we met. + +"I will not come to Mellor then for a little while. My election, little +heart as I have for it, will fill up the week. The nomination-day is +fixed for Thursday and the polling for Monday." + +Marcella read the letter with a confusion of feeling so great as to be +in itself monstrous and demoralising. Was she never to be simple, to see +her way clearly again? + +As for him, as he rode about the lanes and beechwoods in the days that +followed, alone often with that nature for which all such temperaments +as Aldous Raeburn's have so secret and so observant an affection, he was +perpetually occupied with this difficulty which had arisen between +Marcella and himself, turning it over and over in the quiet of the +morning, before the turmoil of the day began. + +He had followed the whole case before the magistrates with the most +scrupulous care. And since then, he had twice run across the Widrington +solicitor for the defence, who was now instructing Wharton. This man, +although a strong Radical, and employed generally by his own side, saw +no objection at all to letting Lord Maxwell's heir and representative +understand how in his opinion the case was going. Aldous Raeburn was a +person whom everybody respected; confidences were safe with him; and he +was himself deeply interested in the affair. The Raeburns being the +Raeburns, with all that that implied for smaller people in Brookshire, +little Mr. Burridge was aware of no reason whatever why Westall's +employers should not know that, although Mr. Wharton was working up the +defence with an energy and ability which set Burridge marvelling, it was +still his, Burridge's opinion, that everything that could be advanced +would be wholly unavailing with the jury; that the evidence, as it came +into final shape, looked worse for Hurd rather than better; and that the +only hope for the man lay in the after-movement for reprieve which can +always be got up in a game-preserving case. + +"And is as a rule political and anti-landlord," thought Aldous, on one +of these mornings, as he rode along the edge of the down. He foresaw +exactly what would happen. As he envisaged the immediate future, he saw +one figure as the centre of it--not Marcella, but Wharton! Wharton was +defending, Wharton would organise the petition, Wharton would apply for +his own support and his grandfather's, through Marcella. To Wharton +would belong not only the popular _kudos_ of the matter, but much more, +and above all, Marcella's gratitude. + +Aldous pulled up his horse an instant, recognising that spot in the +road, that downward stretching glade among the beeches, where he had +asked Marcella to be his wife. The pale February sunlight was spreading +from his left hand through the bare grey trunks, and over the distant +shoulders of the woods, far into the white and purple of the chalk +plain. Sounds of labour came from the distant fields; sounds of winter +birds from the branches round him. The place, the time, raised in him +all the intensest powers of consciousness. He saw himself as the man +_standing midway_ in everything--speculation, politics, sympathies--as +the perennially ineffective and, as it seemed to his morbid mood, the +perennially defeated type, beside the Whartons of this world. Wharton! +He knew him--had read him long ago--read him afresh of late. Raeburn's +lip showed the contempt, the bitterness which the philosopher could not +repress, showed also the humiliation of the lover. Here was he, banished +from Marcella; here was Wharton, in possession of her mind and +sympathies, busily forging a link-- + +"It shall be _broken!_" said Raeburn to himself with a sudden fierce +concentration of will. "So much I will claim--and enforce." + +But not now, nothing now, but patience, delicacy, prudence. He gathered +himself together with a long breath, and went his way. + + * * * * * + +For the rest, the clash of motives and affections he felt and foresaw in +this matter of the Disley murders, became day by day more harassing. The +moral debate was strenuous enough. The murders had roused all the humane +and ethical instincts, which were in fact the man, to such a point that +they pursued him constantly, in the pauses of his crowded days, like +avenging Erinnyes. Hallin's remark that "game-preserving creates crime" +left him no peace. Intellectually he argued it, and on the whole +rejected it; morally, and in feeling, it scourged him. He had suffered +all his mature life under a too painful and scrupulous sense that he, +more than other men, was called to be his brother's keeper. It was +natural that, during these exhausting days, the fierce death on +Westall's rugged face, the piteous agony in Dynes's young eyes and +limbs, should haunt him, should make his landlord's place and +responsibility often mere ashes and bitterness. + +But, as Marcella had been obliged to perceive, he drew the sharpest line +between the bearings of this ghastly business on his own private life +and action, and its relation to public order. That the gamekeepers +destroyed were his servants, or practically his servants, made no +difference to him whatever in his estimate of the crime itself. If the +circumstances had been such that he could honestly have held Hurd not to +be a murderer, no employer's interest, no landlord's desire for +vengeance, would have stood in his way. On the other hand, believing, as +he emphatically did, that Hurd's slaying of Westall had been of a kind +more deliberate and less capable of excuse than most murders, he would +have held it a piece of moral cowardice to allow his own qualms and +compunctions as to the rights and wrongs of game-preserving to interfere +with a duty to justice and society. + +Ay! and something infinitely dearer to him than his own qualms and +compunctions. + +Hallin, who watched the whole debate in his friend day by day, was +conscious that he had never seen Aldous more himself, in spite of +trouble of mind; more "in character," so to speak, than at this moment. +Spiritual dignity of mind and temper, blended with a painful personal +humility, and interfused with all--determining all--elements of +judgment, subtleties, prejudices, modes of looking at things, for which +he was hardly responsible, so deeply ingrained were they by inheritance +and custom. More than this: did not the ultimate explanation of the +whole attitude of the man lie in the slow but irresistible revolt of a +strong individuality against the passion which had for a time suppressed +it? The truth of certain moral relations may be for a time obscured and +distorted; none the less, _reality_ wins the day. So Hallin read it. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, during days when both for Aldous and Wharton the claims of a +bustling, shouting public, which must be canvassed, shaken hands with, +and spoken to, and the constant alternations of business meetings, +committee-rooms and the rest, made it impossible, after all, for either +man to spend more than the odds and ends of thought upon anything +outside the clatter of politics, Marcella had been living a life of +intense and monotonous feeling, shut up almost within the walls of a +tiny cottage, hanging over sick-beds, and thrilling to each pulse of +anguish as it beat in the miserable beings she tended. + +The marriage of the season, with all its accompanying festivities and +jubilations, had not been put off for seven weeks--till after +Easter--without arousing a storm of critical astonishment both in +village and county. And when the reason was known--that it was because +Miss Boyce had taken the Disley murder so desperately to heart, that +until the whole affair was over, and the men either executed or +reprieved, she could spare no thought to wedding clothes or cates--there +was curiously little sympathy with Marcella. Most of her own class +thought it a piece of posing, if they did not say so as frankly as Miss +Raeburn--something done for self-advertisement and to advance +anti-social opinions; while the Mellor cottagers, with the instinctive +English recoil from any touch of sentiment not, so to speak, in the +bargain, gossiped and joked about it freely. + +"She can't be very fond o' 'im, not of Muster Raeburn, she can't," said +old Patton, delivering himself as he sat leaning on his stick at his +open door, while his wife and another woman or two chattered inside. +"_Not_ what I'd call lover-y. She don't want to run in harness, she +don't, no sooner than, she need. She's a peert filly is Miss Boyce." + +"I've been a-waitin', an' a-waitin'," said his wife, with her gentle +sigh, "to hear summat o' that new straw-plaitin' she talk about. But +nary a word. They do say as it's give up althegither." + +"No, she's took up wi' nursin' Minta Hurd--wonderful took up," said +another woman. "They do say as Ann Mullins can't abear her. When she's +there nobody can open their mouth. When that kind o' thing happens in +the fambly it's bad enoof without havin' a lady trailin' about you all +day long, so that you have to be mindin' yersel', an' thinkin' about +givin' her a cheer, an' the like." + +One day in the dusk, more than a fortnight after the inquest, Marcella, +coming from the Hurds' cottage, overtook Mrs. Jellison, who was going +home after spending the afternoon with her daughter. + +Hitherto Marcella had held aloof from Isabella Westall and her +relations, mainly, to do her justice, from fear lest she might somehow +hurt or offend them. She had been to see Charlie Dynes's mother, but she +had only brought herself to send a message of sympathy through Mary +Harden to the keeper's widow. + +Mrs. Jellison looked at her askance with her old wild eyes as Marcella +came up with her. + +"Oh, she's _puddlin'_ along," she said in answer to Marcella's inquiry, +using a word very familiar in the village. "She'll not do herself a +mischief while there's Nurse Ellen an' me to watch her like a pair o' +cats. She's dreadful upset, is Isabella--shouldn't ha' thought it of +her. That fust day"--a cloud darkened the curious, dreamy face--"no, I'm +not a-goin' to think about that fust day, I'm not, 'tain't a ha'porth o' +good," she added resolutely; "but she was all right when they'd let her +get 'im 'ome, and wash an' settle 'im, an' put 'im comfortable like in +his coffin. He wor a big man, miss, when he wor laid out! Searle, as +made the coffin, told her as ee 'adn't made one such an extry size since +old Harry Flood, the blacksmith, fifteen year ago. Ee'd soon a done for +Jim Hurd if it 'ad been fists o' both sides. But guns is things as yer +can't reckon on.". + +"Why didn't he let Hurd alone," said Marcella, sadly, "and prosecute him +next day? It's attacking men when their blood is up that brings these +awful hings about." + +"Wal, I don't see that," said Mrs. Jellison, pugnaciously; "he wor paid +to do 't--an' he had the law on his side. 'Ow 's she?" she said, +lowering her voice and jerking her thumb in the direction of the Hurds' +cottage. + +"She's very ill," replied Marcella, with a contraction of the brow. +"Dr. Clarke says she ought to stay in bed, but of course she won't." + +"They're a-goin' to try 'im Thursday?" said Mrs. Jellison, inquiringly. + +"Yes." + +"An' Muster Wharton be a-goin' to defend 'im. Muster Wharton may be +cliver, ee may--they do say as ee can see the grass growin', ee's that +knowin'--but ee'll not get Jim Hurd off; there's nobody in the village +as b'lieves for a moment as 'ow he will. They'll best 'im. Lor' bless +yer, they'll best 'im. I was a-sayin' it to Isabella this +afternoon--ee'll not save 'is neck, don't you be afeared." + +Marcella drew herself up with a shiver of repulsion. + +"Will it mend your daughter's grief to see another woman's heart broken? +Don't you suppose it might bring her some comfort, Mrs. Jellison, if she +were to try and forgive that poor wretch? She might remember that her +husband gave him provocation, and that anyway, if his life is spared, +his punishment and their misery will be heavy enough!" + +"Oh, lor' no!" said Mrs. Jellison, composedly. "She don't want to be +forgivin' of 'im. Mr. Harden ee come talkin' to 'er, but she isn't one +o' that sort, isn't Isabella. I'm sartin sure she'll be better in +'erself when they've put 'im out o' the way. It makes her all ov a fever +to think of Muster Wharton gettin' 'im off. _I_ don't bear Jim Hurd no +pertickler malice. Isabella may talk herself black i' the face, but she +and Johnnie'll have to come 'ome and live along o' me, whatever she may +say. She can't stay in that cottage, cos they'll be wantin' it for +another keeper. Lord Maxwell ee's givin' her a fine pension, my word ee +is! an' says ee'll look after Johnnie. And what with my bit +airnins--we'll do, yer know, miss--we'll do!" + +The old woman looked up with a nod, her green eyes sparkling with the +queer inhuman light that belonged to them. + +Marcella could not bring herself to say good-night to her, and was +hurrying on without a word, when Mrs. Jellison stopped her. + +"An' 'ow about that straw-plaitin', miss?" she said slyly. + +"I have had to put it on one side for a bit," said Marcella, coldly, +hating the woman's society. "I have had my hands full and Lady +Winterbourne has been away, but we shall, of course, take it up again +later." + +She walked away quickly, and Mrs. Jellison hobbled after her, grinning +to herself every now and then as she caught the straight, tall figure +against the red evening sky. + +"I'll go in ter town termorrer," she thought, "an' have a crack wi' +Jimmy Gedge; _ee_ needn't be afeard for 'is livin'. An' them great fules +as ha' bin runnin' in a string arter 'er, an' cacklin' about their +eighteen-pence a score, as I've told 'em times, I'll eat my apron the +fust week as iver they get it. I don't hold wi' ladies--no, nor passons +neither--not when it comes to meddlin' wi' your wittles, an' dictatin' +to yer about forgivin' them as ha' got the better ov yer. That young +lady there, what do she matter? That sort's allus gaddin' about? What'll +she keer about us when she's got 'er fine husband? Here o' Saturday, +gone o' Monday--that's what she is. Now Jimmy Gedge, yer kin allus count +on '_im._ Thirty-six year ee ha' set there in that 'ere shop, and I +guess ee'll set there till they call 'im ter kingdom come. Be's a +cheatin', sweatin', greedy old skinflint is Jimmy Gedge; but when yer +wants 'im yer _kin_ find 'im." + + * * * * * + +Marcella hurried home, she was expecting a letter from Wharton, the +third within a week. She had not set eyes on him since they had met that +first morning in the drive, and it was plain to her that he was as +unwilling as she was that there should be any meeting between them. +Since the moment of his taking up the case, in spite of the pressure of +innumerable engagements, he had found time to send her, almost daily, +sheets covered with his small even writing, in which every detail and +prospect of the legal situation, so far as it concerned James Hurd, were +noted and criticised with a shrewdness and fulness which never wavered, +and never lost for a moment the professional note. + +"Dear Miss Boyce"--the letters began--leading up to a "Yours +faithfully," which Marcella read as carefully as the rest. Often, as she +turned them over, she asked herself whether that scene in the library +had not been a mere delusion of the brain, whether the man whose wild +words and act had burnt themselves into her life could possibly be +writing her these letters, in this key, without a reference, without an +allusion. Every day, as she opened them, she looked them through quietly +with a shaking pulse; every day she found herself proudly able to hand +them on to her mother, with the satisfaction of one who has nothing to +conceal, whatever the rest of the world may suspect. He was certainly +doing his best to replace their friendship on that level of high +comradeship in ideas and causes which, as she told herself, it had once +occupied. His own wanton aggression and her weakness had toppled it down +thence, and brought it to ruin. She could never speak to him, never know +him again till it was re-established. Still his letters galled her. He +assumed, she supposed, that such a thing could happen, and nothing more +be said about it? How little he knew her, or what she had in her mind! + +Now, as she walked along, wrapped in her plaid cape, her thought was one +long tumultuous succession of painful or passionate images, interrupted +none the less at times by those curious self-observing pauses of which +she had always been capable. She had been sitting for hours beside Mrs. +Hurd, with little Willie upon her knees. The mother, always anaemic and +consumptive, was by now prostrate, the prey of a long-drawn agony, +peopled by visions of Jim alone and in prison--Jim on the scaffold with +the white cap over his eyes--Jim in the prison coffin--which would rouse +her shrieking from dreams which were the rending asunder of soul and +body. Minta Hurd's love for the unhappy being who had brought her to +this pass had been infinitely maternal. There had been a boundless pity +in it, and the secret pride of a soul, which, humble and modest towards +all the rest of the world, yet knew itself to be the breath and +sustenance, the indispensable aid of one other soul in the universe, and +gloried accordingly. To be cut off now from all ministration, all +comforting--to have to lie there like a log, imagining the moment when +the neighbours should come in and say, "It is all over--they have broken +his neck--and buried him"--it was a doom beyond all even that her timid +pessimist heart had ever dreamed. She had already seen him twice in +prison, and she knew that she would see him again. She was to go on +Monday, Miss Boyce said, before the trial began, and after--if they +brought him in guilty--they would let her say good-bye. She was always +thirsting to see him. But when she went, the prison surroundings +paralysed her. Both she and Hurd felt themselves caught in the wheels of +a great relentless machine, of which the workings filled them with a +voiceless terror. He talked to her spasmodically of the most incongruous +things--breaking out sometimes with a glittering eye into a string of +instances bearing on Westall's bullying and tyrannous ways. He told her +to return the books Miss Boyce had lent him, but when asked if he would +like to see Marcella he shrank and said no. Mr. Wharton was "doin' +capital" for him; but she wasn't to count on his getting off. And he +didn't know that he wanted to, neither. Once she took Willie to see him; +the child nearly died of the journey; and the father, "though any one +can see, miss, he's just sick for 'im," would not hear of his coming +again. Sometimes he would hardly kiss her at parting; he sat on his +chair, with his great head drooped forward over his red hands, lost in a +kind of animal lethargy. Westall's name always roused him. Hate still +survived. But it made _her_ life faint within her to talk of the +murdered man--wherein she showed her lack of the usual peasant's +realism and curiosity in the presence of facts of blood and violence. +When she was told it was time for her to go, and the heavy door was +locked behind her, the poor creature, terrified at the warder and the +bare prison silences, would hurry away as though the heavy hand of this +awful Justice were laid upon her too, torn by the thought of him she +left behind, and by the remembrance that he had only kissed her once, +and yet impelled by mere physical instinct towards the relief of Ann +Mullins's rough face waiting for her--of the outer air and the free +heaven. + +As for Willie, he was fast dwindling. Another week or two--the doctor +said--no more. He lay on Marcella's knee on a pillow, wasted to an +infant's weight, panting and staring with those strange blue eyes, but +always patient, always struggling to say his painful "thank you" when +she fed him with some of the fruit constantly sent her from Maxwell +Court. Everything that was said about his father he took in and +understood, but he did not seem to fret. His mother was almost divided +from him by this passivity of the dying; nor could she give him or his +state much attention. Her gentle, sensitive, but not profound nature was +strained already beyond bearing by more gnawing griefs. + +After her long sit in Mrs. Hurd's kitchen Marcella found the air of the +February evening tonic and delightful. Unconsciously impressions stole +upon her--the lengthening day, the celandines in the hedges, the +swelling lilac buds in the cottage gardens. They spoke to her youth, and +out of mere physical congruity it could not but respond. Still, her face +kept the angered look with which she had parted from Mrs. Jellison. +More than that--the last few weeks had visibly changed it, had graved +upon it the signs of "living." It was more beautiful than ever in its +significant black and white, but it was older--a _woman_ spoke from it. +Marcella had gone down into reality, and had found there the rebellion +and the storm for which such souls as hers are made. Rebellion most of +all. She had been living with the poor, in their stifling rooms, amid +their perpetual struggle for a little food and clothes and bodily ease; +she had seen this struggle, so hard in itself, combined with agonies of +soul and spirit, which made the physical destitution seem to the +spectator something brutally gratuitous, a piece of careless and +tyrannous cruelty on the part of Nature--or God? She would hardly let +herself think of Aldous--though she _must_ think of him by-and-by! He +and his fared sumptuously every hour! As for her, it was as though in +her woman's arms, on her woman's breast, she carried Lazarus all day, +stooping to him with a hungering pity. And Aldous stood aloof. Aldous +would not help her--or not with any help worth having--in consoling this +misery--binding up these sores. Her heart cried shame on him. She had a +crime against him to confess--but she felt herself his superior none the +less. If he cast her off--why then surely they would be quits, quits for +good and all. + +As she reached the front door of Mellor, she saw a little two-wheeled +cart standing outside it, and William holding the pony. + +Visitors were nowadays more common at Mellor than they had been, and +her instinct was to escape. But as she was turning to a side door +William touched his cap to her. + +"Mr. Wharton's waiting to see you, miss." + +She stopped sharply. + +"Where is Mrs. Boyce, William?" + +"In the drawing-room, miss." + +She walked in calmly. Wharton was standing on the rug, talking; Mrs. +Boyce was listening to what he had to say with the light repellent air +Marcella knew so well. + +When she came in Wharton stepped forward ceremoniously to shake hands, +then began to speak at once, with the manner of one who is on a business +errand and has no time to waste. + +"I thought it best, Miss Boyce, as I had unexpectedly a couple of spare +hours this evening, to come and let you know how things were going. You +understand that the case comes on at the assizes next Thursday?" + +Marcella assented. She had seated herself on the old sofa beside the +fire, her ungloved hands on her knee. Something in her aspect made +Wharton's eyes waver an instant as he looked down upon her--but it was +the only sign. + +"I should like to warn you," he said gravely, "that I entertain no hope +whatever of getting James Hurd off. I shall do my best, but the verdict +will certainly be murder; and the judge, I think, is sure to take a +severe view. We may get a recommendation to mercy, though I believe it +to be extremely unlikely. But if so, the influence of the judge, +according to what I hear, will probably be against us. The prosecution +have got together extremely strong evidence--as to Hurd's long +connection with the gang, in spite of the Raeburns' kindness--as to his +repeated threats that he would 'do for' Westall if he and his friends +were interrupted--and so on. His own story is wholly uncorroborated; and +Dynes's deposition, so far as it goes, is all against it." + +He went on to elaborate these points with great clearness of exposition +and at some length; then he paused. + +"This being so," he resumed, "the question is, what can be done? There +must be a petition. Amongst my own party I shall be, of course, able to +do something, but we must have men of all sides. Without some at least +of the leading Conservatives, we shall fare badly. In one word--do you +imagine that you can induce Mr. Raeburn and Lord Maxwell to sign?" + +Mrs. Boyce watched him keenly. Marcella sat in frozen paleness. + +"I will try," she said at last, with deliberation. + +"Then"--he took up his gloves--"there may be a chance for us. If you +cannot succeed, no one else can. But if Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn can +be secured, others will easily follow. Their names--especially under all +the circumstances--will carry a peculiar weight. I may say everything, +in the first instance--the weight, the first effect of the +petition--depends on them. Well, then, I leave it in your hands. No time +should be lost after the sentence. As to the grounds of our plea, I +shall, of course, lay them down in court to the best of my ability." + +"I shall be there," she interrupted. + +He started. So did Mrs. Boyce, but characteristically she made no +comment. + +"Well, then," he resumed after a pause, "I need say no more for the +present. How is the wife?" + +She replied, and a few other formal sentences of inquiry or comment +passed between them. + +"And your election?" said Mrs. Boyce, still studying him with hostile +eyes, as he got up to take leave. + +"To-morrow!" He threw up his hands with a little gesture of impatience. +"That at least will be one thread spun off and out of the way, whatever +happens. I must get back to Widrington as fast as my pony can carry me. +Good-bye, Miss Boyce." + +Marcella went slowly upstairs. The scene which had just passed was +unreal, impossible; yet every limb was quivering. Then the sound of the +front door shutting sent a shock through her whole nature. The first +sensation was one of horrible emptiness, forlornness. The next--her mind +threw itself with fresh vehemence upon the question, "Can I, by any +means, get my way with Aldous?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +"And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" The deep-pitched words fell +slowly on Marcella's ears, as she sat leaning forward in the gallery of +the Widrington Assize Court. Women were sobbing beside and behind her. +Minta Hurd, to her left, lay in a half-swoon against her sister-in-law, +her face buried in Ann's black shawl. For an instant after Hurd's death +sentence had been spoken Marcella's nerves ceased to throb--the long +exhaustion of feeling stopped. The harsh light and shade of the ill-lit +room; the gas-lamps in front of the judge, blanching the ranged faces of +the jury; the long table of reporters below, some writing, but most +looking intently towards the dock; the figure of Wharton opposite, in +his barrister's gown and wig--that face of his, so small, nervous, +delicate--the frowning eyebrows a dark bar under the white of the +wig--his look, alert and hostile, fixed upon the judge; the heads and +attitudes of the condemned men, especially the form of a fair-haired +youth, the principal murderer of Charlie Dynes, who stood a little in +front of the line, next to Hurd, and overshadowing his dwarf's +stature--these things Marcella saw indeed; for years after she could +have described them point by point; but for some seconds or minutes her +eyes stared at them without conscious reaction of the mind on the +immediate spectacle. + +In place of it, the whole day, all these hours that she had been sitting +there, brushed before her in a synthesis of thought, replacing the +stream of impressions and images. The crushing accumulation of hostile +evidence--witness after witness coming forward to add to the damning +weight of it; the awful weakness of the defence--Wharton's irritation +under it--the sharpness, the useless, acrid ability of his +cross-examinations; yet, contrasting with the legal failure, the +personal success, the mixture of grace with energy, the technical +accomplishment of the manner, as one wrestling before his +equals--nothing left here of the garrulous vigour and brutality of the +labourers' meeting!--the masterly use of all that could avail, the few +quiet words addressed at the end to the pity of the jury, and by +implication to the larger ethical sense of the community,--all this she +thought of with great intellectual clearness while the judge's sonorous +voice rolled along, sentencing each prisoner in turn. Horror and pity +were alike weary; the brain asserted itself. + +The court was packed. Aldous Raeburn sat on Marcella's right hand; and +during the day the attention of everybody in the dingy building had been +largely divided between the scene below, and that strange group in the +gallery where the man who had just been elected Conservative member for +East Brookshire, who was Lord Maxwell's heir, and Westall's employer, +sat beside his betrothed, in charge of a party which comprised not only +Marcella Boyce, but the wife, sister, and little girl of Westall's +murderer. + +On one occasion some blunt answer of a witness had provoked a laugh +coming no one knew whence. The judge turned to the gallery and looked up +sternly--"I cannot conceive why men and women--women especially--should +come crowding in to hear such a case as this; but if I hear another +laugh I shall clear the court." Marcella, whose whole conscious nature +was by now one network of sensitive nerve, saw Aldous flush and shrink +as the words were spoken. Then, looking across the court, she caught the +eye of an old friend of the Raeburns, a county magistrate. At the +judge's remark he had turned involuntarily to where she and Aldous sat; +then, as he met Miss Boyce's face, instantly looked away again. She +perfectly--passionately--understood that Brookshire was very sorry for +Aldous Raeburn that day. + +The death sentences--three in number--were over. The judge was a very +ordinary man; but, even for the ordinary man, such an act carries with +it a great tradition of what is befitting, which imposes itself on voice +and gesture. When he ceased, the deep breath of natural emotion could be +felt and heard throughout the crowded court; loud wails of sobbing women +broke from the gallery. + +"Silence!" cried an official voice, and the judge resumed, amid stifled +sounds that stabbed Marcella's sense, once more nakedly alive to +everything around it. + +The sentences to penal servitude came to an end also. Then a ghastly +pause. The line of prisoners directed by the warders turned right about +face towards a door in the back wall of the court. As the men filed +out, the tall, fair youth, one of those condemned to death, stopped an +instant and waved his hand to his sobbing sweetheart in the gallery. +Hurd also turned irresolutely. + +"Look!" exclaimed Ann Mullins, propping up the fainting woman beside +her, "he's goin'." + +Marcella bent forward. She, rather than the wife, caught the last look +on his large dwarf's face, so white and dazed, the eyes blinking under +the gas. + +Aldous touched her softly on the arm. + +"Yes," she said quickly, "yes, we must get her out. Ann, can you lift +her?" + +Aldous went to one side of the helpless woman: Ann Mullins held her on +the other. Marcella followed, pressing the little girl close against her +long black cloak. The gallery made way for them; every one looked and +whispered till they had passed. Below, at the foot of the stairs, they +found themselves in a passage crowded with people--lawyers, witnesses, +officials, mixed with the populace. Again a road was opened for Aldous +and his charges. + +"This way, Mr. Raeburn," said a policeman, with alacrity. "Stand back, +please! Is your carriage there, sir?" + +"Let Ann Mullins take her--put them into the cab--I want to speak to Mr. +Wharton," said Marcella in Aldous's ear. + +"Get me a cab at once," he said to the policeman, "and tell my carriage +to wait." + +"Miss Boyce!" + +Marcella turned hastily and saw Wharton beside her. Aldous also saw +him, and the two men interchanged a few words. + +"There is a private room close by," said Wharton, "I am to take you +there, and Mr. Raeburn will join us at once." + +He led her along a corridor, and opened a door to the left. They entered +a small dingy room, looking through a begrimed window on a courtyard. +The gas was lit, and the table was strewn with papers. + +"Never, never more beautiful!" flashed through Wharton's mind, "with +that knit, strenuous brow--that tragic scorn for a base world--that +royal gait--" + +Aloud he said: + +"I have done my best privately among the people I can get at, and I +thought, before I go up to town to-night--you know Parliament meets on +Monday?--I would show you what I had been able to do, and ask you to +take charge of a copy of the petition." He pointed to a long envelope +lying on the table. "I have drafted it myself--I think it puts all the +points we can possibly urge--but as to the names--" + +He took out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. + +"It won't do," he said, looking down at it, and shaking his head. "As I +said to you, it is so far political merely. There is a very strong +Liberal and Radical feeling getting up about the case. But that won't +carry us far. This petition with these names is a demonstration against +game preserving and keepers' tyranny. What we want is the co-operation +of a _neighbourhood_, especially of its leading citizens. However, I +explained all this to you--there is no need to discuss it. Will you look +at the list?" + +Still holding it, he ran his finger over it, commenting here and there. +She stood beside him; the sleeve of his gown brushed her black cloak; +and under his perfect composure there beat a wild exultation in his +power--without any apology, any forgiveness--to hold her there, alone +with him, listening--her proud head stooped to his--her eye following +his with this effort of anxious attention. + +She made a few hurried remarks on the names, but her knowledge of the +county was naturally not very serviceable. He folded up the paper and +put it back. + +"I think we understand," he said. "You will do what you can in the only +quarter"--he spoke slowly--"that can really aid, and you will +communicate with me at the House of Commons? I shall do what I can, of +course, when the moment comes, in Parliament, and meanwhile I shall +start the matter in the Press--our best hope. The Radical papers are +already taking it up." + +There was a sound of steps in the passage outside. A policeman opened +the door, and Aldous Raeburn entered. His quick look ran over the two +figures standing beside the table. + +"I had some difficulty in finding a cab," he explained, "and we had to +get some brandy; but she came round, and we got her off. I sent one of +our men with her. The carriage is here." + +He spoke--to Marcella--with some formality. He was very pale, but there +was both authority and tension in his bearing. + +"I have been consulting with Miss Boyce," said Wharton, with equal +distance of manner, "as to the petition we are sending up to the Home +Office." + +Aldous made no reply. + +"One word, Miss Boyce,"--Wharton quietly turned to her. "May I ask you +to read the petition carefully, before you attempt to do anything with +it? It lays stress on the _only_ doubt that can reasonably be felt after +the evidence, and after the judge's summing up. That particular doubt I +hold to be entirely untouched by the trial; but it requires careful +stating--the issues may easily be confused." + +"Will you come?" said Aldous to Marcella. What she chose to think the +forced patience of his tone exasperated her. + +"I will do everything I can," she said in a low, distinct voice to +Wharton. "Good-bye." + +She held out her hand. To both the moment was one of infinite meaning; +to her, in her high spiritual excitement, a sacrament of pardon and +gratitude--expressed once for all--by this touch--in Aldous Raeburn's +presence. + +The two men nodded to each other. Wharton was already busy, putting his +papers together. + +"We shall meet next week, I suppose, in the House?" said Wharton, +casually. "Good-night." + + * * * * * + +"Will you take me to the Court?" said Marcella to Aldous, directly the +door of the carriage was shut upon them, and, amid a gaping crowd that +almost filled the little market-place of Widrington, the horses moved +off. "I told mamma, that, if I did not come home, I should be with you, +and that I should ask you to send me back from the Court to-night." + +She still held the packet Wharton had given her in her hand. As though +for air, she had thrown back the black gauze veil she had worn all +through the trial, and, as they passed through the lights of the town, +Aldous could see in her face the signs--the plain, startling signs--of +the effect of these weeks upon her. Pale, exhausted, yet showing in +every movement the nervous excitement which was driving her on--his +heart sank as he looked at her--foreseeing what was to come. + +As soon as the main street had been left behind, he put his head out of +the window, and gave the coachman, who had been told to go to Mellor, +the new order. + +"Will you mind if I don't talk?" said Marcella, when he was again beside +her. "I think I am tired out, but I might rest now a little. When we get +to the Court, will you ask Miss Raeburn to let me have some food in her +sitting-room? Then, at nine o'clock or so, may I come down and see Lord +Maxwell and you--together?" + +What she said, and the manner in which she said it, could only add to +his uneasiness; but he assented, put a cushion behind her, wrapped the +rugs round her, and then sat silent, train after train of close and +anxious thought passing through his mind as they rolled along the dark +roads. + +When they arrived at Maxwell Court, the sound of the carriage brought +Lord Maxwell and Miss Raeburn at once into the hall. + +Aldous went forward in front of Marcella. "I have brought Marcella," he +said hastily to his aunt. "Will you take her upstairs to your +sitting-room, and let her have some food and rest? She is not fit for +the exertion of dinner, but she wishes to speak to my grandfather +afterwards." + +Lord Maxwell had already hurried to meet the black-veiled figure +standing proudly in the dim light of the outer hall. + +"My dear! my dear!" he said, drawing her arm within his, and patting her +hand in fatherly fashion. "How worn-out you look!--Yes, +certainly--Agneta, take her up and let her rest--And you wish to speak +to me afterwards? Of course, my dear, of course--at any time." + +Miss Raeburn, controlling herself absolutely, partly because of Aldous's +manner, partly because of the servants, took her guest upstairs +straightway, put her on the sofa in a cheerful sitting-room with a +bright fire, and then, shrewdly guessing that she herself could not +possibly be a congenial companion to the girl at such a moment, whatever +might have happened or might be going to happen, she looked at her +watch, said that she must go down to dinner, and promptly left her to +the charge of a kind elderly maid, who was to do and get for her +whatever she would. + +Marcella made herself swallow some food and wine. Then she said that she +wished to be alone and rest for an hour, and would come downstairs at +nine o'clock. The maid, shocked by her pallor, was loth to leave her, +but Marcella insisted. + +When she was left alone she drew herself up to the fire and tried hard +to get warm, as she had tried to eat. When in this way a portion of +physical ease and strength had come back to her, she took out the +petition from its envelope and read it carefully. As she did so her lip +relaxed, her eye recovered something of its brightness. All the points +that had occurred to her confusedly, amateurishly, throughout the day, +were here thrown into luminous and admirable form. She had listened to +them indeed, as urged by Wharton in his concluding speech to the jury, +but it had not, alas! seemed so marvellous to her then, as it did now, +that, _after_ such a plea, the judge should have summed up as he did. + +When she had finished it and had sat thinking awhile over the declining +fire, an idea struck her. She took a piece of paper from Miss Raeburn's +desk, and wrote on it: + +"Will you read this--and Lord Maxwell--before I come down? I forgot that +you had not seen it.--M." + +A ring at the bell brought the maid. + +"Will you please get this taken to Mr. Raeburn? And then, don't disturb +me again for half an hour." + +And for that time she lay in Miss Raeburn's favourite chair, outwardly +at rest. Inwardly she was ranging all her arguments, marshalling all her +forces. + +When the chiming clock in the great hall below struck nine, she got up +and put the lamp for a moment on the mantelpiece, which held a mirror. +She had already bathed her face and smoothed her hair. But she looked at +herself again with attention, drew down the thick front waves of hair a +little lower on the white brow, as she liked to have them, and once +more straightened the collar and cuffs which were the only relief to her +plain black dress. + +The house as she stepped out into it seemed very still. Perfumed breaths +of flowers and pot-pourri ascended from the hall. The pictures along the +walls as she passed were those same Caroline and early Georgian beauties +that had so flashingly suggested her own future rule in this domain on +the day when Aldous proposed to her. + +She felt suddenly very shrinking and lonely as she went downstairs. The +ticking of a large clock somewhere--the short, screaming note of Miss +Raeburn's parrot in one of the ground-floor rooms--these sounds and the +beating of her own heart seemed to have the vast house to themselves. + +No!--that was a door opening--Aldous coming to fetch her. She drew a +childish breath of comfort. + +He sprang up the stairs, two or three steps at a time, as he saw her +coming. + +"Are you rested--were they good to you? Oh! my precious one!--how pale +you are still! Will you come and see my--grandfather now? He is quite +ready." + +She let him lead her in. Lord Maxwell was standing by his writing-table, +leaning over the petition which was open before him--one hand upon it. +At sight of her he lifted his white head. His fine aquiline face was +grave and disturbed. But nothing could have been kinder or more courtly +than his manner as he came towards her. + +"Sit down in that chair. Aldous, make her comfortable. Poor child, how +tired she looks! I hear you wished to speak to me on this most unhappy, +most miserable business." + +Marcella, who was sitting erect on the edge of the chair into which +Aldous had put her, lifted her eyes with a sudden confidence. She had +always liked Lord Maxwell. + +"Yes," she said, struggling to keep down eagerness and emotion. "Yes, I +came to bring you this petition, which is to be sent up to the Home +Secretary on behalf of Jim Hurd, and--and--to _beg_ of you and Aldous to +sign it, if in any way you can. I know it will be difficult, but I +thought I might--I might be able to suggest something to you--to +convince you--as I have known these people so well--and it is very +important to have your signatures." + +How crude it sounded--how mechanical! She felt that she had not yet +command of herself. The strange place, the stately room, the +consciousness of Aldous behind her--Aldous, who should have been on her +side and was not--all combined to intimidate her. + +Lord Maxwell's concern was evident. In the first place, he was +painfully, unexpectedly struck by the change in the speaker. Why, what +had Aldous been about? So thin! so frail and willowy in her black +dress--monstrous! + +"My dear," he said, walking up to her and laying a fatherly hand on her +shoulder, "my dear, I wish I could make you understand how gladly I +would do this, or anything else, for you, if I honourably could. I would +do it for your sake and for your grandfather's sake. But--this is a +matter of conscience, of public duty, both for Aldous and myself. You +will not surely _wish_ even, that we should be governed in our relations +to it by any private feeling or motive?" + +"No, but I have had no opportunity of speaking to you about it--and I +take such a different view from Aldous. He knows--everybody must +know--that there is another side, another possible view from that which +the judge took. You weren't in court to-day, were you, at all?" + +"No. But I read all the evidence before the magistrates with great care, +and I have just talked over the crucial points with Aldous, who followed +everything to-day, as you know, and seems to have taken special note of +Mr. Wharton's speeches." + +"Aldous!"--her voice broke irrepressibly into another note--"I thought +he would have let me speak to you first!--to-night!" + +Lord Maxwell, looking quickly at his grandson, was very sorry for him. +Aldous bent over her chair. + +"You remember," he said, "you sent down the petition. I thought that +meant that we were to read and discuss it. I am very sorry." + +She tried to command herself, pressing her hand to her brow. But already +she felt the irrevocable, and anger and despair were rising. + +"The whole point lies in this," she said, looking up: "_Can_ we believe +Hurd's own story? There is no evidence to corroborate it. I grant +that--the judge did not believe it--and there is the evidence of hatred. +But is it not possible and conceivable all the same? He says that he did +not go out with any thought whatever of killing Westall, but that when +Westall came upon him with his stick up, threatening and abusing him, +as he had done often before, in a fit of wild rage he shot at him. +Surely, _surely_ that is conceivable? There _is_--there _must_ be a +doubt; or, if it is murder, murder done in that way is quite, quite +different from other kinds and degrees of murder." + +Now she possessed herself. The gift of flowing persuasive speech which +was naturally hers, which the agitations, the debates of these weeks had +been maturing, came to her call. She leant forward and took up the +petition. One by one she went through its pleas, adding to them here and +there from her own knowledge of Hurd and his peasant's life--presenting +it all clearly, with great intellectual force, but in an atmosphere of +emotion, of high pity, charged throughout with the "tears of things." To +her, gradually, unconsciously, the whole matter--so sordid, commonplace, +brutal in Lord Maxwell's eyes!--had become a tragic poem, a thing of +fear and pity, to which her whole being vibrated. And as she conceived +it, so she reproduced it. Wharton's points were there indeed, but so +were Hurd's poverty, Hurd's deformity, Hurd as the boyish victim of a +tyrant's insults, the miserable wife, the branded children--emphasised, +all of them, by the occasional quiver, quickly steadied again, of the +girl's voice. + +Lord Maxwell sat by his writing-table, his head resting on his hand, one +knee crossed over the other. Aldous still hung over her chair. Neither +interrupted her. Once the eyes of the two men met over her head--a +distressed, significant look. Aldous heard all she said, but what +absorbed him mainly was the wild desire to kiss the dark hair, so close +below him, alternating with the miserable certainty that for him at that +moment to touch, to soothe her, was to be repulsed. + +When her voice broke--when she had said all she could think of--she +remained looking imploringly at Lord Maxwell. + +He was silent a little; then he stooped forward and took her hand. + +"You have spoken," he said with great feeling, "most nobly--most +well--like a good woman, with a true compassionate heart. But all these +things you have said are not new to me, my dear child. Aldous warned me +of this petition--he has pressed upon me, still more I am sure upon +himself, all that he conceived to be your view of the case--the view of +those who are now moving in the matter. But with the best will in the +world I cannot, and I believe that he cannot--though he must speak for +himself--I cannot take that view. In my belief Hurd's act was murder, +and deserves the penalty of murder. I have paid some attention to these +things. I was a practising barrister in my youth, and later I was for +two years Home Secretary. I will explain to you my grounds very +shortly." + +And, bending forward, he gave the reasons for his judgment of the case +as carefully and as lucidly as though he were stating them to a +fellow-expert, and not to an agitated girl of twenty-one. Both in words +and manner there was an implied tribute, not only to Marcella, but +perhaps to that altered position of the woman in our moving world which +affects so many things and persons in unexpected ways. + +Marcella listened, restlessly. She had drawn her hand away, and was +twisting her handkerchief between her fingers. The flush that had sprung +up while she was talking had died away. She grew whiter and whiter. When +Lord Maxwell ceased, she said quickly, and as he thought unreasonably-- + +"So you will not sign?" + +"No," he replied firmly, "I cannot sign. Holding the conviction about +the matter I do, I should be giving my name to statements I do not +believe; and in order to give myself the pleasure of pleasing you, and +of indulging the pity that every man must feel for every murderer's wife +and children, I should be not only committing a public wrong, but I +should be doing what I could to lessen the safety and security of one +whole class of my servants--men who give me honourable service--and two +of whom have been so cruelly, so wantonly hurried before their Maker!" + +His voice gave the first sign of his own deep and painful feeling on the +matter. Marcella shivered. + +"Then," she said slowly, "Hurd will be executed." + +Lord Maxwell had a movement of impatience. + +"Let me tell you," he said, "that that does not follow at all. There is +_some_ importance in signatures--or rather in the local movement that +the signatures imply. It enables a case to be reopened, which, in any +event, this case is sure to be. But any Home Secretary who could decide +a murder case on any other grounds whatever than those of law and his +own conscience would not deserve his place a day--an hour! Believe me, +you mistake the whole situation." + +He spoke slowly, with the sharp emphasis natural to his age and +authority. Marcella did not believe him. Every nerve was beginning to +throb anew with that passionate recoil against tyranny and prejudice, +which was in itself an agony. + +"And you say the same?" she said, turning to Aldous. + +"I cannot sign that petition," he said sadly. "Won't you try and believe +what it costs me to refuse?" + +It was a heavy blow to her. Amply as she had been prepared for it, there +had always been at the bottom of her mind a persuasion that in the end +she would get her way. She had been used to feel barriers go down before +that ultimate power of personality of which she was abundantly +conscious. Yet it had not availed her here--not even with the man who +loved her. + +Lord Maxwell looked at the two--the man's face of suffering, the girl's +struggling breath. + +"There, there, Aldous!" he said, rising. "I will leave you a minute. Do +make Marcella rest--get her, for all our sakes, to forget this a little. +Bring her in presently to us for some coffee. Above all, persuade her +that we love her and admire her with all our hearts, but that in a +matter of this kind she must leave us to do--as before God!--what we +think right." + +He stood before her an instant, gazing down upon her with dignity--nay, +a certain severity. Then he turned away and left the room. + +Marcella sprang up. + +"Will you order the carriage?" she said in a strangled voice. "I will go +upstairs." + +"Marcella!" cried Aldous; "can you not be just to me, if it is +impossible for you to be generous?" + +"Just!" she repeated, with a tone and gesture of repulsion, pushing him +back from her. "_You_ can talk of justice!" + +He tried to speak, stammered, and failed. That strange paralysis of the +will-forces which dogs the man of reflection at the moment when he must +either take his world by storm or lose it was upon him now. He had never +loved her more passionately--but as he stood there looking at her, +something broke within him, the first prescience of the inevitable +dawned. + +"_You_," she said again, walking stormily to and fro, and catching at +her breath--"_You_, in this house, with this life--to talk of +justice--the justice that comes of slaying a man like Hurd! And I must +go back to that cottage, to that woman, and tell her there is _no_ +hope--none! Because _you_ must follow your conscience--you who have +everything! Oh! I would not have your conscience--I wish you a +heart--rather! Don't come to me, please! Oh! I must think how it can be. +Things cannot go on so. I should kill myself, and make you miserable. +But now I must go to _her_--to the _poor_--to those whom I _love_, whom +I carry in my heart!" + +She broke off sobbing. He saw her, in her wild excitement, look round +the splendid room as though she would wither it to ruin with one fiery, +accusing glance. + +"You are very scornful of wealth," he said, catching her wrists, "but +one thing you have no right to scorn!--the man who has given you his +inmost heart--and now only asks you to believe in this, that he is not +the cruel hypocrite you are determined to make him!" + +His face quivered in every feature. She was checked a moment--checked by +the moral compulsion of his tone and manner, as well as by his words. +But again she tore herself away. + +"_Please_ go and order the carriage," she said. "I cannot bear any more. +I _must_ go home and rest. Some day I will ask your pardon--oh! for +this--and--and--" she was almost choked again--"other things. But now I +must go away. There is some one who will help me. I must not forget +that!" + +The reckless words, the inflection, turned Aldous to stone. +Unconsciously he drew himself proudly erect--their eyes met. Then he +went up to the bell and rang it. + +"The brougham at once, for Miss Boyce. Will you have a maid to go with +you?" he asked, motioning the servant to stay till Miss Boyce had given +her answer. + +"No, thank you. I must go and put on my things. Will you explain to Miss +Raeburn?" + +The footman opened the door for her. She went. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +"But this is unbearable!" said Aldous. "Do you mean to say that she is +at home and that she will not see me?" + +Mrs. Boyce's self-possession was shaken for once by the flushed +humiliation of the man before her. + +"I am afraid it is so," she said hurriedly. "I remonstrated with +Marcella, but I could do nothing. I think, if you are wise, you will not +for the present attempt to see her." + +Aldous sat down, with his hat in his hand, staring at the floor. After a +few moments' silence he looked up again. + +"And she gave you no message for me?" + +"No," said Mrs. Boyce, reluctantly. "Only that she could not bear to see +anybody from the Court, even you, while this matter was still +undecided." + +Aldous's eye travelled round the Mellor drawing-room. It was arrested by +a chair beside him. On it lay an envelope addressed to Miss Boyce, of +which the handwriting seemed to him familiar. A needle with some black +silk hanging from it had been thrust into the stuffed arm of the chair; +the cushion at the back still bore the imprint of the sitter. She had +been there, not three minutes ago, and had fled before him. The door +into Mrs. Boyce's sitting-room was still ajar. + +He looked again at the envelope on the chair, and recognised the +writing. Walking across to where Mrs. Boyce sat, he took a seat beside +her. + +"Will you tell me," he said steadily--"I think you will admit I have a +right to know--is Marcella in constant correspondence now with Henry +Wharton?" + +Mrs. Boyce's start was not perceptible. + +"I believe so," she quickly replied. "So far as I can judge, he writes +to her almost every other day." + +"Does she show you his letters?" + +"Very often. They are entirely concerned with his daily interviews and +efforts on Hurd's behalf." + +"Would you not say," he asked, after another pause, raising his clear +grey eyes to her, "that since his arrival here in December Marcella's +whole views and thoughts have been largely--perhaps vitally--influenced +by this man?" + +Mrs. Boyce had long expected questions of this kind--had, indeed, often +marvelled and cavilled that Aldous had not asked them weeks before. Now +that they were put to her she was, first of all, anxious to treat them +with common sense, and as much plain truth as might be fair to both +parties. The perpetual emotion in which Marcella lived tired and +oppressed the mother. For herself she asked to see things in a dry +light. Yet she knew well that the moment was critical. Her feeling was +more mixed than it had been. On the whole it was indignantly on Aldous's +side--with qualifications and impatiences, however. + +She took up her embroidery again before she answered him. In her +opinion the needle is to the woman what the cigarette is to the +diplomatist. + +"Yes, certainly," she said at last. "He has done a great deal to form +her opinions. He has made her both read and think on all those subjects +she has so long been fond of talking about." + +She saw Aldous wince; but she had her reasons for being plain with him. + +"Has there been nothing else than that in it?" said Aldous, in an odd +voice. + +Mrs. Boyce tried no evasions. She looked at him straight, her slight, +energetic head, with its pale gold hair lit up by the March sun behind +her. + +"I do not know," she said calmly; "that is the real truth. I _think_ +there is nothing else. But let me tell you what more I think." + +Aldous laid his hand on hers for an instant. In his pity and liking for +her he had once or twice allowed himself this quasi-filial freedom. + +"If you would," he entreated. + +"Leave Marcella quite alone--for the present. She is not herself--not +normal, in any way. Nor will she be till this dreadful thing is over. +But when it is over, and she has had time to recover a little, +_then_"--her thin voice expressed all the emphasis it could--"_then_ +assert yourself! Ask her that question you have asked me--and get your +answer." + +He understood. Her advice to him, and the tone of it, implied that she +had not always thought highly of his powers of self-defence in the past. +But there was a proud and sensitive instinct in him which both told him +that he could not have done differently and forbade him to explain. + +"You have come from London to-day?" said Mrs. Boyce, changing the +subject. All intimate and personal conversation was distasteful to her, +and she admitted few responsibilities. Her daughter hardly counted among +them. + +"Yes; London is hard at work cabinet-making," he said, trying to smile. +"I must get back to-night." + +"I don't know how you could be spared," said Mrs. Boyce. + +He paused; then he broke out: "When a man is in the doubt and trouble I +am, he must be spared. Indeed, since the night of the trial, I feel as +though I had been of very little use to any human being." + +He spoke simply, but every word touched her. What an inconceivable +entanglement the whole thing was! Yet she was no longer merely +contemptuous of it. + +"Look!" she said, lifting a bit of black stuff from the ground beside +the chair which held the envelope; "she is already making the mourning +for the children. I can see she despairs." + +He made a sound of horror. + +"Can you do nothing?" he cried reproachfully. "To think of her dwelling +upon this--nothing but this, day and night--and I, banished and +powerless!" + +He buried his head in his hands. + +"No, I can do nothing," said Mrs. Boyce, deliberately. Then, after a +pause, "You do not imagine there is any chance of success for her?" + +He looked up and shook his head. + +"The Radical papers are full of it, as you know. Wharton is managing it +with great ability, and has got some good supporters in the House. But I +happened to see the judge the day before yesterday, and I certainly +gathered from him that the Home Office was likely to stand firm. There +may be some delay. The new ministry will not kiss hands till Saturday. +But no doubt it will be the first business of the new Home +Secretary.--By the way, I had rather Marcella did not hear of my seeing +Judge Cartwright," he added hastily--almost imploringly. "I could not +bear that she should suppose--" + +Mrs. Boyce thought to herself indignantly that she never could have +imagined such a man in such a plight. + +"I must go," he said, rising. "Will you tell her from me," he added +slowly, "that I could never have believed she would be so unkind as to +let me come down from London to see her, and send me away empty--without +a word?" + +"Leave it to my discretion," said Mrs. Boyce, smiling and looking up. +"Oh, by the way, she told me to thank you. Mr. Wharton, in his letter +this morning, mentioned that you had given him two introductions which +were important to him. She specially wished you to be thanked for it." + +His exclamation had a note of impatient contempt that Mrs. Boyce was +genuinely glad to hear. In her opinion he was much too apt to forget +that the world yields itself only to the "violent." + +He walked away from the house without once looking back. Marcella, from, +her window, watched him go. + +"How _could_ she see him?" she asked herself passionately, both then +and on many other occasions during these rushing, ghastly days. His turn +would come, and it should be amply given him. But _now_ the very thought +of that half-hour in Lord Maxwell's library threw her into wild tears. +The time for entreaty--for argument--was gone by, so far as he was +concerned. He might have been her champion, and would not. She threw +herself recklessly, madly into the encouragement and support of the man +who had taken up the task which, in her eyes, should have been her +lover's. It had become to her a _fight_--with society, with the law, +with Aldous--in which her whole nature was absorbed. In the course of +the fight she had realised Aldous's strength, and it was a bitter +offence to her. + +How little she could do after all! She gathered together all the +newspapers that were debating the case, and feverishly read every line; +she wrote to Wharton, commenting on what she read, and on his letters; +she attended the meetings of the Reprieve Committee which had been +started at Widrington; and she passed hours of every day with Minta Hurd +and her children. She would hardly speak to Mary Harden and the rector, +because they had not signed the petition, and at home her relations with +her father were much strained. Mr. Boyce was awakening to a good deal of +alarm as to how things might end. He might not like the Raeburns, but +that anything should come in the way of his daughter's match was, +notwithstanding, the very last thing in the world, as he soon +discovered, that he really desired. During six months he had taken it +for granted; so had the county. He, of all men, could not afford to be +made ridiculous, apart from the solid, the extraordinary advantages of +the matter. He thought Marcella a foolish, unreasonable girl, and was +not the less in a panic because his wife let him understand that he had +had a good deal to do with it. So that between him and his daughter +there were now constant sparrings--sparrings which degraded Marcella in +her own eyes, and contributed not a little to make her keep away from +home. + +The one place where she breathed freely, where the soul had full course, +was in Minta Hurd's kitchen. Side by side with that piteous plaintive +misery, her own fierceness dwindled. She would sit with little Willie on +her knees in the dusk of the spring evenings, looking into the fire, and +crying silently. She never suspected that her presence was often a +burden and constraint, not only to the sulky sister-in-law but to the +wife herself. While Miss Boyce was there the village kept away; and Mrs. +Hurd was sometimes athirst, without knowing it, for homelier speech and +simpler consolations than any Marcella could give her. + +The last week arrived. Wharton's letters grew more uncertain and +despondent; the Radical press fought on with added heat as the cause +became more desperate. On Monday the wife went to see the condemned man, +who told her not to be so silly as to imagine there was any hope. +Tuesday night, Wharton asked his last question in Parliament. Friday was +the day fixed for the execution. + +The question in Parliament came on late. The Home Secretary's answer, +though not final in form, was final in substance. Wharton went out +immediately and wrote to Marcella. "She will not sleep if I telegraph +to-night," he thought, with that instinct for detail, especially for +physical detail, which had in it something of the woman. But, knowing +that his letter could not reach her by the early post with the stroke of +eight next morning, he sent out his telegram, that she might not learn +the news first from the papers. + +Marcella had wandered out before breakfast, feeling the house an +oppression, and knowing that, one way or another, the last news might +reach her any hour. + +She had just passed through the little wood behind and alongside of the +house, and was in a field beyond, when she heard some one running behind +her. William handed her the telegram, his own red face full of +understanding. Marcella took it, commanded herself till the boy was out +of sight and hearing again, then sank down on the grass to read it. + +"All over. The Home Secretary's official refusal to interfere with +sentence sent to Widrington to-day. Accept my sorrow and sympathy." + +She crushed it in her hand, raising her head mechanically. Before her +lay that same shallow cup of ploughed land stretching from her father's +big wood to the downs, on the edge of which Hurd had plied his ferrets +in the winter nights. But to-day the spring worked in it, and breathed +upon it. The young corn was already green in the furrows; the +hazel-catkins quivered in the hedge above her; larks were in the air, +daisies in the grass, and the march of sunny clouds could be seen in the +flying shadows they flung on the pale greens and sheeny purples of the +wide treeless basin. + +Human helplessness, human agony--set against the careless joy of +nature--there is no new way of feeling these things. But not to have +felt them, and with the mad, impotent passion and outcry which filled +Marcella's heart at this moment, is never to have risen to the full +stature of our kind. + + * * * * * + +"Marcella, it is my strong wish--my command--that you do _not_ go out to +the village to-night." + +"I must go, papa." + +It was Thursday night--the night before the Friday morning fixed for +Hurd's execution. Dinner at Mellor was just over. Mr. Boyce, who was +standing in front of the fire, unconsciously making the most of his own +inadequate height and size, looked angrily at his stately daughter. She +had not appeared at dinner, and she was now dressed in the long black +cloak and black hat she had worn so constantly in the last few weeks. +Mr. Boyce detested the garb. + +"You are making yourself _ridiculous_, Marcella. Pity for these wretched +people is all very well, but you have no business to carry it to such a +point that you--and we--become the talk, the laughing-stock of the +county. And I should like to see you, too, pay some attention to Aldous +Raeburn's feelings and wishes." + +The admonition, in her father's mouth, would almost have made her laugh, +if she could have laughed at anything. But, instead, she only repeated: + +"I must go, I have explained to mamma." + +"Evelyn! why do you permit it?" cried Mr. Boyce, turning aggressively to +his wife. + +"Marcella explained to me, as she truly said," replied Mrs. Boyce, +looking up calmly. "It is not her habit to ask permission of any one." + +"Mamma," exclaimed the girl, in her deep voice, "you would not wish to +stop me?" + +"No," said Mrs. Boyce, after a pause, "no. You have gone so far, I +understand your wish to do this. Richard,"--she got up and went to +him,--"don't excite yourself about it; shall I read to you, or play a +game with you?" + +He looked at her, trembling with anger. But her quiet eye warned him +that he had had threatenings of pain that afternoon. His anger sank into +fear. He became once more irritable and abject. + +"Let her gang her gait," he said, throwing himself into a chair. "But I +tell you I shall not put up with this kind of thing much longer, +Marcella." + +"I shall not ask you, papa," she said steadily, as she moved towards the +door. Mrs. Boyce paused where she stood, and looked after her daughter, +struck by her words. Mr. Boyce simply took them as referring to the +marriage which would emancipate her before long from any control of his, +and fumed, without finding a reply. + +The maid-servant who, by Mrs. Boyce's orders, was to accompany Marcella +to the village, was already at the front door. She carried a basket +containing invalid food for little Willie, and a lighted lantern. + +It was a dark night and raining fast. Marcella was fastening up her +tweed skirt in the hall, when she saw Mrs. Boyce hurry along the gallery +above, and immediately afterwards her mother came across the hall to +her. + +"You had better take the shawl, Marcella: it is cold and raw. If you are +going to sit up most of the night you will want it." + +She put a wrap of her own across Marcella's arm. + +"Your father is quite right," she went on. "You have had one horrible +experience to-day already--" + +"Don't, mamma!" exclaimed Marcella, interrupting her. Then suddenly she +threw her arms round her mother. + +"Kiss me, mamma! please kiss me!" + +Mrs. Boyce kissed her gravely, and let herself even linger a moment in +the girl's strong hold. + +"You are extraordinarily wilful," she said. "And it is so strange to me +that you think you do any good. Are you sure even that she wants to have +you?" + +Marcella's lip quivered. She could not speak, apparently. Waving her +hand to her mother, she joined the maid waiting for her, and the two +disappeared into the blackness. + +"But _does_ it do any good?" Mrs. Boyce repeated to herself as she went +back to the drawing-room. "_Sympathy!_ who was ever yet fed, warmed, +comforted by _sympathy_? Marcella robs that woman of the only thing that +the human being should want at such a moment--solitude. Why should we +force on the poor what to us would be an outrage?" + +Meanwhile Marcella battled through the wind and rain, thankful that the +warm spring burst was over, and that the skies no longer mocked this +horror which was beneath them. + +At the entrance to the village she stopped, and took the basket from the +little maid. + +"Now, Ruth, you can go home. Run quick, it is so dark, Ruth!" + +"Yes, miss." + +The young country girl trembled. Miss Boyce's tragic passion in this +matter had to some extent infected the whole household in which she +lived. + +"Ruth, when you say your prayers to-night, pray God to comfort the +poor,--and to punish the cruel!" + +"Yes, miss," said the girl, timidly, and ready to cry. The lantern she +held flashed its light on Miss Boyce's white face and tall form. Till +her mistress turned away she did not dare to move; that dark eye, so +wide, full, and living, roused in her a kind of terror. + +On the steps of the cottage Marcella paused. She heard voices inside--or +rather the rector's voice reading. + +A thought of scorn rose in her heart. "How long will the poor endure +this religion--this make-believe--which preaches patience, _patience_! +when it ought to be urging war?" + +But she went in softly, so as not to interrupt. The rector looked up and +made a grave sign of the head as she entered; her own gesture forbade +any other movement in the group; she took a stool beside Willie, whose +makeshift bed of chairs and pillows stood on one side of the fire; and +the reading went on. + +Since Minta Hurd had returned with Marcella from Widrington Gaol that +afternoon, she had been so ill that a doctor had been sent for. He had +bade them make up her bed downstairs in the warm; and accordingly a +mattress had been laid on the settle, and she was now stretched upon it. +Her huddled form, the staring whiteness of the narrow face and closed +eyelids, thrown out against the dark oak of the settle, and the +disordered mass of grizzled hair, made the centre of the cottage. + +Beside her on the floor sat Mary Harden, her head bowed over the rough +hand she held, her eyes red with weeping. Fronting them, beside a little +table, which held a small paraffin lamp, sat the young rector, his +Testament in his hand, his slight boy's figure cast in sharp shadow on +the cottage wall. He had placed himself so as to screen the crude light +of the lamp from the wife's eyes; and an old skirt had been hung over a +chair to keep it from little Willie. Between mother and child sat Ann +Mullins, rocking herself to and fro over the fire, and groaning from +time to time--a shapeless sullen creature, brutalised by many children +and much poverty--of whom Marcella was often impatient. + +"_And he said, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom. And +He said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me +in Paradise."_ + +The rector's voice, in its awed monotony, dwelt insistently on each +word, then paused. "_To-day_," whispered Mary, caressing Minta's hand, +while the tears streamed down her cheeks; "he repented, Minta, and the +Lord took him to Himself--at once--forgiving all his sins." + +Mrs. Hurd gave no sign, but the dark figure on the other side of the +cottage made an involuntary movement, which threw down a fire-iron, and +sent a start through Willie's wasted body. The reader resumed; but +perfect spontaneity was somehow lost both for him and for Mary. +Marcella's stormy presence worked in them both, like a troubling leaven. + +Nevertheless, the priest went steadily through his duty, dwelling on +every pang of the Passion, putting together every sacred and sublime +word. For centuries on centuries his brethren and forerunners had held +up the Man of Sorrows before the anguished and the dying; his turn had +come, his moment and place in the marvellous never-ending task; he +accepted it with the meek ardour of an undoubting faith. + +"_And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they +beheld the things that were done, returned, smiting their breasts_." + +He closed the book, and bent forward, so as to bring his voice close to +the wife's ear. + +"So He died--the Sinless and the Just--for you, for your husband. He has +passed through death--through cruel death; and where He has gone, we +poor, weak, stained sinners can follow,--holding to Him. No sin, however +black, can divide us from Him, can tear us from His hand in the dark +waters, if it be only repented,--thrown upon His Cross. Let us pray for +your husband, let us implore the Lord's mercy this night--this +hour!--upon his soul." + +A shudder of remembrance passed through Marcella. The rector knelt; Mrs. +Hurd lay motionless, save for deep gasps of struggling breath at +intervals; Ann Mullins sobbed loudly; and Mary Harden wept as she +prayed, lost in a mystical vision of the Lord Himself among them--there +on the cottage floor--stretching hands of pity over the woman beside +her, showing His marred side and brow. + +Marcella alone sat erect, her whole being one passionate protest against +a faith which could thus heap all the crimes and responsibilities of +this too real earth on the shadowy head of one far-off Redeemer. "This +very man who prays," she thought, "is in some sort an accomplice of +those who, after tempting, are now destroying, and killing, because they +know of nothing better to do with the life they themselves have made +outcast." + +And she hardened her heart. + +When the spoken prayer was over, Mr. Harden still knelt on silently for +some minutes. So did Mary. In the midst of the hush, Marcella saw the +boy's eyes unclose. He looked with a sort of remote wonder at his mother +and the figures beside her. Then suddenly the gaze became eager, +concrete; he sought for something. Her eye followed his, and she +perceived in the shadow beside him, on a broken chair placed behind the +rough screen which had been made for him, the four tiny animals of +pinched paper Wharton had once fashioned. She stooped noiselessly and +moved the chair a little forward that he might see them better. The +child with difficulty turned his wasted head, and lay with his skeleton +hand under his cheek, staring at his treasures--his little, all--with +just a gleam, a faint gleam, of that same exquisite content which had +fascinated Wharton. Then, for the first time that day, Marcella could +have wept. + +At last the rector and his sister rose. + +"God be with you, Mrs. Hurd," said Mr. Harden, stooping to her; "God +support you!" + +His voice trembled. Mrs. Hurd in bewilderment looked up. + +"Oh, Mr. Harden!" she cried with a sudden wail. "Mr. Harden!" + +Mary bent over her with tears, trying to still her, speaking again with +quivering lips of "the dear Lord, the Saviour." + +The rector turned to Marcella. + +"You are staying the night with her?" he asked, under his breath. + +"Yes. Mrs. Mullins was up all last night. I offered to come to-night." + +"You went with her to the prison to-day, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you see Hurd?" + +"For a very few minutes." + +"Did you hear anything of his state of mind?" he asked anxiously. "Is he +penitent?" + +"He talked to me of Willie," she said--a fierce humanness in her +unfriendly eyes. "I promised him that when the child died, he should be +buried respectably--not by the parish. And I told him I would always +look after the little girls." + +The rector sighed. He moved away. Then unexpectedly he came back again. + +"I must say it to you," he said firmly, but still so low as not to be +heard by any one else in the cottage. "You are taking a great +responsibility here to-night. Let me implore you not to fill that poor +woman with thoughts of bitterness and revenge at such a moment of her +life. That _you_ feel bitterly, I know. Mary has explained to me--but +ask yourself, I beg of you!--how is _she_ to be helped through her +misery, either now or in the future, except by patience and submission +to the will of God?" + +He had never made so long a speech to this formidable parishioner of +his, and his young cheek glowed with the effort. + +"You must leave me to do what I think best," said Marcella, coldly. She +felt herself wholly set free from that sort of moral compulsion which +his holiness of mind and character had once exerted upon her. That +hateful opinion of his, which Mary had reported, had broken the spell +once for all. + +Mary did not venture to kiss her friend. They all went. Ann Mulling, who +was dropping as much with sleep as grief, shuffled off last. When she +was going, Mrs. Hurd seemed to rouse a little, and held her by the +skirt, saying incoherent things. + +"Dear Mrs. Hurd," said Marcella, kneeling down beside her, "won't you +let Ann go? I am going to spend the night here, and take care of you and +Willie." + +Mrs. Hurd gave a painful start. + +"You're very good, miss," she said half-consciously, "very good, I'm +sure. But she's his own flesh and blood is Ann--his own flesh and blood. +Ann!" + +The two women clung together, the rough, ill-tempered sister-in-law +muttering what soothing she could think of. When she was gone, Minta +Hurd turned her face to the back of the settle and moaned, her hands +clenched under her breast. + +Marcella went about her preparations for the night. "She is extremely +weak," Dr. Clarke had said; "the heart in such a state she may die of +syncope on very small provocation. If she is to spend the night in +crying and exciting herself, it will go hard with her. Get her to sleep +if you possibly can." + +And he had left a sleeping draught. Marcella resolved that she would +persuade her to take it. "But I will wake her before eight o'clock," she +thought. "No human being has the right to rob her of herself through +that last hour." + +And tenderly she coaxed Minta to take the doctor's "medicine." Minta +swallowed it submissively, asking no questions. But the act of taking it +roused her for the time, and she would talk. She even got up and +tottered across to Willie. + +"Willie!--Willie!--Oh! look, miss, he's got his animals--he don't think +of nothing else. Oh, Willie! won't you think of your father?--you'll +never have a father, Willie, not after to-night!" + +The boy was startled by her appearance there beside him--his haggard, +dishevelled mother, with the dews of perspiration standing on the face, +and her black dress thrown open at the throat and breast for air. He +looked at her, and a little frown lined the white brow. But he did not +speak. Marcella thought he was too weak to speak, and for an instant it +struck her with a thrill of girlish fear that he was dying then and +there--that night--that hour. But when she had half helped, half forced +Mrs. Hurd back to bed again, and had returned to him, his eyelids had +fallen, he seemed asleep. The fast, whistling breath was much the same +as it had been for days; she reassured herself. + +And at last the wife slept too. The narcotic seized her. The aching +limbs relaxed, and all was still. Marcella, stooping over her, kissed +the shoulder of her dress for very joy, so grateful to every sense of +the watcher was the sudden lull in the long activity of anguish. + +Then she sat down in the rocking chair by the fire, yielding herself +with a momentary relief to the night and the silence. The tall clock +showed that it was not yet ten. She had brought a book with her, and she +drew it upon her knee; but it lay unopened. + +A fretting, gusty wind beat against the window, with occasional rushes +of rain. Marcella shivered, though she had built up the fire, and put on +her cloak. + +A few distant sounds from the village street round the corner, the +chiming of the church clock, the crackling of the fire close beside +her--she heard everything there was to hear, with unusual sharpness of +ear, and imagined more. + +All at once restlessness, or some undefined impression, made her look +round her. She saw that the scanty baize curtain was only half-drawn +across one of the windows, and she got up to close it. Fresh from the +light of the lamp, she stared through the panes into the night without +at first seeing anything. Then there flashed out upon the dark the door +of a public-house to the right, the last in the village road. A man came +out stumbling and reeling; the light within streamed out an instant on +the road and the common; then the pursuing rain and darkness fell upon +him. + +She was drawing back when, with sudden horror, she perceived something +else close beside her, pressing against the window. A woman's face!--the +powerful black and white of it--the strong aquiline features--the mad +keenness of the look were all plain to her. The eyes looked in hungrily +at the prostrate form on the settle--at the sleeping child. Another +figure appeared out of the dark, running up the path. There was a slight +scuffle, and voices outside. Marcella drew the curtain close with a +hasty hand, and sat down hardly able to breathe. The woman who had +looked in was Isabella Westall. It was said that she was becoming more +and more difficult to manage and to watch. + +Marcella was some time in recovering herself. That look, as of a +sleepless, hateful eagerness, clung to the memory. Once or twice, as it +haunted her, she got up again to make sure that the door was fast. + +The incident, with all it suggested, did but intensify the horror and +struggle in which the girl stood, made her mood more strained, more +piercingly awake and alert. Gradually, as the hours passed, as all +sounds from without, even that of the wind, died away, and the silence +settled round her in ever-widening circles, like deep waters sinking to +repose, Marcella felt herself a naked soul, alone on a wide sea, with +shapes of pain and agony and revolt. She looked at the sleeping wife. +"He, too, is probably asleep," she thought, remembering some information +which a kindly warder had given her in a few jerky, well-meant +sentences, while she was waiting downstairs in the gaol for Minta Hurd. +"Incredible! only so many hours, minutes left--so far as any mortal +_knows_--of living, thinking, recollecting, of all that makes us +something as against the _nothing_ of death--and a man wastes them in +sleep, in that which is only meant for the ease and repair of the daily +struggle. And Minta--her husband is her all--to-morrow she will have no +husband; yet she sleeps, and I have helped to make her. Ah! Nature may +well despise and trample on us; there is no reason in us--no dignity! +Oh, why are we here--why am _I_ here--to ache like this--to hate good +people like Charles Harden and Mary--to refuse all I could give--to +madden myself over pain I can never help? I cannot help it, yet I cannot +forsake it; it drives, it clings to me!" + +She sat over the fire, Willie's hand clasped in hers. He alone in this +forlorn household _loved_ her. Mrs. Hurd and the other children feared +and depended on her. This creature of thistle-down--this little thread +and patch of humanity--felt no fear of her. It was as though his +weakness divined through her harshness and unripeness those maternal and +protecting powers with which her nature was in truth so richly dowered. +He confided himself to her with no misgivings. He was at ease when she +was there. + +Little piteous hand!--its touch was to her symbolic, imperative. + +Eight months had she been at Mellor? And that Marcella, who had been +living and moving amid these woods and lanes all this time--that foolish +girl, delighting in new grandeurs, and flattered by Aldous Raeburn's +attentions--that hot, ambitious person who had meant to rule a county +through a husband--what had become of her? Up to the night of Hurd's +death sentence she had still existed in some sort, with her obligations, +qualms, remorses. But since then--every day, every hour had been +grinding, scorching her away--fashioning in flame and fever this new +Marcella who sat here, looking impatiently into another life, which +should know nothing of the bonds of the old. + +Ah, yes!--her _thought_ could distinguish between the act and the man, +between the man and his class; but in her _feeling_ all was confounded. +This awful growth of sympathy in her--strange irony!--had made all +sympathy for Aldous Raeburn impossible to her. Marry him?--no! +no!--never! But she would make it quite easy to him to give her up. +Pride should come in--he should feel no pain in doing it. She had in her +pocket the letter she had received from him that afternoon. She had +hardly been able to read it. Ear and heart were alike dull to it. + +From time to time she probably slept in her chair. Or else it was the +perpetual rush of images and sensations through the mind that hastened +the hours. Once when the first streaks of the March dawn were showing +through the curtains Minta Hurd sprang up with a loud cry: + +"Oh, my God! Jim, _Jim!_ Oh, no!--take that off. Oh, _please_, sir, +please! Oh, for God's sake, sir!" + +Agony struggled with sleep. Marcella, shuddering, held and soothed her, +and for a while sleep, or rather the drug in her veins, triumphed again. +For another hour or two she lay restlessly tossing from side to side, +but unconscious. + +Willie hardly moved all night. Again and again Marcella held beef-tea or +milk to his mouth, and tried to rouse him to take it, but she could make +no impression on the passive lips; the sleeping serenity of the brow +never changed. + +At last, with a start, Marcella looked round and saw that the morning +was fully there. A cold light was streaming through the curtains; the +fire was still glowing; but her limbs were stiff and chilled under her +shawl. She sprang up, horror descending on her. Her shaking fingers +could hardly draw out the watch in her belt. + +_Ten minutes to eight_! + +For the first time the girl felt nerve and resolution fail her. She +looked at Mrs. Hurd and wrung her hands. The mother was muttering and +moving, but not yet fully awake; and Willie lay as before. Hardly +knowing what she was doing, she drew the curtains back, as though +inspiration might come with the light. The rain-clouds trailed across +the common; water dripped heavily from the thatch of the cottage; and a +few birds twittered from some bedraggled larches at the edge of the +common. Far away, beyond and beneath those woods to the right, +Widrington lay on the plain, with that high-walled stone building at its +edge. She saw everything as it must now be happening as plainly as +though she were bodily present there--the last meal--the pinioning--the +chaplain. + +Goaded by the passing seconds, she turned back at last to wake that poor +sleeper behind her. But something diverted her. With a start she saw +that Willie's eyes were open. + +"Willie," she said, running to him, "how are you, dear? Shall I lift +your head a little?" + +He did not answer, though she thought he tried, and she was struck by +the blueness under the eyes and nose. Hurriedly she felt his tiny feet. +They were quite cold. + +"Mrs. Hurd!" she cried, rousing her in haste; "dear Mrs. Hurd, come and +see Willie!" + +The mother sprang up bewildered, and, hurrying across the room, threw +herself upon him. + +"Willie, what is it ails you, dear? Tell mother! Is it your feet are so +cold? But we'll rub them--we'll get you warm soon. And here's something +to make you better." Marcella handed her some brandy. "Drink it, dear; +drink it, sweetheart!" Her voice grew shrill. + +"He can't," said Marcella. "Do not let us plague him; it is the end. Dr. +Clarke said it would come in the morning." + +They hung over him, forgetting everything but him for the moment--the +only moment in his little life he came first even with his mother. + +There was a slight movement of the hand. + +"He wants his animals," said Marcella, the tears pouring down her +cheeks. She lifted them and put them on his breast, laying the cold +fingers over them. + +Then he tried to speak. + +"Daddy!" he whispered, looking up fully at his mother; "take 'em to +Daddy!" + +She fell on her knees beside him with a shriek, hiding her face, and +shaking from head to foot. Marcella alone saw the slight, mysterious +smile, the gradual sinking of the lids, the shudder of departing life +that ran through the limbs. + +A heavy sound swung through the air--a heavy repeated sound. Mrs. Hurd +held up her head and listened. The church clock tolled eight. She knelt +there, struck motionless by terror--by recollection. + +"Oh, Jim!" she said, under her breath--"my Jim!" + +The plaintive tone--as of a creature that has not even breath and +strength left wherewith to chide the fate that crushes it--broke +Marcella's heart. Sitting beside the dead son, she wrapt the mother in +her arms, and the only words that even her wild spirit could find +wherewith to sustain this woman through the moments of her husband's +death were words of prayer--the old shuddering cries wherewith the human +soul from the beginning has thrown itself on that awful encompassing +Life whence it issued, and whither it returns. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Two days later, in the afternoon, Aldous Raeburn found himself at the +door of Mellor. When he entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Boyce, who had +heard his ring, was hurrying away. + +"Don't go," he said, detaining her with a certain peremptoriness. "I +want all the light on this I can get. Tell me, she has _actually_ +brought herself to regard this man's death as in some sort my doing--as +something which ought to separate us?" + +Mrs. Boyce saw that he held an opened letter from Marcella crushed in +his hand. But she did not need the explanation. She had been expecting +him at any hour throughout the day, and in just this condition of mind. + +"Marcella must explain for herself," she said, after a moment's thought. +"I have no right whatever to speak for her. Besides, frankly, I do not +understand her, and when I argue with her she only makes me realise that +I have no part or lot in her--that I never had. It is just enough. She +was brought up away from me. And I have no natural hold. I cannot help +you, or any one else, with her." + +Aldous had been very tolerant and compassionate in the past of this +strange mother's abdication of her maternal place, and of its probable +causes. But it was not in human nature that he should be either to-day. +He resumed his questioning, not without sharpness. + +"One word, please. Tell me something of what has happened since +Thursday, before I see her. I have written--but till this morning I have +had not one line from her." + +They were standing by the window, he with his frowning gaze, in which +agitation struggled against all his normal habits of manner and +expression, fixed upon the lawn and the avenue. She told him briefly +what she knew of Marcella's doings since the arrival of Wharton's +telegram--of the night in the cottage, and the child's death. It was +plain that he listened with a shuddering repulsion. + +"Do you know," he exclaimed, turning upon her, "that she may never +recover this? Such a strain, such a horror! rushed upon so wantonly, so +needlessly." + +"I understand. You think that I have been to blame? I do not wonder. But +it is not true--not in this particular case. And anyway your view is not +mine. Life--and the iron of it--has to be faced, even by women--perhaps, +most of all, by women. But let me go now. Otherwise my husband will come +in. And I imagine you would rather see Marcella before you see him or +any one." + +That suggestion told. He instantly gathered himself together, and +nervously begged that she would send Marcella to him at once. He could +think of nothing, talk of nothing, till he had seen her. She went, and +Aldous was left to walk up and down the room planning what he should +say. After the ghastly intermingling of public interests and private +misery in which he had lived for these many weeks there was a certain +relief in having reached the cleared space--the decisive moment--when he +might at last give himself wholly to what truly concerned him. He would +not lose her without a struggle. None the less he knew, and had known +ever since the scene in the Court library, that the great disaster of +his life was upon him. + +The handle of the door turned. She was there. + +He did not go to meet her. She had come in wrought up to face +attack--reproaches, entreaties--ready to be angry or to be humble, as he +should give her the lead. But he gave her no lead. She had to break +through that quivering silence as best she could. + +"I wanted to explain everything to you," she said in a low voice, as she +came near to him. "I know my note last night was very hard and abrupt. I +didn't mean to be hard. But I am still so tired--and everything that one +says, and feels, hurts so." + +She sank down upon a chair. This womanish appeal to his pity had not +been at all in her programme. Nor did it immediately succeed. As he +looked at her, he could only feel the wantonness of this eclipse into +which she had plunged her youth and beauty. There was wrath, a +passionate protesting wrath, under his pain. + +"Marcella," he said, sitting down beside her, "did you read my letter +that I wrote you the day before--?" + +"Yes." + +"And after that, you could still believe that I was indifferent to your +grief--your suffering--or to the suffering of any human being for whom +you cared? You could still think it, and feel it?" + +"It was not what you have said all through," she replied, looking +sombrely away from him, her chin on her hand, "it is what you have +done." + +"What have I done?" he said proudly, bending forward from his seat +beside her. "What have I ever done but claim from you that freedom you +desire so passionately for others--freedom of conscience--freedom of +judgment? You denied me this freedom, though I asked it of you with all +my soul. And you denied me more. Through these five weeks you have +refused me the commonest right of love--the right to show you myself, to +prove to you that through all this misery of differing opinion--misery, +much more, oh, much more to me than to you!--I was in truth bent on the +same ends with you, bearing the same burden, groping towards the same +goal." + +"No! no!" she cried, turning upon him, and catching at a word; "what +burden have you ever borne? I know you were sorry--that there was a +struggle in your mind--that you pitied me--pitied _them_. But you judged +it all _from above_--you looked down--and I could not see that you had +any right. It made me mad to have such things seen from a height, when I +was below--in the midst--_close_ to the horror and anguish of them." + +"Whose fault was it," he interrupted, "that I was not with you? Did I +not offer--entreat? I could not sign a statement of fact which seemed +to me an untrue statement, but what prevented me--prevented +us.--However, let me take that point first. Would you,"--he spoke +deliberately, "would you have had me put my name to a public statement +which I, rightly or wrongly, believed to be false, because you asked me? +You owe it to me to answer." + +She could not escape the penetrating fire of his eye. The man's +mildness, his quiet self-renouncing reserve, were all burnt up at last +in this white heat of an accusing passion. In return she began to forget +her own resolve to bear herself gently. + +"You don't remember," she cried, "that what divided us was +your--your--incapacity to put the human pity first; to think of the +surrounding circumstances--of the debt that you and I and everybody like +us owe to a man like Hurd--to one who had been stunted and starved by +life as he had been." + +Her lip began to tremble. + +"Then it comes to this," he said steadily, "that if I had been a poor +man, you would have allowed me my conscience--my judgment of right and +wrong--in such a matter. You would have let me remember that I was a +citizen, and that pity is only one side of justice! You would have let +me plead that Hurd's sin was not against me, but against the community, +and that in determining whether to do what you wished or no, I must +think of the community and its good before even I thought of pleasing +you. If I had possessed no more than Hurd, all this would have been +permitted me; but because of Maxwell Court--because of my _money_,"--she +shrank before the accent of the word--"you refused me the commonest +moral rights. _My_ scruple, _my_ feeling, were nothing to you. Your +pride was engaged as well as your pity, and I must give way. Marcella! +you talk of justice--you talk of equality--is the only man who can get +neither at your hands--the man whom you promised to marry!" + +His voice dwelt on that last word, dwelt and broke. He leant over her in +his roused strength, and tried to take her hand. But she moved away from +him with a cry. + +"It is no use! Oh, don't--don't! It may be all true. I was vain, I dare +say, and unjust, and hard. But don't you see--don't you understand--if +we _could_ take such different views of such a case--if it could divide +us so deeply--what chance would there be if we were married? I ought +never--never--to have said 'Yes' to you--even as I was then. But _now_," +she turned to him slowly, "can't you see it for yourself? I am a changed +creature. Certain things in me are gone--_gone_--and instead there is a +fire--something driving, tormenting--which must burn its way out. When I +think of what I liked so much when you asked me to marry you--being +rich, and having beautiful things, and dresses, and jewels, and +servants, and power--social power--above all _that_--I feel sick and +choked. I couldn't breathe now in a house like Maxwell Court. The poor +have come to mean to me the only people who really _live_, and really +_suffer_. I must live with them, work for them, find out what I can do +for them. You must give me up--you must indeed. Oh! and you will! You +will be glad enough, thankful enough, when--when--you know what I _am_!" + +He started at the words. Where was the prophetess? He saw that she was +lying white and breathless, her face hidden against the arm of the +chair. + +In an instant he was on his knees beside her. + +"Marcella!" he could hardly command his voice, but he held her +struggling hand against his lips. "You think that suffering belongs to +one class? Have you really no conception of what you will be dealing to +me if you tear yourself away from me?" + +She withdrew her hand, sobbing. + +"Don't, don't stay near me!" she said; "there is--more--there is +something else." + +Aldous rose. + +"You mean," he said in an altered voice, after a pause of silence, "that +another influence--another man--has come between us?" + +She sat up, and with a strong effort drove back her weeping. + +"If I could say to you only this," she began at last, with long pauses, +"'I mistook myself and my part in life. I did wrong, but forgive me, and +let me go for both our sakes'--that would be--well!--that would be +difficult,--but easier than this! Haven't you understood at all? +When--when Mr. Wharton came, I began to see things very soon, not in my +own way, but in his way. I had never met any one like him--not any one +who showed me such possibilities in _myself_--such new ways of using +one's life, and not only one's possessions--of looking at all the great +questions. I thought it was just friendship, but it made me critical, +impatient of everything else. I was never myself from the beginning. +Then,--after the ball,"--he stooped over her that he might hear her the +more plainly,--"when I came home I was in my room and I heard +steps--there are ghost stories, you know, about that part of the house. +I went out to see. Perhaps, in my heart of hearts--oh, I can't tell, I +can't tell!--anyway, he was there. We went into the library, and we +talked. He did not want to touch our marriage,--but he said all sorts of +mad things,--and at last--he kissed me." + +The last words were only breathed. She had often pictured herself +confessing these things to him. But the humiliation in which she +actually found herself before him was more than she had ever dreamed of, +more than she could bear. All those great words of pity and mercy--all +that implication of a moral atmosphere to which he could never +attain--to end in this story! The effect of it, on herself, rather than +on him, was what she had not foreseen. + +Aldous raised himself slowly. + +"And when did this happen?" he asked after a moment. + +"I told you--the night of the ball--of the murder," she said with a +shiver; "we saw Hurd cross the avenue. I meant to have told you +everything at once." + +"And you gave up that intention?" he asked her, when he had waited a +little for more, and nothing came. + +She turned upon him with a flash of the old defiance. + +"How could I think of my own affairs?" + +"Or of mine?" he said bitterly. + +She made no answer. + +Aldous got up and walked to the chimney-piece. He was very pale, but his +eyes were bright and sparkling. When she looked up at him at last she +saw that her task was done. His scorn--his resentment--were they not the +expiation, the penalty she had looked forward to all along?--and with +that determination to bear them calmly? Yet, now that they were there in +front of her, they stung. + +"So that--for all those weeks--while you were letting me write as I did, +while you were letting me conceive you and your action as I did, you had +this on your mind? You never gave me a hint; you let me plead; you let +me regard you as wrapped up in the unselfish end; you sent me those +letters of his--those most misleading letters!--and all the time--" + +"But I meant to tell you--I always meant to tell you," she cried +passionately. "I would never have gone on with a secret like that--not +for your sake--but for my own." + +"Yet you did go on so long," he said steadily; "and my agony of mind +during those weeks--my feeling towards you--my--" + +He broke off, wrestling with himself. As for her, she had fallen back in +her chair, physically incapable of anything more. + +He walked over to her side and took up his hat. + +"You have done me wrong," he said, gazing down upon her. "I pray God you +may not do yourself a greater wrong in the future! Give me leave to +write to you once more, or to send my friend Edward Hallin to see you. +Then I will not trouble you again." + +He waited, but she could give him no answer. Her form as she lay there +in this physical and moral abasement printed itself upon his heart. Yet +he felt no desire whatever to snatch the last touch--the last kiss--that +wounded passion so often craves. Inwardly, and without words, he said +farewell to her. She heard his steps across the room; the door shut; she +was alone--and free. + + + + + +BOOK III. + + +"O Neigung, sage, wie hast du so tief + Im Herzen dich verstecket? +Wer hat dich, die verborgen schlief, + Gewecket?" + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"Don't suppose that I feel enthusiastic or sentimental about the 'claims +of Labour,'" said Wharton, smiling to the lady beside him. "You may get +that from other people, but not from me. I am not moral enough to be a +fanatic. My position is simplicity itself. When things are inevitable, I +prefer to be on the right side of them, and not on the wrong. There is +not much more in it than that. I would rather be on the back of the +'bore' for instance, as it sweeps up the tidal river, than the swimmer +caught underneath it." + +"Well, that is intelligible," said Lady Selina Farrell, looking at her +neighbour, as she crumbled her dinner-roll. To crumble your bread at +dinner is a sign of nervousness, according to Sydney Smith, who did it +with both hands when he sat next an Archbishop; yet no one for a good +many years past had ever suspected Lady Selina of nervousness, though +her powers had probably been tried before now by the neighbourhood of +many Primates, Catholic and Anglican. For Lady Selina went much into +society, and had begun it young. + +"Still, you know," she resumed after a moment's pause--"you _play_ +enthusiasm in public--I suppose you must." + +"Oh! of course," said Wharton, indifferently. "That is in the game." + +"Why should it be--always? If you are a leader of the people, why don't +you educate them? My father says that bringing feeling into politics is +like making rhymes in one's account book." + +"Well, when you have taught the masses how _not_ to feel," said Wharton, +laughing, "we will follow your advice. Meanwhile it is our brains and +their feelings that do the trick. And by the way, Lady Selina, are _you_ +always so cool? If you saw the Revolution coming to-morrow into the +garden of Alresford House, would you go to the balcony and argue?" + +"I devoutly hope there would be somebody ready to do something more to +the point," said Lady Selina, hastily. "But of course _we_ have +enthusiasms too." + +"What, the Flag--and the Throne--that kind of thing?" + +The ironical attention which Wharton began at this moment to devote to +the selection of an olive annoyed his companion. + +"Yes," she repeated emphatically, "the Flag and the Throne--all that has +made England great in the past. But we know very well that they are not +_your_ enthusiasms." + +Wharton's upper lip twitched a little. + +"And you are quite sure that Busbridge Towers has nothing to do with +it?" he said suddenly, looking round upon her. + +Busbridge Towers was the fine ancestral seat which belonged to Lady +Selina's father, that very respectable and ancient peer, Lord Alresford, +whom an ungrateful party had unaccountably omitted--for the first +time--from the latest Conservative administration. + +"Of course we perfectly understand," replied Lady Selina, scornfully, +"that your side--and especially your Socialist friends, put down all +that _we_ do and say to greed and selfishness. It is our +misfortune--hardly our fault." + +"Not at all," said Wharton, quietly, "I was only trying to convince you +that it is a little difficult to drive feeling out of politics. Do you +suppose our host succeeds? You perceive?--this is a Radical house--and a +Radical banquet?" + +He pushed the _menu_ towards her significantly. Then his eye travelled +with its usual keen rapidity over the room, over the splendid +dinner-table, with its display of flowers and plate, and over the +assembled guests. He and Lady Selina were dining at the hospitable board +of a certain rich manufacturer, who drew enormous revenues from the +west, had formed part of the Radical contingent of the last Liberal +ministry, and had especially distinguished himself by a series of +uncompromising attacks on the ground landlords of London. + +Lady Selina sighed. + +"It is all a horrible tangle," she said, "and what the next twenty years +will bring forth who can tell? Oh! one moment, Mr. Wharton, before I +forget. Are you engaged for Saturday week?" + +He drew a little note-book out of his pocket and consulted it. It +appeared that he was not engaged. + +"Then will you dine with us?" She lightly mentioned the names of four or +five distinguished guests, including the Conservative Premier of the +day. Wharton made her a little ceremonious bow. + +"I shall be delighted. Can you trust me to behave?" + +Lady Selina's smile made her his match for the moment. + +"Oh! we can defend ourselves!" she said. "By the way I think you told me +that Mr. Raeburn was not a friend of yours." + +"No," said Wharton, facing her look with coolness. "If you have asked +Mr. Raeburn for the 23rd, let me crave your leave to cancel that note in +my pocket-book. Not for my sake, you understand, at all." + +She had difficulty in concealing her curiosity. But his face betrayed +nothing. It always seemed to her that his very dark and straight +eyebrows, so obtrusive and unusual as compared with the delicacy of the +features, of the fair skin and light brown curls, made it easy for him +to wear any mask he pleased. By their mere physical emphasis they drew +attention away from the subtler and more revealing things of expression. + +"They say," she went on, "that he is sure to do well in the House, if +only he can be made to take interest enough in the party. But one of his +admirers told me that he was not at all anxious to accept this post they +have just given him. He only did it to please his grandfather. My father +thinks Lord Maxwell much aged this year. He is laid up now, with a chill +of some sort I believe. Mr. Raeburn will have to make haste if he is to +have any career in the Commons. But you can see he cares very little +about it. All his friends tell me they find him changed since that +unlucky affair last year. By the way, did you ever see that girl?" + +"Certainly. I was staying in her father's house while the engagement +was going on." + +"Were you!" said Lady Selina, eagerly, "and what did you think of her?" + +"Well, in the first place," said Wharton, slowly, "she is beautiful--you +knew that?" + +Lady Selina nodded. + +"Yes. Miss Raeburn, who has told me most of what I know, always throws +in a shrug and a 'but' when you ask about her looks. However, I have +seen a photograph of her, so I can judge for myself. It seemed to me a +beauty that men perhaps would admire more than women." + +Wharton devoted himself to his green peas, and made no reply. Lady +Selina glanced at him sharply. She herself was by no means a beauty. But +neither was she plain. She had a long, rather distinguished face, with a +marked nose and a wide thin-lipped mouth. Her plentiful fair hair, a +little dull and ashy in colour, was heaped up above her forehead in +infinitesimal curls and rolls which did great credit to her maid, and +gave additional height to the head and length to a thin white neck. Her +light blue eyes were very direct and observant. Their expression implied +both considerable knowledge of the world and a natural inquisitiveness. +Many persons indeed were of opinion that Lady Selina wished to know too +much about you and were on their guard when she approached. + +"You admired her very much, I see," she resumed, as Wharton still +remained silent. + +"Oh, yes. We talked Socialism, and then I defended her poacher for her." + +"Oh, I remember. And it is really true, as Miss Raeburn says, that she +broke it off because she could not get Lord Maxwell and Mr. Raeburn to +sign the petition for the poacher?" + +"Somewhere about true," said Wharton, carelessly. + +"Miss Raeburn always gives the same account; you can never get anything +else out of her. But I sometimes wonder whether it is the _whole_ truth. +_You_ think she was sincere?" + +"Well, she gave up Maxwell Court and thirty thousand a year," he replied +drily. "I should say she had at least earned the benefit of the doubt." + +"I mean," said Lady Selina, "was she in love with anybody else, and was +the poacher an excuse?" + +She turned upon him as she spoke--a smiling, self-possessed person--a +little spoilt by those hard, inquisitive eyes. + +"No, I think not," said Wharton, throwing his head back to meet her +scrutiny. "If so, nothing has been heard of him yet. Miss Boyce has been +at St. Edward's Hospital for the last year." + +"To learn nursing? It is what all the women do nowadays, they tell me, +who can't get on with their relations or their lovers. Do you suppose it +is such a very hard life?" + +"I don't want to try!" said Wharton. "Do you?" + +She evaded his smile. + +"What is she going to do when she has done her training?" + +"Settle down and nurse among the poor, I believe." + +"Magnificent, no doubt, but hardly business, from her point of view. How +much more she might have done for the poor with thirty thousand a year! +And any woman could put up with Aldous Raeburn." + +Wharton shrugged his shoulders. + +"We come back to those feelings, Lady Selina, you think so badly of." + +She laughed. + +"Well, but feelings must be intelligible. And this seems so small a +cause. However, were you there when it was broken off?" + +"No; I have never seen her since the day of the poacher's trial." + +"Oh! So she has gone into complete seclusion from all her friends?" + +"That I can't answer for. I can only tell you my own experience." + +Lady Selina bethought herself of a great many more questions to ask, but +somehow did not ask them. The talk fell upon politics, which lasted till +the hostess gave the signal, and Lady Selina, gathering up her fan and +gloves, swept from the room next after the Countess at the head of the +table, while a host of elderly ladies, wives of ministers and the like, +stood meekly by to let her pass. + +As he sat down again, Wharton made the entry of the dinner at Alresford +House, to which he had just promised himself, a little plainer. It was +the second time in three weeks that Lady Selina had asked him, and he +was well aware that several other men at this dinner-table, of about the +same standing and prospects as himself, would be very glad to be in his +place. Lady Selina, though she was unmarried, and not particularly +handsome or particularly charming, was a personage--and knew it. As the +mistress of her father's various fine houses, and the kinswoman of half +the great families of England, she had ample social opportunities, and +made, on the whole, clever use of them. She was not exactly popular, but +in her day she had been extremely useful to many, and her invitations +were prized. Wharton had been introduced to her at the beginning of +this, his second session, had adopted with her the easy, aggressive, +"personal" manner--which, on the whole, was his natural manner towards +women--and had found it immediately successful. + +When he had replaced his pocket-book, he found himself approached by a +man on his own side of the table, a member of Parliament like himself, +with whom he was on moderately friendly terms. + +"Your motion comes on next Friday, I think," said the new-comer. + +Wharton nodded. + +"It'll be a beastly queer division," said the other--"a precious lot of +cross-voting." + +"That'll be the way with that kind of question for a good while to +come--don't you think"--said Wharton, smiling, "till we get a complete +reorganisation of parties?" + +As he leaned back in his chair, enjoying his cigarette, his half-shut +eyes behind the curls of smoke made a good-humoured but contemptuous +study of his companion. + +Mr. Bateson was a young manufacturer, recently returned to Parliament, +and newly married. He had an open, ruddy face, spoilt by an expression +of chronic perplexity, which was almost fretfulness. Not that the +countenance was without shrewdness; but it suggested that the man had +ambitions far beyond his powers of performance, and already knew himself +to be inadequate. + +"Well, I shouldn't wonder if you get a considerable vote," he resumed, +after a pause; "it's like women's suffrage. People will go on voting for +this kind of thing, till there seems a chance of getting it. _Then_!" + +"Ah, well!" said Wharton, easily, "I see we shan't get _you_." + +"_I_!--vote for an eight-hours day, by local and trade option! In my +opinion I might as well vote for striking the flag on the British Empire +at once! It would be the death-knell of all our prosperity." + +Wharton's artistic ear disliked the mixture of metaphor, and he frowned +slightly. + +Mr. Bateson hurried on. He was already excited, and had fallen upon +Wharton as a prey. + +"And you really desire to make it _penal_ for us manufacturers--for me +in my industry--in spite of all the chances and changes of the market, +to work my men more than eight hours a day--_even_ if they wish it!" + +"We must get our decision, our majority of the adult workers in any +given district in favour of an eight-hours day," said Wharton, blandly; +"then when they have voted for it, the local authority will put the Act +in motion." + +"And my men--conceivably--may have voted in the minority, against any +such tomfoolery; yet, when the vote is given, it will be a punishable +offence for them, and me, to work overtime? You _actually_ mean that; +how do you propose to punish us?" + +"Well," said Wharton, relighting his cigarette, "that is a much debated +point. Personally, I am in favour of imprisonment rather than fine." + +The other bounded on his chair. + +"You would imprison me for working overtime--with _willing men!_" + +Wharton eyed him with smiling composure. Two or three other men--an old +general, the smart private secretary of a cabinet minister, and a +well-known permanent official at the head of one of the great spending +departments--who were sitting grouped at the end of the table a few feet +away, stopped their conversation to listen. + +"Except in cases of emergency, which are provided for under the Act," +said Wharton. "Yes, I should imprison you, with the greatest pleasure in +life. Eight hours _plus_ overtime is what we are going to stop, _at all +hazards!_" + +A flash broke from his blue eyes. Then he tranquilly resumed his +smoking. + +The young manufacturer flushed with angry agitation. + +"But you must know, it is inconceivable that you should not know, that +the whole thing is stark staring lunacy. In our business, trade is +declining, the export falling every year, the imports from France +steadily advancing. And you are going to make us fight a country where +men work eleven hours a day, for lower wages, with our hands tied behind +our backs by legislation of this kind? Well, you know," he threw +himself back in his chair with a contemptuous laugh, "there can be only +one explanation. You and your friends, of course, have banished +political economy to Saturn--and you suppose that by doing so you get +rid of it for all the rest of the world. But I imagine it will beat you, +all the same!" + +He stopped in a heat. As usual what he found to say was not equal to +what he wanted to say, and beneath his anger with Wharton was the +familiar fuming at his own lack of impressiveness. + +"Well, I dare say," said Wharton, serenely. "However, let's take your +'political economy' a moment, and see if I can understand what you mean +by it. There never were two words that meant all things to all men so +disreputably!" + +And thereupon to the constant accompaniment of his cigarette, and with +the utmost composure and good temper, he began to "heckle" his +companion, putting questions, suggesting perfidious illustrations, +extracting innocent admissions, with a practised shrewdness and malice, +which presently left the unfortunate Bateson floundering in a sea of his +own contradictions, and totally unable for the moment to attach any +rational idea whatever to those great words of his favourite science, +wherewith he was generally accustomed to make such triumphant play, both +on the platform and in the bosom of the family. + +The permanent official round the corner watched the unequal fight with +attentive amusement. Once when it was a question of Mill's doctrine of +cost of production as compared with that of a leading modern +collectivist, he leant forward and supplied a correction of something +Wharton had said. Wharton instantly put down his cigarette and addressed +him in another tone. A rapid dialogue passed between them, the dialogue +of experts, sharp, allusive, elliptical, in the midst of which the host +gave the signal for joining the ladies. + +"Well, all I know is," said Bateson, as he got up, "that these kinds of +questions, if you and your friends have your way, will _wreck_ the +Liberal party before long--far more effectually than anything Irish has +ever done. On these things some of us will fight, if it must come to +that." + +Wharton laughed. + +"It would be a national misfortune if you didn't give us a stiff job," +he said, with an airy good-humour which at once made the other's +blustering look ridiculous. + +"I wonder what that fellow is going to do in the House," said the +permanent official to his companion as they went slowly upstairs, +Wharton being some distance ahead. "People are all beginning to talk of +him as a coming man, though nobody quite knows why, as yet. They tell me +he frames well in speaking, and will probably make a mark with his +speech next Friday. But his future seems to me very doubtful. He can +only become a power as the head of a new Labour party. But where is the +party? They all want to be kings. The best point in his favour is that +they are likely enough to take a gentleman if they must have a leader. +But there still remains the question whether he can make anything out of +the material." + +"I hope to God he can't!" said the old general, grimly; "it is these +town-chatterers of yours that will bring the Empire about our heads +before we've done. They've begun it already, wherever they saw a +chance." + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room Wharton devoted himself for a few minutes to his +hostess, a little pushing woman, who confided to his apparently +attentive ear a series of grievances as to the bad manners of the great +ladies of their common party, and the general evil plight of Liberalism +in London from the social point of view. + +"Either they give themselves airs--_rediculous_ airs!--or they admit +everybody!" she said, with a lavish use of white shoulders and scarlet +fan by way of emphasis. "My husband feels it just as much as I do. It is +a real misfortune for the party that its social affairs should be so +villainously managed. Oh! I dare say _you_ don't mind, Mr. Wharton, +because you are a Socialist. But, I assure you, those of us who still +believe in the influence of the best people don't like it." + +A point whence Wharton easily led her through a series of spiteful +anecdotes bearing on her own social mishaps and rebuffs, which were none +the less illuminating because of the teller's anxious effort to give +them a dignified and disinterested air. Then, when neither she nor her +plight were any longer amusing, he took his leave, exchanging another +skirmishing word or two on the staircase with Lady Selina, who it +appeared was "going on" as he was, and to the same house. + +In a few minutes his hansom landed him at the door of a great mansion +in Berkeley Square, where a huge evening party was proceeding, given by +one of those Liberal ladies whom his late hostess had been so freely +denouncing. The lady and the house belonged to a man who had held high +office in the late Administration. + +As he made his way slowly to the top of the crowded stairs, the stately +woman in white satin and diamonds who was "receiving" on the landing +marked him, and when his name was announced she came forward a step or +two. Nothing could have been more flattering than the smile with which +she gave him her gloved hand to touch. + +"Have you been out of town all these Sundays?" she said to him, with the +slightest air of soft reproach. "I am always at home, you know--I told +you so!" + +She spoke with the ease of one who could afford to make whatever social +advances she pleased. Wharton excused himself, and they chatted a little +in the intervals of her perpetual greetings to the mounting crowd. She +and he had met at a famous country house in the Easter recess, and her +aristocrat's instinct for all that gives savour and sharpness to the +dish of life had marked him at once. + +"Sir Hugh wants you to come down and see us in Sussex," she said, +stretching her white neck a little to speak after him, as he was at last +carried through the drawing-room door by the pressure behind him. "Will +you?" + +He threw back an answer which she rather took for granted than heard, +for she nodded and smiled through it--stiffening her delicate-face the +moment afterwards to meet the timid remarks of one of her husband's +constituents--asked by Sir Hugh in the streets that afternoon--who +happened to present her with the next hand to shake. + +Inside, Wharton soon found himself brought up against the ex-Secretary +of State himself, who greeted him cordially, and then bantered him a +little on his coming motion. + +"Oh, I shall be interested to see what you make of it. But, you know, it +has no _actuality_--never can have--till you can agree among yourselves. +You _say_ you want the same thing--I dare say you'll all swear it on +Friday--but _really_--" + +The statesman shook his head pleasantly. + +"The details are a little vague still, I grant you," said Wharton, +smiling. + +"And you think the principle matters twopence without the details? I +have always found that the difficulty with the Christian command, 'Be ye +perfect.' The principle doesn't trouble me at all!" + +The swaying of the entering throng parted the two speakers, and for a +second or two the portly host followed with his eye the fair profile and +lightly-built figure of the younger man as they receded from him in the +crowd. It was in his mind that the next twenty years, whether this man +or that turned out to be important or no, must see an enormous +quickening of the political pace. He himself was not conscious of any +jealousy of the younger men; but neither did he see among them any +commanding personality. This young fellow, with his vivacity, his +energy, and his Socialist whims, was interesting enough; and his +problem was interesting--the problem of whether he could make a party +out of the heterogeneous group of which he was turning out to be +indisputably the ablest member. But what was there _certain_ or +_inevitable_ about his future after all? And it was the same with all +the rest. Whereas the leaders of the past had surely announced +themselves beyond mistake from the beginning. He was inclined to think, +however, that we were levelling up rather than levelling down. The world +grew too clever, and leadership was more difficult every day. + +Meanwhile Wharton found his progress through these stately rooms +extremely pleasant. He was astonished at the multitude of people he +knew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, after +half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without +an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free +to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a +chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. A feeling of +surprise, too, which had not yet worn away. A year before he had told +Marcella Boyce, and with conviction, that he was an outcast from his +class. He smiled now at that past _naivete_ which had allowed him to +take the flouts of his country neighbours and his mother's unpopularity +with her aristocratic relations for an index of the way in which +"society" in general would be likely to treat him and his opinions. He +now knew, on the contrary, that those opinions had been his best +advertisement. Few people, it appeared, were more in demand among the +great than those who gave it out that they would, if they could, abolish +the great. + +"It's because they're not enough afraid of us--yet," he said to himself, +not without spleen. "When we really get to business--if we ever do--I +shall not be coming to Lady Cradock's parties." + +"Mr. Wharton, do you ever do such a frivolous thing as go to the +theatre?" said a pretty, languishing creature at his elbow, the wife of +a London theatrical manager. "Suppose you come and see us in 'The +Minister's Wooing,' first night next Saturday. I've got _one_ seat in my +box, for somebody _very_ agreeable. Only it must be somebody who can +appreciate my frocks!" + +"I should be charmed," said Wharton. "Are the frocks so adorable?" + +"Adorable! Then I may write you a note? You don't have your horrid +Parliament that night, do you?" and she fluttered on. + +"I think you don't know my younger daughter, Mr. Wharton?" said a severe +voice at his elbow. + +He turned and saw an elderly matron with the usual matronly cap and +careworn countenance putting forward a young thing in white, to whom he +bowed with great ceremony. The lady was the wife of a north-country +magnate of very old family, and one of the most exclusive of her kind in +London. The daughter, a vision of young shyness and bloom, looked at him +with frightened eyes as he leant against the wall beside her and began +to talk. She wished he would go away and let her get to the girl friend +who was waiting for her and signalling to her across the room. But in a +minute or two she had forgotten to wish anything of the kind. The +mixture of audacity with a perfect self-command in the manner of her new +acquaintance, that searching half-mocking look, which saw everything in +detail, and was always pressing beyond the generalisations of talk and +manners, the lightness and brightness of the whole aspect, of the curls, +the eyes, the flexible determined mouth, these things arrested her. She +began to open her virgin heart, first in protesting against attack, then +in confession, till in ten minutes her white breast was heaving under +the excitement of her own temerity and Wharton knew practically all +about her, her mingled pleasure and remorse in "going out," her +astonishment at the difference between the world as it was this year, +and the world as it had been last, when she was still in the +school-room--her Sunday-school--her brothers--her ideals--for she was a +little nun at heart--her favourite clergyman--and all the rest of it. + +"I say, Wharton, come and dine, will you, Thursday, at the House--small +party--meet in my room?" + +So said one of the party whips, from behind into his ear. The speaker +was a popular young aristocrat who in the preceding year had treated the +member for West Brookshire with chilliness. Wharton turned--to consider +a moment--then gave a smiling assent. + +"All right!" said the other, withdrawing his hand from Wharton's +shoulder--"good-night!--two more of these beastly crushes to fight +through till I can get to my bed, worse luck! Are any of your fellows +here to-night?" + +Wharton shook his head. + +"Too austere, I suppose?" + +"A question of dress coats, I should think," said Wharton, drily. + +The other shrugged his shoulders. + +"And this calls itself a party gathering--in a radical and democratic +house--what a farce it all is!" + +"Agreed! good-night." + +And Wharton moved on, just catching as he did so the eyes of his new +girl acquaintance looking back at him from a distant door. Their shy +owner withdrew them instantly, coloured, and passed out of sight. + +At the same moment a guest entered by the same door, a tall grave man in +the prime of life, but already grey haired. Wharton, to his surprise, +recognised Aldous Raeburn, and saw also that the master of the house had +him by the arm. They came towards him, talking. The crowd prevented him +from getting effectually out of their way, but he turned aside and took +up a magazine lying on a bookcase near. + +"And you really think him a trifle better?" said the ex-minister. + +"Oh, yes, better--certainly better--but I am afraid he will hardly get +back to work this session--the doctors talk of sending him away at +once." + +"Ah, well," said the other, smiling, "we don't intend it seems to let +you send anything important up to the Lords yet awhile, so there will be +time for him to recruit." + +"I wish I was confident about the recruiting," said Raeburn, sadly. "He +has lost much strength. I shall go with them to the Italian lakes at the +end of next week, see them settled and come back at once." + +"Shall you miss a sitting of the commission?" asked his host. Both he +and Raeburn were members of an important Labour Commission appointed the +year before by the new Conservative government. + +"Hardly, I think," said Raeburn, "I am particularly anxious not to miss +D----'s evidence." + +And they fell talking a little about the Commission and the witnesses +recently examined before it. Wharton, who was wedged in by a group of +ladies, and could not for the moment move, heard most of what they were +saying, much against his will. Moreover Raeburn's tone of quiet and +masterly familiarity with what he and his companion were discussing +annoyed him. There was nothing in the world that he himself would more +eagerly have accepted than a seat on that Commission. + +"Ah! there is Lady Cradock!" said Raeburn, perceiving his hostess across +a sea of intervening faces, and responding to her little wave of the +hand. "I must go and get a few words with her, and then take my aunt +away." + +As he made his way towards her, he suddenly brushed against Wharton, who +could not escape. Raeburn looked up, recognised the man he had touched, +flushed slightly and passed on. A bystander would have supposed them +strangers to each other. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Two or three minutes later, Wharton was walking down a side street +towards Piccadilly. After all the flattering incidents of the evening, +the chance meeting with which it concluded had jarred unpleasantly. +Confound the fellow! Was he the first man in the world who had been +thrown over by a girl because he had been discovered to be a tiresome +pedant? For even supposing Miss Boyce had described that little scene in +the library at Mellor to her _fiance_ at the moment of giving him his +dismissal--and the year before, by the help of all the news that reached +him about the broken engagement, by the help still more of the look, or +rather the entire absence of look wherewith Raeburn had walked past his +greeting and his outstretched hand in a corridor of the House, on the +first occasion of their meeting after the news had become public +property, Wharton was inclined to think she _had_--what then? No doubt +the stern moralist might have something to say on the subject of taking +advantage of a guest's position to tamper with another man's betrothed. +If so, the stern moralist would only show his usual incapacity to grasp +the actual facts of flesh and blood. What chance would he or any one +else have had with Marcella Boyce, if she had happened to be in love +with the man she had promised to marry? That little trifle had been left +out in the arrangement. It might have worked through perfectly well +without; as it happened it had broken down. _Realities_ had broken it +down. Small blame to them! + +"I stood for _truth_!" he said to himself with a kind of rage--"that +moment when I held her in the library, she _lived_.--Raeburn offered her +a platform, a position; _I_ made her think, and feel. I helped her to +know herself. Our relation was not passion; it stood on the +threshold--but it was real--a true relation so far as it went. That it +went no farther was due again to circumstances--realities--of another +kind. That _he_ should scorn and resent my performance at Mellor is +natural enough. If we were in France he would call me out and I should +give him satisfaction with all the pleasure in life. But what am _I_ +about? Are his ways mine? I should have nothing left but to shoot myself +to-morrow if they were!" + +He walked on swiftly, angrily rating himself for those symptoms of a +merely false and conventional conscience which were apt to be roused in +him by contact with Aldous Raeburn. + +"Has he not interfered with my freedom--stamped his pedantic foot on +me--ever since we were boys together! I have owed him one for many +years--now I have paid it. Let him take the chances of war!" + +Then, driven on by an irritation not to be quieted, he began against his +will to think of those various occasions on which he and Aldous Raeburn +had crossed each other in the past--of that incident in particular which +Miss Raeburn had roughly recalled to Lady Winterbourne's reluctant +memory. + +Well, and what of it? It had occurred when Wharton was a lad of +twenty-one, and during an interval of some months when Aldous Raeburn, +who had left Cambridge some three years before, and was already the man +of importance, had shown a decided disposition to take up the brilliant, +unmanageable boy, whom the Levens, among other relations, had already +washed their hands of. + +"What did he do it for?" thought Wharton. "Philanthropic motives of +course. He is one of the men who must always be saving their souls, and +the black sheep of the world come in handy for the purpose. I remember I +was flattered then. It takes one some time to understand the workings of +the Hebraistic conscience!" + +Yes--as it galled him to recollect--he had shown great plasticity for a +time. He was then in the middle of his Oxford years, and Raeburn's +letters and Raeburn's influence had certainly pulled him through various +scrapes that might have been disastrous. Then--a little later--he could +see the shooting lodge on the moors above Loch Etive, where he and +Raeburn, Lord Maxwell, Miss Raeburn, and a small party had spent the +August of his twenty-first birthday. Well--that surly keeper, and his +pretty wife who had been Miss Raeburn's maid--could anything be more +inevitable? A hard and jealous husband, and one of the softest, most +sensuous natures that ever idleness made love to. The thing was in the +air!--in the summer, in the blood--as little to be resisted as the +impulse to eat when you are hungry, or drink when you thirst. Besides, +what particular harm had been done, what particular harm _could_ have +been done with such a Cerberus of a husband? As to the outcry which had +followed one special incident, nothing could have been more uncalled +for, more superfluous. Aldous had demanded contrition, had said strong +things with the flashing eyes, the set mouth of a Cato. And the culprit +had turned obstinate--would repent nothing--not for the asking. +Everything was arguable, and Renan's doubt as to whether he or Theophile +Gautier were in the right of it, would remain a doubt to all time--that +was all Raeburn could get out of him. After which the Hebraist friend of +course had turned his back on the offender, and there was an end of it. + +That incident, however, had belonged to a stage in his past life, a +stage marked by a certain prolonged tumult of the senses, on which he +now looked back with great composure. That tumult had found vent in +other adventures more emphatic a good deal than the adventure of the +keeper's wife. He believed that one or two of them had been not unknown +to Raeburn. + +Well, that was done with! His mother's death--that wanton stupidity on +the part of fate--and the shock it had somehow caused him, had first +drawn him out of the slough of a cheap and facile pleasure on which he +now looked back with contempt. Afterwards, his two years of travel, and +the joys at once virile and pure they had brought with them, joys of +adventure, bodily endurance, discovery, together with the intellectual +stimulus which comes of perpetual change, of new heavens, new seas, new +societies, had loosened the yoke of the flesh and saved him from +himself. The deliverance so begun had been completed at home, by the +various chances and opportunities which had since opened to him a solid +and tempting career in that Labour movement his mother had linked him +with, without indeed ever understanding either its objects or its men. +The attack on capital now developing on all sides, the planning of the +vast campaign, and the handling of its industrial troops, these things +had made the pursuit of women look insipid, coupled as they were with +the thrill of increasing personal success. Passion would require to +present itself in new forms, if it was now to take possession of him +again. + +As to his relation to Raeburn, he well remembered that when, after that +long break in his life, he and Aldous had met casually again, in London +or elsewhere, Aldous had shown a certain disposition to forget the old +quarrel, and to behave with civility, though not with friendliness. As +to Wharton he was quite willing, though at the same time he had gone +down to contest West Brookshire, and, above all, had found himself in +the same house as Aldous Raeburn's betrothed, with an even livelier +sense than usual of the excitement to be got out of mere living. + +No doubt when Raeburn heard that story of the library--if he had heard +it--he recognised in it the man and the character he had known of old, +and had shrunk from the connection of both with Marcella Boyce in bitter +and insurmountable disgust. A mere Hebraist's mistake! + +"That girl's attraction for me was not an attraction of the +senses--except so far that for every normal man and woman charm is +charm, and ginger is hot in the mouth and always will be! What I played +for with her was _power_--power over a nature that piqued and yet by +natural affinity belonged to me. I could not have retained that power, +as it happened, by any bait of passion. Even without the Hurd affair, if +I had gone on to approach her so, her whole moral nature would have +risen against me and her own treachery. I knew that perfectly well, and +took the line I did because for the moment the game was too exciting, +too interesting, to give up. For the moment! then a few days,--a few +weeks later--Good Lord! what stuff we mortals be!" + +And he raised his shoulders, mocking, yet by no means disliking his own +idiosyncrasies. It had been strange, indeed, that complete change of +mental emphasis, that alteration of spiritual axis that had befallen him +within the first weeks of his parliamentary life, nay, even before the +Hurd agitation was over. That agitation had brought him vigorously and +profitably into public notice at a convenient moment. But what had +originally sprung from the impulse to retain a hold over a woman, became +in the end the instrument of a new and quite other situation. Wharton +had no sooner entered the House of Commons than he felt himself +strangely at home there. He had the instinct for debate, the instinct +for management, together with a sensitive and contriving ambition. He +found himself possessed for the moment of powers of nervous endurance +that astonished him--a patience of boredom besides, a capacity for +drudgery, and for making the best of dull men. The omens were all +favourable, sometimes startlingly so. He was no longer hampered by the +ill-will of a county or a family connection. Here in this new world, +every man counted strictly for what, in the parliamentary sense, he was +worth. Wharton saw that, owing to his public appearances during the two +preceding years, he was noticed, listened to, talked about in the House, +from the first; and that his position in the newly-formed though still +loosely-bound Labour party was one of indefinite promise. The anxieties +and pitfalls of the position only made it the more absorbing. + +The quick, elastic nature adjusted itself at once. To some kinds of +success, nothing is so important as the ability to forget--to sweep the +mind free of everything irrelevant and superfluous. Marcella Boyce, and +all connected with her, passed clean out of Wharton's consciousness. +Except that once or twice he said to himself with a passing smile that +it was a good thing he had not got himself into a worse scrape at +Mellor. Good heavens! in what plight would a man stand--a man with his +career to make--who had given Marcella Boyce claims upon him! As well +entangle oneself with the Tragic Muse at once as with that stormy, +unmanageable soul! + +So much for a year ago. To-night, however, the past had been thrust back +upon him, both by Lady Selina's talk and by the meeting with Raeburn. To +smart indeed once more under that old ascendency of Raeburn's, was to +be provoked into thinking of Raeburn's old love. + +Where was Miss Boyce? Surely her year of hospital training must be up by +now? + +He turned into St. James Street, stopped at a door not far from the +Palace end, let himself in, and groped his way to the second floor. A +sleepy man-servant turned out of his room, and finding that his master +was not inclined to go to bed, brought lights and mineral water. Wharton +was practically a teetotaller. He had taken a whim that way as a boy, +and a few experiments in drunkenness which he had made at college had +only confirmed what had been originally perhaps a piece of +notoriety-hunting. He had, as a rule, flawless health; and the +unaccustomed headaches and nausea which followed these occasional +excesses had disgusted and deterred him. He shook himself easily free of +a habit which had never gained a hold upon him, and had ever since found +his abstinence a source both of vanity and of distinction. Nothing +annoyed him more than to hear it put down to any ethical motive. "If I +liked the beastly stuff, I should swim in it to-morrow," he would say +with an angry eye when certain acquaintance--not those he made at Labour +Congresses--goaded him on the point. "As it is, why should I make it, or +chloral, or morphia, or any other poison, my master! What's the +inducement--eh, you fellows?" + +_En revanche_ he smoked inordinately. + +"Is that all, sir," said his servant, pausing behind his chair, after +candles, matches, cigarettes, and Apollinaris had been supplied in +abundance. + +"Yes; go to bed, Williams, but don't lock up. Good-night." + +The man departed, and Wharton, going to the window which opened on a +balcony looking over St. James Street, threw it wide, and smoked a +cigarette leaning against the wall. It was on the whole a fine night and +warm, though the nip of the east wind was not yet out of the air. In the +street below there was still a good deal of movement, for it was only +just past midnight and the clubs were not yet empty. To his right the +turreted gate-house of the Palace with its clock rose dark against a sky +covered with light, windy cloud. Beyond it his eye sought instinctively +for the Clock Tower, which stood to-night dull and beaconless--like some +one in a stupid silence. That light of the sitting House had become to +him one of the standing pleasures of life. He had never yet been +honestly glad of its extinction. + +"I'm a precious raw hand," he confessed to himself with a shake of the +head as he stood there smoking. "And it can't last--nothing does." + +Presently he laid down his cigarette a moment on the edge of the +balcony, and, coming back into the room, opened a drawer, searched a +little, and finally took out a letter. He stooped over the lamp to read +it. It was the letter which Marcella Boyce had written him some two or +three days after the breach of her engagement. That fact was barely +mentioned at the beginning of it, without explanation or comment of any +kind. Then the letter continued: + +"I have never yet thanked you as I ought for all that you have done and +attempted through these many weeks. But for them it must have been plain +to us both that we could never rightly meet again. I am very destitute +just now--and I cling to self-respect as though it were the only thing +left me. But that scene in the past, which put us both wrong with +honour and conscience, has surely been wiped out--_thought--suffered_ +away. I feel that I dare now say to you, as I would to any other +co-worker and co-thinker--if in the future you ever want my work, if you +can set me, with others, to any task that wants doing and that I could +do--ask me, and I am not likely to refuse. + +"But for the present I am going quite away into another world. I have +been more ill than I have ever been in my life this last few days, and +they are all, even my father, ready to agree with me that I must go. As +soon as I am a little stronger I am to have a year's training at a +London hospital, and then I shall probably live for a while in town and +nurse. This scheme occurred to me as I came back with the wife from +seeing Hurd the day before the execution. I knew then that all was over +for me at Mellor. + +"As for the wretched break-down of everything--of all my schemes and +friendships here--I had better not speak of it. I feel that I have given +these village-folk, whom I had promised to help, one more reason to +despair of life. It is not pleasant to carry such a thought away with +one. But if the tool breaks and blunts, how can the task be done? It can +be of no use till it has been re-set. + +"I should like to know how your plans prosper. But I shall see your +paper and follow what goes on in Parliament. For the present I want +neither to write nor get letters. They tell me that as a probationer I +shall spend my time at first in washing glasses, and polishing +bath-taps, on which my mind rests! + +"If you come across my friends of whom I have spoken to you--Louis, +Anthony, and Edith Craven--and could make any use of Louis for the +_Labour Clarion_, I should be grateful. I hear they have had bad times +of late, and Louis has engaged himself, and wants to be married. You +remember I told you how we worked at the South Kensington classes +together, and how they made me a Venturist? + + "Yours very truly, + + "MARCELLA BOYCE." + +Wharton laid down the letter, making a wry mouth over some of its +phrases. + +"'_Put us both wrong with honour and conscience.' 'One more reason for +despair of life'--'All was over for me at Mellor_'--dear! dear!--how +women like the big words--the emphatic pose. All those little odds and +ends of charities--that absurd straw-plaiting scheme! Well, perhaps one +could hardly expect her to show a sense of humour just then. But why +does nature so often leave it out in these splendid creatures?" + +"Hullo!" he added, as he bent over the table to look for a pen; "why +didn't that idiot give me these?" + +For there, under an evening paper which he had not touched, lay a pile +of unopened letters. His servant had forgotten to point them out to him. +On the top was a letter on which Wharton pounced at once. It was +addressed in a bold inky hand, and he took it to be from Nehemiah +Wilkins, M.P., his former colleague at the Birmingham Labour Congress, +of late a member of the _Labour Clarion_ staff, and as such a daily +increasing plague and anxiety to the _Clarion's_ proprietor. + +However, the letter was not from Wilkins. It was from the secretary of +a Midland trades-union, with whom Wharton had already been in +communication. The union was recent, and represented the as yet feeble +organisation of a metal industry in process of transition from the +home-workshop to the full factory, or Great Industry stage. The +conditions of work were extremely bad, and grievances many; wages were +low, and local distress very great. The secretary, a young man of +ability and enthusiasm, wrote to Wharton to say that certain alterations +in the local "payment lists" lately made by the employers amounted to a +reduction of wages; that the workers, beginning to feel the heartening +effects of their union, were determined not to submit; that bitter and +even desperate agitation was spreading fast, and that a far-reaching +strike was imminent. Could they count on the support of the _Clarion_? +The _Clarion_ had already published certain letters on the industry from +a Special Commissioner--letters which had drawn public attention, and +had been eagerly read in the district itself. Would the _Clarion_ now +"go in" for them? Would Mr. Wharton personally support them, in or out +of Parliament, and get his friends to do the same? To which questions, +couched in terms extremely flattering to the power of the _Clarion_ and +its owner, the secretary appended a long and technical statement of the +situation. + +Wharton looked up from the letter with a kindling eye. He foresaw an +extremely effective case, both for the newspaper and the House of +Commons. One of the chief capitalists involved was a man called Denny, +who had been long in the House, for whom the owner of the _Clarion_ +entertained a strong personal dislike. Denny had thwarted him +vexatiously--had perhaps even made him ridiculous--on one or two +occasions; and Wharton saw no reason whatever for forgiving one's +enemies until, like Narvaez, one had "shot them all." There would be +much satisfaction in making Denny understand who were his masters. And +with these motives there mingled a perfectly genuine sympathy with the +"poor devils" in question, and a desire to see them righted. + +"Somebody must be sent down at once," he said to himself. "I suppose," +he added, with discontent, "it must be Wilkins." + +For the man who had written the articles for the _Labour Clarion_, as +Special Commissioner, had some three weeks before left England to take +command of a colonial newspaper. + +Still pondering, he took up the other letters, turned them +over--childishly pleased for the thousandth time by the M.P. on each +envelope and the number and variety of his correspondence--and eagerly +chose out three--one from his bankers, one from his Lincolnshire agent, +and one from the _Clarion_ office, undoubtedly this time in Wilkins's +hand. + +He read them, grew a little pale, swore under his breath, and, angrily +flinging the letters away from him, he took up his cigarette again and +thought. + +The letter from his bankers asked his attention in stiff terms to a +largely overdrawn account, and entirely declined to advance a sum of +money for which he had applied to them without the guarantee of two +substantial names in addition to his own. The letter from his agent +warned him that the extraordinary drought of the past six weeks, +together with the general agricultural depression, would certainly mean +a large remission of rents at the June quarter day, and also informed +him that the holders of his co-operative farm would not be able to pay +their half-yearly interest on the capital advanced to them by the +landlord. + +As to the third letter, it was in truth much more serious than the two +others. Wilkins, the passionate and suspicious workman, of great natural +ability, who had been in many ways a thorn in Wharton's side since the +beginning of his public career, was now member for a mining +constituency. His means of support were extremely scanty, and at the +opening of the new Parliament Wharton had offered him well-paid work on +the _Clarion_ newspaper. It had seemed to the proprietor of the +_Clarion_ a way of attaching a dangerous man to himself, perhaps also of +controlling him. Wilkins had grudgingly accepted, understanding +perfectly well what was meant. + +Since then the relation between the two men had been one of perpetual +friction. Wilkins's irritable pride would yield nothing, either in the +House or in the _Clarion_ office, to Wharton's university education and +class advantages, while Wharton watched with alarm the growing influence +of this insubordinate and hostile member of his own staff on those +labour circles from which the _Clarion_ drew its chief support. + +In the letter he had just read Wilkins announced to the proprietor of +the _Clarion_ that in consequence of the "scandalous mismanagement" of +that paper's handling of a certain trade arbitration which had just +closed, he, Wilkins, could no longer continue to write for it, and +begged to terminate his engagement at once, there being no formal +agreement between himself and Wharton as to length of notice on either +side. A lively attack on the present management and future prospects of +the _Clarion_ followed, together with the threat that the writer would +do what in him lay henceforward to promote the cause of a certain rival +organ lately started, among such working men as he might be able to +influence. + +"_Brute_! jealous, impracticable brute!" exclaimed Wharton aloud, as he +stood chafing and smoking by the window. All the difficulties which this +open breach was likely to sow in his path stood out before him in clear +relief. + +"_Personal_ leadership, there is the whole problem," he said to himself +in moody despair. "Can I--like Parnell--make a party and keep it +together? Can I through the _Clarion_--and through influence _outside_ +the House--coerce the men _in_ the House? If so, we can do something, +and Lady Cradock will no longer throw me her smiles. If not the game is +up, both for me and for them. They have no cohesion, no common +information, no real power. Without leaders they are a mere set of +half-educated firebrands whom the trained mind of the country humours +because it must, and so far as they have brute force behind them. +Without _leadership_, _I_ am a mere unit of the weakest group in the House. +Yet, by Jove! it looks as though I had not the gifts." + +And he looked back with passionate chagrin on the whole course of his +connection with Wilkins, his unavailing concessions and small +humiliations, his belief in his own tact and success, all the time that +the man dealt with was really slipping out of his hands. + +"Damn the fellow!" he said at last, flinging his cigarette away. "Well, +that's done with. All the same, he would have liked that Midland job! He +has been hankering after a strike there for some time, and might have +ranted as he pleased. I shall have the satisfaction of informing him he +has lost his opportunity. Now then--who to send? By Jove! what about +Miss Boyce's friend?" + +He stood a moment twisting the quill-pen he had taken up, then he +hastily found a sheet of paper and wrote: + +"Dear Miss Boyce,--It is more than a year since I have heard of you, and +I have been wondering with much interest lately whether you have really +taken up a nursing life. You remember speaking to me of your friends the +Cravens? I come across them sometimes at the Venturist meetings, and +have always admired their ability. Last year I could do nothing +practical to meet your wishes. This year, however, there is an opening +on the _Clarion_, and I should like to discuss it with you. Are you in +town or to be found? I could come any afternoon next week, _early_--I go +down to the House at four--or on Saturdays. But I should like it to be +Tuesday or Wednesday, that I might try and persuade you to come to our +Eight Hours debate on Friday night. It would interest you, and I think I +could get you a seat. We Labour members are like the Irishmen--we can +always get our friends in. + +"I must send this round by Mellor, so it may not reach you till Tuesday. +Perhaps you will kindly telegraph. The _Clarion_ matter is pressing. + + "Yours sincerely, + + "H.S. WHARTON." + +When he had finished he lingered a moment over the letter, the play of +conflicting motives and memories bringing a vague smile to the lips. + +Reverie, however, was soon dispersed. He recollected his other +correspondents, and springing up he began to pace his room, gloomily +thinking over his money difficulties, which were many. He and his mother +had always been in want of money ever since he could remember. Lady +Mildred would spend huge sums on her various crotchets and campaigns, +and then subside for six months into wretched lodgings in a back street +of Southsea or Worthing, while the Suffolk house was let, and her son +mostly went abroad. This perpetual worry of needy circumstances had +always, indeed, sat lightly on Wharton. He was unmarried, and so far +scarcity had generally passed into temporary comfort before he had time +to find it intolerable. But now the whole situation was becoming more +serious. In the first place, his subscriptions and obligations as a +member of Parliament, and as one of the few propertied persons in a +moneyless movement, were considerable. Whatever Socialism might make of +money in the future, he was well aware that money in the present was no +less useful to a Socialist politician than to any one else. In the next +place, the starting and pushing of the _Clarion_ newspaper--originally +purchased by the help of a small legacy from an uncle--had enormously +increased the scale of his money transactions and the risks of life. + +How was it that, with all his efforts, the _Clarion_ was not making, but +losing money? During the three years he had possessed it he had raised +it from the position of a small and foul-mouthed print, indifferently +nourished on a series of small scandals, to that of a Labour organ of +some importance. He had written a weekly signed article for it, which +had served from the beginning to bring both him and the paper into +notice; he had taken pains with the organisation and improvement of the +staff; above all, he had spent a great deal more money upon it, in the +way of premises and appliances, than he had been, as it turned out, in +any way justified in spending. + +Hence, indeed, these tears. Rather more than a year before, while the +_Clarion_ was still enjoying a first spurt of success and notoriety, he +had, with a certain recklessness which belonged to his character, +invested in new and costly machinery, and had transferred the paper to +larger offices. All this had been done on borrowed money. + +Then, for some reason or other, the _Clarion_ had ceased to answer to +the spur--had, indeed, during the past eight months been flagging +heavily. The outside world was beginning to regard the _Clarion_ as an +important paper. Wharton knew all the time that its advertisements were +falling off, and its circulation declining. Why? Who can say? If it is +true that books have their fates, it is still more true of newspapers. +Was it that a collectivist paper--the rival organ mentioned by +Wilkins--recently started by a group of young and outrageously clever +Venturists and more closely in touch than the _Clarion_ with two or +three of the great unions, had filched the _Clarion's_ ground? Or was it +simply that, as Wharton put it to himself in moments of rage and +despondency, the majority of working men "are either sots or +block-heads, and will read and support _nothing_ but the low racing or +police-court news, which is all their intelligences deserve?" Few people +had at the bottom of their souls a more scornful distrust of the +"masses" than the man whose one ambition at the present moment was to be +the accepted leader of English labour. + +Finally, his private expenditure had always been luxurious; and he was +liable, it will be seen, to a kind of debt that is not easily kept +waiting. On the whole, his bankers had behaved to him with great +indulgence. + +He fretted and fumed, turning over plan after plan as he walked, his +curly head sunk in his shoulders, his hands behind his back. Presently +he stopped--absently--in front of the inner wall of the room, where, +above a heavy rosewood bookcase, brought from his Lincolnshire house, a +number of large framed photographs were hung close together. + +His eye caught one and brightened. With an impatient gesture, like that +of a reckless boy, he flung his thoughts away from him. + +"If ever the game becomes too tiresome here, why, the next steamer will +take me out of it! What a _gorgeous_ time we had on that glacier!" + +He stood looking at a splendid photograph of a glacier in the Thibetan +Himalayas, where, in the year following his mother's death, he had spent +four months with an exploring party. The plate had caught the very grain +and glisten of the snow, the very sheen and tint of the ice. He could +_feel_ the azure of the sky, the breath of the mountain wind. The man +seated on the ladder over that bottomless crevasse was himself. And +there were the guides, two from Chamounix, one from Grindelwald, and +that fine young fellow, the son of the elder Chamounix guide, whom they +had lost by a stone-shower on that nameless peak towering to the left of +the glacier. Ah, those had been years of _life_, those _Wanderjahre_! He +ran over the photographs with a kind of greed, his mind meanwhile losing +itself in covetous memories of foamy seas, of long, low, tropical shores +with their scattered palms, of superb rivers sweeping with sound and +fury round innumerable islands, of great buildings ivory white amid the +wealth of creepers which had pulled them into ruin, vacant now for ever +of the voice of man, and ringed by untrodden forests. + +"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay,'" he thought. +"Ah! but how much did the man who wrote that know about Cathay?" + +And with his hands thrust into his pockets, he stood lost awhile in a +flying dream that defied civilisation and its cares. How well, how +indispensable to remember, that beyond these sweltering streets where we +choke and swarm, Cathay stands always waiting! _Somewhere_, while we +toil in the gloom and the crowd, there is _air_, there is _sea_, the joy +of the sun, the life of the body, so good, so satisfying! This +interminable ethical or economical battle, these struggles selfish or +altruistic, in which we shout ourselves hoarse to no purpose--why! they +could be shaken off at a moment's notice! + +"However"--he turned on his heel--"suppose we try a few other trifles +first. What time? those fellows won't have gone to bed yet!" + +He took out his watch, then extinguished his candles, and made his way +to the street. A hundred yards or so away from his own door he stopped +before a well-known fashionable club, extremely small, and extremely +select, where his mother's brother, the peer of the family, had +introduced him when he was young and tender, and his mother's relations +still cherished hopes of snatching him as a brand from the burning. + +The front rooms of the club were tolerably full still. He passed on to +the back. A door-keeper stationed in the passage stepped back and +silently opened a door. It closed instantly behind him, and Wharton +found himself in a room with some twenty other young fellows playing +baccarat, piles of shining money on the tables, the electric lamps hung +over each, lighting every detail of the scene with the same searching +disenchanting glare. + +"I say!" cried a young dark-haired fellow, like a dishevelled Lord +Byron. "Here comes the Labour leader--make room!" + +And amid laughter and chaffing he was drawn down to the baccarat table, +where a new deal was just beginning. He felt in his pockets for money; +his eyes, intent and shining, followed every motion of the dealer's +hand. For three years now, ever since his return from his travels, the +gambler's passion had been stealing on him. Already this season he had +lost and won--on the whole lost--large sums. And the fact was--so +far--absolutely unknown except to the men with whom he played in this +room. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"If yer goin' downstairs, Nuss, you'd better take that there scuttle +with yer, for the coals is gittin' low an' it ull save yer a journey!" + +Marcella looked with amusement at her adviser--a small bandy-legged boy +in shirt and knickerbockers, with black Jewish eyes in a strongly +featured face. He stood leaning on the broom he had just been wielding, +his sleeves rolled up to the shoulder showing his tiny arms; his +expression sharp and keen as a hawk's. + +"Well, Benny, then you look after your mother while I'm gone, and don't +let any one in but the doctor." + +And Marcella turned for an instant towards the bed whereon lay a sick +woman too feeble apparently to speak or move. + +"I aint a goin' ter," said the boy, shortly, beginning to sweep again +with energy, "an' if this 'ere baby cries, give it the bottle, I +s'pose?" + +"No, certainly not," said Marcella, firmly; "it has just had one. You +sweep away, Benny, and let the baby alone." + +Benny looked a trifle wounded, but recovered himself immediately, and +ran a general's eye over Marcella who was just about to leave the room. + +"Now look 'ere, Nuss," he said in a tone of pitying remonstrance, "yer +never a goin' down to that 'ere coal cellar without a light. Yer'll 'ave +to come runnin' up all them stairs again--sure as I'm alive yer will!" + +And darting to a cupboard he pulled out a grimy candlestick with an end +of dip and some matches, disposed of them at the bottom of the +coal-scuttle that Marcella carried over her left arm, and then, still +masterfully considering her, let her go. + +Marcella groped her way downstairs. The house was one of a type familiar +all over the poorer parts of West Central London--the eighteenth-century +house inhabited by law or fashion in the days of Dr. Johnson, now +parcelled out into insanitary tenements, miserably provided with air, +water, and all the necessaries of life, but still showing in its +chimney-piece or its decaying staircase signs of the graceful domestic +art which had ruled at the building and fitting of it. + +Marcella, however, had no eye whatever at the moment for the panelling +on the staircase, or the delicate ironwork of the broken balustrade. +Rather it seemed to her, as she looked into some of the half-open doors +of the swarming rooms she passed, or noticed with disgust the dirt and +dilapidation of the stairs, and the evil smells of the basement, that +the house added one more to the standing shames of the district--an +opinion doubly strong in her when at last she emerged from her gropings +among the dens of the lower regions, and began to toil upstairs again +with her filled kettle and coal-scuttle. + +The load was heavy, even for her young strength, and she had just passed +a sleepless night. The evening before she had been sent for in haste to +a woman in desperate illness. She came, and found a young Jewess, with a +ten days old child beside her, struggling with her husband and two women +friends in a state of raging delirium. The room, was full to suffocation +of loud-tongued, large-eyed Jewesses, all taking turns at holding the +patient, and chattering or quarrelling between their turns. It had been +Marcella's first and arduous duty to get the place cleared, and she had +done it without ever raising her voice or losing her temper for an +instant. The noisy pack had been turned out; the most competent woman +among them chosen to guard the door and fetch and carry for the nurse; +while Marcella set to work to wash her patient and remake the bed as +best she could, in the midst of the poor thing's wild shrieks and +wrestlings. + +It was a task to test both muscular strength and moral force to their +utmost. After her year's training Marcella took it simply in the day's +work. Some hours of intense effort and strain; then she and the husband +looked down upon the patient, a woman of about six-and-twenty, plunged +suddenly in narcotic sleep, her matted black hair, which Marcella had +not dared to touch, lying in wild waves on the clean bed-clothes and +night-gear that her nurse had extracted from this neighbour and +that--she could hardly have told how. + +"_Ach, mein Gott, mein Gott!_" said the husband, rising and shaking +himself. He was a Jew from German Poland, and, unlike most of his race, +a huge man, with the make and the muscles of a prize-fighter. Yet, +after the struggle of the last two hours he was in a bath of +perspiration. + +"You will have to send her to the infirmary if this comes on again," +said Marcella. + +The husband stared in helpless misery, first at his wife, then at the +nurse. + +"You will not go away, mees," he implored, "you will not leaf me alone?" + +Wearied as she was, Marcella could have smiled at the abject giant. + +"No, I will stay with her till the morning and till the doctor comes. +You had better go to bed." + +It was close on three o'clock. The man demurred a little, but he was in +truth too worn out to resist. He went into the back room and lay down +with the children. + +Then Marcella was left through the long summer dawn alone with her +patient. Her quick ear caught every sound about her--the heavy breaths +of the father and children in the back room, the twittering of the +sparrows, the first cries about the streets, the first movements in the +crowded house. Her mind all the time was running partly on contrivances +for pulling the woman through--for it was what a nurse calls "a good +case," one that rouses all her nursing skill and faculty--partly on the +extraordinary misconduct of the doctor, to whose criminal neglect and +mismanagement of the case she hotly attributed the whole of the woman's +illness; and partly--in deep, swift sinkings of meditative thought--on +the strangeness of the fact that she should be there at all, sitting in +this chair in this miserable room, keeping guard over this Jewish mother +and her child! + +The year in hospital had _rushed_--dreamless sleep by night, exhausting +fatigue of mind and body by day. A hospital nurse, if her work _seizes_ +her, as it had seized Marcella, never thinks of herself. Now, for some +six or seven weeks she had been living in rooms, as a district nurse, +under the control of a central office and superintendent. Her work lay +in the homes of the poor, and was of the most varied kind. The life was +freer, more elastic; allowed room at last to self-consciousness. + + * * * * * + +But now the night was over. The husband had gone off to work at a +factory near, whence he could be summoned at any moment; the children +had been disposed of to Mrs. Levi, the helpful neighbour; she herself +had been home for an hour to breakfast and dress, had sent to the office +asking that her other cases might be attended to, and was at present in +sole charge, with Benny to help her, waiting for the doctor. + +When she reached the sick-room again with her burdens, she found +Benjamin sitting pensive, with the broom across his knees. + +"Well, Benny!" she said as she entered, "how have you got on?" + +"Yer can't move the dirt on them boards with sweepin'," said Benny, +looking at them with disgust; "an' I ain't a goin' to try it no more." + +"You're about right there, Benny," said Marcella, mournfully, as she +inspected them; "well, we'll get Mrs. Levi to come in and scrub--as soon +as your mother can bear it." + +She stepped up to the bed and looked at her patient, who seemed to be +passing into a state of restless prostration, more or less under the +influence of morphia. Marcella fed her with strong beef tea made by +herself during the night, and debated whether she should give brandy. +No--either the doctor would come directly, or she would send for him. +She had not seen him yet, and her lip curled at the thought of him. He +had ordered a nurse the night before, but had not stayed to meet her, +and Marcella had been obliged to make out his instructions from the +husband as best she could. + +Benny looked up at her with a wink as she went back to the fire. + +"I didn't let none o' _them_ in," he said, jerking his thumb over his +shoulder. "They come a whisperin' at the door, an' a rattlin' ov the +handle as soon as ever you gone downstairs. But I tole 'em just to take +theirselves off, an' as 'ow you didn't want 'em. Sillies!" + +And taking a crust smeared with treacle out of his pocket, Benny +returned with a severe air to the sucking of it. + +Marcella laughed. + +"Clever Benny," she said, patting his head; "but why aren't you at +school, sir?" + +Benjamin grinned. + +"'Ow d'yer s'pose my ma's goin' to git along without me to do for 'er +and the babby?" he replied slily. + +"Well, Benny, you'll have the Board officer down on you." + +At this the urchin laughed out. + +"Why, 'e wor here last week! Ee can't be troublin' 'isself about this +'ere bloomin' street _ev_ery day in the week." + +There was a sharp knock at the door. + +"The doctor," she said, as her face dismissed the frolic brightness +which had stolen upon it for a moment. "Run away, Benny." + +Benny opened the door, looked the doctor coolly up and down, and then +withdrew to the landing, where his sisters were waiting to play with +him. + +The doctor, a tall man of thirty, with a red, blurred face and a fair +moustache, walked in hurriedly, and stared at the nurse standing by the +fire. + +"You come from the St. Martin's Association?" + +Marcella stiffly replied. He took her temperature-chart from her hand +and asked her some questions about the night, staring at her from time +to time with eyes that displeased her. Presently she came to an account +of the condition in which she had found her patient. The edge on the +words, for all their professional quiet, was unmistakable. She saw him +flush. + +He moved towards the bed, and she went with him. The woman moaned as he +approached her. He set about his business with hands that shook. +Marcella decided at once that he was not sober, and watched his +proceedings with increasing disgust and amazement. Presently she could +bear it no longer. + +"I think," she said, touching his arm, "that you had better leave it to +me--and--go away!" + +He drew himself up with a start which sent the things he held flying, +and faced her fiercely. + +"What do you mean?" he said, "don't you know your place?" + +The girl was very white, but her eyes were scornfully steady. + +"Yes--I know my place!" + +Then with a composure as fearless as it was scathing she said what she +had to say. She knew--and he could not deny--that he had endangered his +patient's life. She pointed out that he was in a fair way to endanger it +again. Every word she said lay absolutely within her sphere as a nurse. +His cloudy brain cleared under the stress of it. + +Then his eyes flamed, his cheeks became purple, and Marcella thought for +an instant he would have struck her. Finally he turned down his +shirt-cuffs and walked away. + +"You understand," he said thickly, turning upon her, with his hat in his +hand, "that I shall not attend this case again till your Association can +send me a nurse that will do as she is told without insolence to the +doctor. I shall now write a report to your superintendent." + +"As you please," said Marcella, quietly. And she went to the door and +opened it. + +He passed her sneering: + +"A precious superior lot you lady-nurses think yourselves, I dare say. +I'd sooner have one old gamp than the whole boiling of you!" + +Marcella eyed him sternly, her nostrils tightening. "Will you go?" she +said. + +He gave her a furious glance, and plunged down the stairs outside, +breathing threats. + +Marcella put her hand to her head a moment, and drew a long breath. +There was a certain piteousness in the action, a consciousness of youth +and strain. + +Then she saw that the landing and the stairs above were beginning to +fill with dark-haired Jewesses, eagerly peering and talking. In another +minute or two she would be besieged by them. She called sharply, +"Benny!" + +Instantly Benny appeared from the landing above, elbowing the Jewesses +to right and left. + +"What is it you want, Nuss? No, she don't want none o' _you_--_there_!" + +And Benjamin darted into the room, and would have slammed the door in +all their faces, but that Marcella said to him-- + +"Let in Mrs. Levi, please." + +The kind neighbour, who had been taking care of the children, was +admitted, and then the key was turned. Marcella scribbled a line on a +half-sheet of paper, and, with careful directions, despatched Benny with +it. + +"I have sent for a new doctor," she explained, still frowning and white, +to Mrs. Levi. "That one was not fit." + +The woman's olive-skinned face lightened all over. "Thanks to the Lord!" +she said, throwing up her hands. "But how in the world did you do 't, +miss? There isn't a single soul in this house that doesn't go all of a +tremble at the sight of 'im. Yet all the women has 'im when they're +ill--bound to. They thinks he must be clever, 'cos he's such a brute. I +do believe sometimes it's that. He _is_ a brute!" + +Marcella was bending over her patient, trying so far as she could to set +her straight and comfortable again. But the woman had begun to mutter +once more words in a strange dialect that Marcella did not understand, +and could no longer be kept still. The temperature was rising again, and +another fit of delirium was imminent. Marcella could only hope that she +and Mrs. Levi between them would be able to hold her till the doctor +came. When she had done all that was in her power, she sat beside the +poor tossing creature, controlling and calming her as best she could, +while Mrs. Levi poured into her shrinking ear the story of the woman's +illness and of Dr. Blank's conduct of it. Marcella's feeling, as she +listened, was made up of that old agony of rage and pity! The sufferings +of the poor, _because_ they were poor--these things often, still, +darkened earth and heaven for her. That wretch would have been quite +capable, no doubt, of conducting himself decently and even competently, +if he had been called to some supposed lady in one of the well-to-do +squares which made the centre of this poor and crowded district. + +"Hullo, nurse!" said a cheery voice; "you seem to have got a bad case." + +The sound was as music in Marcella's ears. The woman she held was fast +becoming unmanageable--had just shrieked, first for "poison," then for a +"knife," to kill herself with, and could hardly be prevented by the +combined strength of her nurse and Mrs. Levi, now from throwing herself +madly out of bed, and now from tearing out her black hair in handfuls. +The doctor--a young Scotchman with spectacles, and stubbly red +beard--came quickly up to the bed, asked Marcella a few short questions, +shrugged his shoulders over her dry report of Dr. Blank's proceedings, +then took out a black case from his pocket, and put his morphia syringe +together. + +For a long time no result whatever could be obtained by any treatment. +The husband was sent for, and came trembling, imploring doctor and +nurse, in the intervals of his wife's paroxysms, not to leave him alone. + +Marcella, absorbed in the tragic horror of the case, took no note of the +passage of time. Everything that the doctor suggested she carried out +with a deftness, a tenderness, a power of mind, which keenly affected +his professional sense. Once, the poor mother, left unguarded for an +instant, struck out with a wild right hand. The blow caught Marcella on +the cheek, and she drew back with a slight involuntary cry. + +"You are hurt," said Dr. Angus, running up to her. + +"No, no," she said, smiling through the tears that the shock had called +into her eyes, and putting him rather impatiently aside; "it is nothing. +You said you wanted some fresh ice." + +And she went into the back room to get it. + +The doctor stood with his hands in his pockets, studying the patient. + +"You will have to send her to the infirmary," he said to the husband; +"there is nothing else for it." + +Marcella came back with the ice, and was able to apply it to the head. +The patient was quieter--was, in fact, now groaning herself into a fresh +period of exhaustion. + +The doctor's sharp eyes took note of the two figures, the huddled +creature on the pillows and the stately head bending over her, with the +delicately hollowed cheek, whereon the marks of those mad fingers stood +out red and angry. He had already had experience of this girl in one or +two other cases. + +"Well," he said, taking up his hat, "it is no good shilly-shallying. I +will go and find Dr. Swift." Dr. Swift was the parish doctor. + +When he had gone, the big husband broke down and cried, with his head +against the iron of the bed close to his wife. He put his great hand on +hers, and talked to her brokenly in their own patois. They had been +eight years married, and she had never had a day's serious illness till +now. Marcella's eyes filled with tears as she moved about the room, +doing various little tasks. + +At last she went up to him. + +"Won't you go and have some dinner?" she said to him kindly. "There's +Benjamin calling you," and she pointed to the door of the back room, +where stood Benny, his face puckered with weeping, forlornly holding out +a plate of fried fish, in the hope of attracting his father's attention. + +The man, who in spite of his size and strength was in truth childishly +soft and ductile, went as he was bid, and Marcella and Mrs. Levi set +about doing what they could to prepare the wife for her removal. + +Presently parish doctor and sanitary inspector appeared, strange and +peremptory invaders who did but add to the terror and misery of the +husband. Then at last came the ambulance, and Dr. Angus with it. The +patient, now once more plunged in narcotic stupor, was carried +downstairs by two male nurses, Dr. Angus presiding. Marcella stood in +the doorway and watched the scene,--the gradual disappearance of the +helpless form on the stretcher, with its fevered face under the dark mat +of hair; the figures of the straining men heavily descending step by +step, their heads and shoulders thrown out against the dirty drabs and +browns of the staircase; the crowd of Jewesses on the stairs and +landing, craning their necks, gesticulating and talking, so that Dr. +Angus could hardly make his directions heard, angrily as he bade them +stand back; and on the top stair, the big husband, following the form of +his departing and unconscious wife with his eyes, his face convulsed +with weeping, the whimpering children clinging about his knees. + +How hot it was!--how stifling the staircase smelt, and how the sun beat +down from that upper window on the towzled unkempt women with their +large-eyed children. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Marcella on her way home turned into a little street leading to a great +block of model dwellings, which rose on the right hand side and made +everything else, the mews entrance opposite, the lines of squalid shops +on either side, look particularly small and dirty. The sun was beating +fiercely down, and she was sick and tired. + +As she entered the iron gate of the dwellings, and saw before her the +large asphalted court round which they ran--blazing heat on one side of +it, and on the other some children playing cricket against the wall with +chalk marks for wickets--she was seized with depression. The tall yet +mean buildings, the smell of dust and heat, the general impression of +packed and crowded humanity--these things, instead of offering her rest, +only continued and accented the sense of strain, called for more +endurance, more making the best of it. + +But she found a tired smile for some of the children who ran up to her, +and then she climbed the stairs of the E. block, and opened the door of +her own tenement, number 10. In number 9 lived Minta Hurd and her +children, who had joined Marcella in London some two months before. In +sets 7 and 8, on either side of Marcella and the Hurds, lived two +widows, each with a family, who were mostly out charing during the day. + +Marcella's Association allowed its District Nurses to live outside the +"home" of the district on certain conditions, which had been fulfilled +in Marcella's case by her settlement next door to her old friends in +these buildings which were inhabited by a very respectable though poor +class. Meanwhile the trustees of the buildings had allowed her to make a +temporary communication between her room and the Hurds, so that she +could either live her own solitary and independent life, or call for +their companionship, as she pleased. + +As she shut her door behind her she found herself in a little passage or +entry. To the left was her bedroom. Straight in front of her was the +living room with a small close range in it, and behind it a little back +kitchen. + +The living room was cheerful and even pretty. Her art-student's training +showed itself. The cheap blue and white paper, the couple of oak flap +tables from a broker's shop in Marchmont Street, the two or three cane +chairs with their bright chintz cushions, the Indian rug or two on the +varnished boards, the photographs and etchings on the walls, the books +on the tables--there was not one of these things that was not in its +degree a pleasure to her young senses, that did not help her to live her +life. This afternoon as she opened the door and looked in, the pretty +colours and forms in the tiny room were as water to the thirsty. Her +mother had sent her some flowers the day before. There they were on the +tables, great bunches of honey-suckles, of blue-bells, and Banksia +roses. And over the mantelpiece was a photograph of the place where such +flowers as Mellor possessed mostly grew--the unkempt lawn, the old +fountain and grey walls of the Cedar Garden. + +The green blind over the one window which looked into the court, had +been drawn down against the glare of the sun, as though by a careful +hand. Beside a light wooden rocking chair, which was Marcella's +favourite seat, a tray of tea things had been put out. Marcella drew a +long breath of comfort as she put down her bag. + +"Now, _can_ I wait for my tea till I have washed and dressed?" + +She argued with herself an instant as though she had been a greedy +child, then, going swiftly into the back kitchen, she opened the door +between her rooms and the Hurds. + +"Minta!" + +A voice responded. + +"Minta, make me some tea and boil an egg! there's a good soul! I will be +back directly." + +And in ten minutes or so she came back again into the sitting-room, +daintily fresh and clean but very pale. She had taken off her nurse's +dress and apron, and had put on something loose and white that hung +about her in cool folds. + +But Minta Hurd, who had just brought in the tea, looked at her +disapprovingly. + +"Whatever are you so late for?" she asked a little peevishly. "You'll +get ill if you go missing your dinner." + +"I couldn't help it, Minta, it was such a bad case." + +Mrs. Hurd poured out the tea in silence, unappeased. Her mind was +constantly full of protest against this nursing. Why should Miss Boyce +do such "funny things"--why should she live as she did, at all? + +Their relation to each other was a curious one. Marcella, knowing that +the life of Hurd's widow at Mellor was gall and bitterness, had sent for +her at the moment that she herself was leaving the hospital, offering +her a weekly sum in return for a little cooking and house service. Minta +already possessed a weekly pension, coming from a giver unknown to her. +It was regularly handed to her by Mr. Harden, and she could only imagine +that one of the "gentlemen" who had belonged to the Hurd Reprieve +Committee, and had worked so hard for Jim, was responsible for it, out +of pity for her and her children. The payment offered her by Miss Boyce +would defray the expense of London house-rent, the children's schooling, +and leave a trifle over. Moreover she was pining to get away from +Mellor. Her first instinct after her husband's execution had been to +hide herself from all the world. But for a long time her precarious +state of health, and her dependence first on Marcella, then on Mary +Harden, made it impossible for her to leave the village. It was not till +Marcella's proposal came that her way was clear. She sold her bits of +things at once, took her children and went up to Brown's buildings. + +Marcella met her with the tenderness, the tragic tremor of feeling from +which the peasant's wife shrank anew, bewildered, as she had often +shrunk from it in the past. Jim's fate had made her an old woman at +thirty-two. She was now a little shrivelled consumptive creature with +almost white hair, and a face from which youth had gone, unless perhaps +there were some traces of it in the still charming eyes, and small open +mouth. But these changes had come upon her she knew not why, as the +result of blows she felt but had never reasoned about. Marcella's fixed +mode of conceiving her and her story caused her from the beginning of +their fresh acquaintance a dumb irritation and trouble she could never +have explained. It was so tragic, reflective, exacting. It seemed to ask +of her feelings that she could not have, to expect from her expression +that was impossible. And it stood also between her and the friends and +distractions that she would like to have. Why shouldn't that queer man, +Mr. Strozzi, who lived down below, and whose name she could not +pronounce, come and sit sometimes of an evening, and amuse her and the +children? He was a "Professor of Elocution," and said and sung comic +pieces. He was very civil and obliging too; she liked him. Yet Miss +Boyce was evidently astonished that she could make friends with him, and +Minta perfectly understood the lift of her dark eyebrows whenever she +came in and found him sitting there. + +Meanwhile Marcella had expected her with emotion, and had meant through +this experiment to bring herself truly near to the poor. Minta must not +call her Miss Boyce, but by her name; which, however, Minta, reddening, +had declared she could never do. Her relation to Marcella was not to be +that of servant in any sense, but of friend and sister; and on her and +her children Marcella had spent from the beginning a number of new +womanish wiles which, strangely enough, this hard, strenuous life had +been developing in her. She would come and help put the children to bed; +she would romp with them in their night-gowns; she would bend her +imperious head over the anxious endeavour to hem a pink cotton pinafore +for Daisy, or dress a doll for the baby. But the relation jarred and +limped perpetually, and Marcella wistfully thought it her fault. + +Just now, however, as she sat gently swaying backwards and forwards in +the rocking-chair, enjoying her tea, her mood was one of nothing but +content. + +"Oh, Minta, give me another cup. I want to have a sleep so badly, and +then I am going to see Miss Hallin, and stay to supper with them." + +"Well, you mustn't go out in them nursin' things again," said Minta, +quickly; "I've put you in some lace in your black dress, an' it looks +beautiful." + +"Oh, thank you, Minta; but that black dress always seems to me too smart +to walk about these streets in." + +"It's just _nice_," said Minta, with decision. "It's just what everybody +that knows you--what your mamma--would like to see you in. I can't abide +them nursin' clothes--nasty things!" + +"I declare!" cried Marcella, laughing, but outraged; "I never like +myself so well in anything." + +Minta was silent, but her small mouth took an obstinate look. What she +really felt was that it was absurd for ladies to wear caps and aprons +and plain black bonnets, when there was no need for them to do anything +of the kind. + +"Whatever have you been doing to your cheek?" she exclaimed, suddenly, +as Marcella handed her the empty cup to take away. + +Marcella explained shortly, and Minta looked more discontented than +ever. "A lot of low people as ought to look after themselves," that was +how in her inmost mind she generally defined Marcella's patients. She +had been often kind and soft to her neighbours at Mellor, but these +dirty, crowded Londoners were another matter. + +"Where is Daisy?" asked Marcella as Minta was going away with the tea; +"she must have come back from school." + +"Here I am," said Daisy, with a grin, peeping in through the door of the +back kitchen. "Mother, baby's woke up." + +"Come here, you monkey," said Marcella; "come and go to sleep with me. +Have you had your tea?" + +"Yes, lots," said Daisy, climbing up into Marcella's lap. "Are you going +to be asleep a long time?" + +"No--only a nap. Oh! Daisy, I'm so tired. Come and cuddlie a bit! If you +don't go to sleep you know you can slip away--I shan't wake." + +The child, a slight, red-haired thing, with something of the ethereal +charm that her dead brother had possessed, settled herself on Marcella's +knees, slipped her left thumb into her mouth, and flung her other arm +round Marcella's neck. They had often gone to sleep so. Mrs. Hurd came +back, drew down the blind further, threw a light shawl over them both, +and left them. + +An hour and a half later Minta came in again as she had been told. +Daisy had slipped away, but Marcella was still lying in the perfect +gentleness and relaxation of sleep. + +"You said I was to come and wake you," said Minta, drawing up the blind; +"but I don't believe you're a bit fit to be going about. Here's some hot +water, and there's a letter just come." + +Marcella woke with a start, Minta put the letter on her knee, and dream +and reality flowed together as she saw her own name in Wharton's +handwriting. + +She read the letter, then sat flushed and thinking for a while with her +hands on her knees. + +A little while later she opened the Hurds' front-door. + +"Minta, I am going now. I shall be back early after supper, for I +haven't written my report." + +"There--now you look something like!" said Minta, scanning her +approvingly--the wide hat and pretty black dress. "Shall Daisy run out +with that telegram?" + +"No, thanks. I shall pass the post. Good-bye." + +And she stooped and kissed the little withered woman. She wished, +ardently wished, that Minta would be more truly friends with her! + +After a brisk walk through the June evening she stopped--still within +the same district--at the door of a house in a long, old-fashioned +street, wherein the builder was busy on either hand, since most of the +long leases had just fallen in. But the house she entered was still +untouched. She climbed a last-century staircase, adorned with panels of +stucco work--slender Italianate reliefs of wreaths, ribbons, and +medallions on a pale green ground. The decoration was clean and cared +for, the house in good order. Eighty years ago it was the home of a +famous judge, who entertained in its rooms the legal and literary +celebrities of his day. Now it was let out to professional people in +lodgings or unfurnished rooms. Edward Hallin and his sister occupied the +top floor. + +Miss Hallin, a pleasant-looking, plain woman of about thirty-five, came +at once in answer to Marcella's knock, and greeted her affectionately. +Edward Hallin sprang up from a table at the further end of the room. + +"You are so late! Alice and I had made up our minds you had forgotten +us!" + +"I didn't get home till four, and then I had to have a sleep," she +explained, half shyly. + +"What! you haven't been night-nursing?" + +"Yes, for once." + +"Alice, tell them to bring up supper, and let's look after her." + +He wheeled round a comfortable chair to the open window--the charming +circular bow of last-century design, which filled up the end of the room +and gave it character. The window looked out on a quiet line of back +gardens, such as may still be seen in Bloomsbury, with fine plane trees +here and there just coming into full leaf; and beyond them the backs of +another line of houses in a distant square, with pleasant irregularities +of old brickwork and tiled roof. The mottled trunks of the planes, their +blackened twigs and branches, their thin, beautiful leaves, the forms of +the houses beyond, rose in a charming medley of line against the blue +and peaceful sky. No near sound was to be heard, only the distant murmur +that no Londoner escapes; and some of the British Museum pigeons were +sunning themselves on the garden-wall below. + +Within, the Hallins' room was spacious and barely furnished. The walls, +indeed, were crowded with books, and broken, where the books ceased, by +photographs of Italy and Greece; but of furniture proper there seemed to +be little beside Hallin's large writing-table facing the window, and a +few chairs, placed on the blue drugget which brother and sister had +chosen with a certain anxiety, dreading secretly lest it should be a +piece of self-indulgence to buy what pleased them both so much. On one +side of the fireplace was Miss Hallin's particular corner; her chair, +the table that held her few special books, her work-basket, with its +knitting, her accounts. There, in the intervals of many activities, she +sat and worked or read, always cheerful and busy, and always watching +over her brother. + +"I wish," said Hallin, with some discontent, when Marcella had settled +herself, "that we were going to be alone to-night; that would have +rested you more." + +"Why, who is coming?" said Marcella, a little flatly. She had certainly +hoped to find them alone. + +"Your old friend, Frank Leven, is coming to supper. When he heard you +were to be here he vowed that nothing could or should keep him away. +Then, after supper, one or two people asked if they might come in. There +are some anxious things going on." + +He leant his head on his hand for a moment with a sigh, then forcibly +wrenched himself from what were evidently recurrent thoughts. + +"Do tell me some more of what you are doing!" he said, bending forward +to her. "You don't know how much I have thought of what you have told me +already." + +"I'm doing just the same," she said, laughing. "Don't take so much +interest in it. It's the fashion just now to admire nurses; but it's +ridiculous. We do our work like other people--sometimes badly, sometimes +well. And some of us wouldn't do it if we could help it." + +She threw out the last words with a certain vehemence, as though eager +to get away from any sentimentalism about herself. Hallin studied her +kindly. + +"Is this miscellaneous work a relief to you after hospital?" he asked. + +"For the present. It is more exciting, and one sees more character. But +there are drawbacks. In hospital everything was settled for you--every +hour was full, and there were always orders to follow. And the 'off' +times were no trouble--I never did anything else but walk up and down +the Embankment if it was fine, or go to the National Gallery if it was +wet." + +"And it was the monotony you liked?" + +She made a sign of assent. + +"Strange!" said Hallin, "who could ever have foreseen it?" + +She flushed. + +"You might have foreseen it, I think," she said, not without a little +impatience. "But I didn't like it all at once. I hated a great deal of +it. If they had let me alone all the time to scrub and polish and +wash--the things they set me to at first--I thought I should have been +quite happy. To see my table full of glasses without a spot, and my +brass-taps shining, made me as proud as a peacock! But then of course I +had to learn the real work, and that was very odd at first." + +"How? Morally?" + +She nodded, laughing at her own remembrances. "Yes--it seemed to me all +topsy-turvy. I thought the Sister at the head of the ward rather a +stupid person. If I had seen her at Mellor I shouldn't have spoken two +words to her. And here she was ordering me about--rating me as I had +never rated a house-maid--laughing at me for not knowing this or that, +and generally making me feel that a raw probationer was one of the +things of least account in the whole universe. I knew perfectly well +that she had said to herself, 'Now then I must take that proud girl down +a peg, or she will be no use to anybody;' and I had somehow to put up +with it." + +"Drastic!" said Hallin, laughing; "did you comfort yourself by +reflecting that it was everybody's fate?" + +Her lip twitched with amusement. + +"Not for a long time. I used to have the most absurd ideas!--sometimes +looking back I can hardly believe it--perhaps it was partly a queer +state of nerves. When I was at school and got in a passion I used to try +and overawe the girls by shaking my Speaker great-uncle in their faces. +And so in hospital; it would flash across me sometimes in a plaintive +sort of way that they _couldn't_ know that I was Miss Boyce of Mellor, +and had been mothering and ruling the whole of my father's village--or +they wouldn't treat me so. Mercifully I held my tongue. But one day it +came to a crisis. I had had to get things ready for an operation, and +had done very well. Dr. Marshall had paid me even a little compliment +all to myself. But then afterwards the patient was some time in coming +to, and there had to be hot-water bottles. I had them ready of course; +but they were too hot, and in my zeal and nervousness I burnt the +patient's elbow in two places. Oh! the _fuss_, and the scolding, and the +humiliation! When I left the ward that evening I thought I would go home +next day." + +"But you didn't?" + +"If I could have sat down and thought it out, I should probably have +gone. But I couldn't think it out--I was too _dead_ tired. That is the +chief feature of your first months in hospital--the utter helpless +fatigue at night. You go to bed aching and you wake up aching. If you +are healthy as I was, it doesn't hurt you; but, when your time comes to +sleep, sleep you _must_. Even that miserable night my head was no sooner +on the pillow than I was asleep; and next morning there was all the +routine as usual, and the dread of being a minute late on duty. Then +when I got into the ward the Sister looked at me rather queerly and went +out of her way to be kind to me. Oh! I was so grateful to her! I could +have brushed her boots or done any other menial service for her with +delight. And--then--somehow I pulled through. The enormous interest of +the work seized me--I grew ambitious--they pushed me on +rapidly--everybody seemed suddenly to become my friend instead of my +enemy--and I ended by thinking the hospital the most fascinating and +engrossing place in the whole world." + +"A curious experience," said Hallin. "I suppose you had never obeyed any +one in your life before?" + +"Not since I was at school--and then--not much!" + +Hallin glanced at her as she lay back in her chair. How richly human the +face had grown! It was as forcible as ever in expression and colour, but +that look which had often repelled him in his first acquaintance with +her, as of a hard speculative eagerness more like the ardent boy than +the woman, had very much disappeared. It seemed to him absorbed in +something new--something sad and yet benignant, informed with all the +pathos and the pain of growth. + +"How long have you been at work to-day?" he asked her. + +"I went at eleven last night. I came away at four this afternoon." + +Hallin exclaimed, "You had food?" + +"Do you think I should let myself starve with my work to do?" she asked +him, with a shade of scorn and her most professional air. "And don't +suppose that such a case occurs often. It is a very rare thing for us to +undertake night-nursing at all." + +"Can you tell me what the case was?" + +She told him vaguely, describing also in a few words her encounter with +Dr. Blank. + +"I suppose he will make a fuss," she said, with a restless look, "and +that I shall be blamed." + +"I should think your second doctor will take care of that!" said Hallin. + +"I don't know. I couldn't help it. But it is one of our first principles +not to question a doctor. And last week too I got the Association into +trouble. A patient I had been nursing for weeks and got quite fond of +had to be removed to hospital. She asked me to cut her hair. It was +matted dreadfully, and would have been cut off directly she got to the +ward. So I cut it, left her all comfortable, and was to come back at one +to meet the doctor and help get her off. When I came, I found the whole +court in an uproar. The sister of the woman, who had been watching for +me, stood on the doorstep, and implored me to go away. The husband had +gone out of his senses with rage because I had cut his wife's hair +without his consent. 'He'll murder you, Nuss!' said the sister, 'if he +sees you! Don't come in!--he's mad--he's _been going round on 'is 'ands +and knees on the floor_!'"--Hallin interrupted with a shout of laughter. +Marcella laughed too; but to his amazement he saw that her hand shook, +and that there were tears in her eyes. + +"It's all very well," she said with a sigh, "but I had to come away in +disgrace, all the street looking on. And he made such a fuss at the +office as never was. It was unfortunate--we don't want the people set +against the nurses. And now Dr. Blank!--I seem to be always getting into +scrapes. It is different from hospital, where everything is settled for +one." + +Hallin could hardly believe his ears. Such womanish terrors and +depressions from Marcella Boyce! Was she, after all, too young for the +work, or was there some fret of the soul reducing her natural force? He +felt an unwonted impulse of tenderness towards her--such as one might +feel towards a tired child--and set himself to cheer and rest her. + +He had succeeded to some extent, when he saw her give a little start, +and following her eyes he perceived that unconsciously his arm, which +was resting on the table, had pushed into her view a photograph in a +little frame, which had been hitherto concealed from her by a glass of +flowers. He would have quietly put it out of sight again, but she sat up +in her chair. + +"Will you give it me?" she said, putting out her hand. + +He gave it her at once. + +"Alice brought it home from Miss Raeburn the other day. His aunt made +him sit to one of the photographers who are always besieging public men. +We thought it good." + +"It is very good," she said, after a pause. "Is the hair really--as grey +as that?" She pointed to it. + +"Quite. I am very glad that he is going off with Lord Maxwell to Italy. +It will be ten days' break for him at any rate. His work this last year +has been very heavy. He has had his grandfather's to do really, as well +as his own; and this Commission has been a stiff job too. I am rather +sorry that he has taken this new post." + +"What post?" + +"Didn't you hear? They have made him Under-secretary to the Home +Department. So that he is now in the Government." + +She put back the photograph, and moved her chair a little so as to see +more of the plane trees and the strips of sunset cloud. + +"How is Lord Maxwell?" she asked presently. + +"Much changed. It might end in a sudden break-up at any time." + +Hallin saw a slight contraction pass over her face. He knew that she had +always felt an affection for Lord Maxwell. Suddenly Marcella looked +hastily round her. Miss Hallin was busy with a little servant at the +other end of the room making arrangements for supper. + +"Tell me," she said, bending over the arm of her chair and speaking in a +low, eager voice, "he is beginning to forget it?" + +Hallin looked at her in silence, but his half sad, half ironic smile +suggested an answer from which she turned away. + +"If he only would!" she said, speaking almost to herself, with a kind of +impatience. "He ought to marry, for everybody's sake." + +"I see no sign of his marrying--at present," said Hallin, drily. + +He began to put some papers under his hand in order. There was a cold +dignity in his manner which she perfectly understood. Ever since that +day--that never-forgotten day--when he had come to her the morning after +her last interview with Aldous Raeburn--come with reluctance and +dislike, because Aldous had asked it of him--and had gone away her +friend, more drawn to her, more touched by her than he had ever been in +the days of the engagement, their relation on this subject had been the +same. His sweetness and kindness to her, his influence over her life +during the past eighteen months, had been very great. In that first +interview, the object of which had been to convey to her a warning on +the subject of the man it was thought she might allow herself to marry, +something in the manner with which he had attempted his incredibly +difficult task--its simplicity, its delicate respect for her +personality, its suggestion of a character richer and saintlier than +anything she had yet known, and unconsciously revealing itself under the +stress of emotion--this something had suddenly broken down his pale, +proud companion, had to his own great dismay brought her to tears, and +to such confidences, such indirect askings for help and understanding as +amazed them both. + +Experiences of this kind were not new to him. His life consecrated to +ideas, devoted to the wresting of the maximum of human service from a +crippling physical weakness; the precarious health itself which cut him +off from a hundred ordinary amusements and occupations, and especially +cut him off from marriage--together with the ardent temperament, the +charm, the imaginative insight which had been his cradle-gifts--these +things ever since he was a lad had made him again and again the guide +and prop of natures stronger and stormier than his own. Often the +unwilling guide; for he had the half-impatient breathless instincts of +the man who has set himself a task, and painfully doubts whether he will +have power and time to finish it. The claims made upon him seemed to him +often to cost him physical and brain energy he could ill spare. + +But his quick tremulous sympathy rendered him really a defenceless prey +in such matters. Marcella threw herself upon him as others had done; and +there was no help for it. Since their first memorable interview, at long +intervals, he had written to her and she to him. Of her hospital life, +till to-night, she had never told him much. Her letters had been the +passionate outpourings of a nature sick of itself, and for the moment of +living; full of explanations which really explained little; full too of +the untaught pangs and questionings of a mind which had never given any +sustained or exhaustive effort to any philosophical or social question, +and yet was in a sense tortured by them all--athirst for an impossible +justice, and aflame for ideals mocked first and above all by the +writer's own weakness and defect. Hallin had felt them interesting, sad, +and, in a sense, fine; but he had never braced himself to answer them +without groans. There were so many other people in the world in the same +plight! + +Nevertheless, all through the growth of friendship one thing had never +altered between them from the beginning--Hallin's irrevocable judgment +of the treatment she had bestowed on Aldous Raeburn. Never throughout +the whole course of their acquaintance had he expressed that judgment to +her in so many words. Notwithstanding, she knew perfectly well both the +nature and the force of it. It lay like a rock in the stream of their +friendship. The currents of talk might circle round it, imply it, glance +off from it; they left it unchanged. At the root of his mind towards +her, at the bottom of his gentle sensitive nature, there was a +sternness which he often forgot--she never. + +This hard fact in their relation had insensibly influenced her greatly, +was constantly indeed working in and upon her, especially since the +chances of her nursing career had brought her to settle in this +district, within a stone's throw of him and his sister, so that she saw +them often and intimately. But it worked in different ways. +Sometimes--as to-night--it evoked a kind of defiance. + +A minute or two after he had made his remark about Aldous, she said to +him suddenly, + +"I had a letter from Mr. Wharton to-day. He is coming to tea with me +to-morrow, and I shall probably go to the House on Friday with Edith +Craven to hear him speak." + +Hallin gave a slight start at the name. Then he said nothing; but went +on sorting some letters of the day into different heaps. His silence +roused her irritation. + +"Do you remember," she said, in a low, energetic voice, "that I told you +I could never be ungrateful, never forget what he had done?" + +"Yes, I remember," he said, not without a certain sharpness of tone. +"You spoke of giving him help if he ever asked it of you--has he asked +it?" + +She explained that what he seemed to be asking was Louis Craven's help, +and that his overtures with regard to the _Labour Clarion_ were +particularly opportune, seeing that Louis was pining to be able to +marry, and was losing heart, hope, and health for want of some fixed +employment. She spoke warmly of her friends and their troubles, and +Hallin's inward distaste had to admit that all she said was plausible. +Since the moment in that strange talk which had drawn them together, +when she had turned upon him with the passionate cry--"I see what you +mean, perfectly! but I am not going to marry Mr. Wharton, so don't +trouble to warn me--for the matter of that he has warned me +himself:--but my _gratitude_ he _has_ earned, and if he asks for it I +will _never_ deny it him "--since that moment there had been no word of +Wharton between them. At the bottom of his heart Hallin distrusted her, +and was ashamed of himself because of it. His soreness and jealousy for +his friend knew no bounds. "If that were to come on again"--he was +saying to himself now, as she talked to him--"I could not bear it, I +could not forgive her!" + +He only wished that she would give up talking about Wharton altogether. +But, on the contrary, she would talk of him--and with a curious +persistence. She must needs know what Hallin thought of his career in +Parliament, of his prospects, of his powers as a speaker. Hallin +answered shortly, like some one approached on a subject for which he +cares nothing. + +"Yet, of course, it is not that; it is injustice!" she said to herself, +with vehemence. "He _must_ care; they are his subjects, his interests +too. But he will not look at it dispassionately, because--" + +So they fell out with each other a little, and the talk dragged. Yet, +all the while, Marcella's inner mind was conscious of quite different +thoughts. How good it was to be here, in this room, beside these two +people! She must show herself fractious and difficult with Hallin +sometimes; it was her nature. But in reality, that slight and fragile +form, that spiritual presence were now shrined in the girl's eager +reverence and affection. She felt towards him as many a Catholic has +felt towards his director; though the hidden yearning to be led by him +was often oddly covered, as now, by an outer self-assertion. Perhaps her +quarrel with him was that he would not lead her enough--would not tell +her precisely enough what she was to do with herself. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +While she and Hallin were sitting thus, momentarily out of tune with +each other, the silence was suddenly broken by a familiar voice. + +"I say, Hallin--is this all right?" + +The words came from a young man who, having knocked unheeded, opened the +door, and cautiously put in a curly head. + +"Frank!--is that you? Come in," cried Hallin, springing up. + +Frank Leven came in, and at once perceived the lady sitting in the +window. + +"Well, I _am_ glad!" he cried, striding across the room and shaking +Hallin's hand by the way. "Miss Boyce! I thought none of your friends +were ever going to get a sight of you again! Why, what--" + +He drew back scanning her, a gay look of quizzing surprise on his fair +boy's face. + +"He expected me in cap and apron," said Marcella, laughing; "or means to +pretend he did." + +"I expected a sensation! And here you are, just as you were, only twice +as--I say, Hallin, doesn't she look well!"--this in a stage aside to +Hallin, while the speaker was drawing off his gloves, and still studying +Marcella. + +"Well, _I_ think she looks tired," said Hallin, with a little attempt at +a smile, but turning away. Everybody felt a certain tension, a certain +danger, even in the simplest words, and Miss Hallin's call to supper was +very welcome. + +The frugal meal went gaily. The chattering Christchurch boy brought to +it a breath of happy, careless life, to which the three +others--over-driven and over-pressed, all of them--responded with a kind +of eagerness. Hallin especially delighted in him, and would have out all +his budget--his peacock's pride at having been just put into the +'Varsity eleven, his cricket engagements for the summer, his rows with +his dons, above all his lasting amazement that he should have just +scraped through his Mods. + +"I thought those Roman emperors would have done for me!" he declared, +with a child's complacency. "_Brutes!_ I couldn't remember them. I +learnt them up and down, backwards and forwards--but it was no good; +they nearly dished me!" + +"Yet it comes back to me," said Hallin, slily, "that when a certain +person was once asked to name the winner of the Derby in some obscure +year, he began at the beginning, and gave us all of them, from first to +last, without a hitch." + +"The winner of the _Derby_!" said the lad, eagerly, bending forward with +his hands on his knees; "why, I should rather think so! That isn't +memory; that's _knowledge_!--Goodness! who's this?" + +The last remark was addressed _sotto voce_ to Marcella. Supper was just +over, and the two guests, with Hallin, had returned to the window, while +Miss Hallin, stoutly refusing their help, herself cleared the table and +set all straight. + +Hallin, hearing a knock, had gone to the door while Leven was speaking. +Four men came crowding in, all of them apparently well known both to +Hallin and his sister. The last two seemed to be workmen; the others +were Bennett, Hallin's old and tried friend among the Labour-leaders, +and Nehemiah Wilkins, M.P. Hallin introduced them all to Marcella and +Leven; but the new-comers took little notice of any one but their host, +and were soon seated about him discussing a matter already apparently +familiar to them, and into which Hallin had thrown himself at once with +that passionate directness which, in the social and speculative field, +replaced his ordinary gentleness of manner. He seemed to be in strong +disagreement with the rest--a disagreement which troubled himself and +irritated them. + +Marcella watched them with quick curiosity from the window where she was +sitting, and would have liked to go forward to listen. But Frank Leven +turned suddenly round upon her with sparkling eyes. + +"Oh, I say! don't go. Do come and sit here with me a bit. Oh, isn't it +rum! isn't it _rum_! Look at Hallin,--those are the people whom he +_cares_ to talk to. That's a shoemaker, that man to the left--really an +awfully cute fellow--and this man in front, I think he told me he was a +mason, a Socialist of course--would like to string _me_ up to-morrow. +Did you ever see such a countenance? Whenever that man begins, I think +we must be precious near to shooting. And he's pious too, would pray +over us first and shoot us afterwards--which isn't the case, I +understand, with many of 'em. Then the others--you know them? That's +Bennett--regular good fellow--always telling his pals not to make fools +of themselves--for which of course they love him no more than they are +obliged--And Wilkins--oh! _Wilkins_"--he chuckled--"they say it'll come +to a beautiful row in the House before they've done, between him and my +charming cousin, Harry Wharton. My father says he backs Wilkins." + +Then suddenly the lad recollected himself and his clear cheek coloured a +little after a hasty glance at his companion. He fell to silence and +looking at his boots. Marcella wondered what was the matter with him. +Since her flight from Mellor she had lived, so to speak, with her head +in the sand. She herself had never talked directly of her own affairs to +anybody. Her sensitive pride did not let her realise that, +notwithstanding, all the world was aware of them. + +"I don't suppose you know much about your cousin!" she said to him with +a little scorn. + +"Well, I don't want to!" said the lad, "that's one comfort! But I don't +know anything about anything!--Miss Boyce!" + +He plunged his head in his hands, and Marcella, looking at him, saw at +once that she was meant to understand she had woe and lamentation beside +her. + +Her black eyes danced with laughter. At Mellor she had been several +times his confidante. The handsome lad was not apparently very fond of +his sisters and had taken to her from the beginning. To-night she +recognised the old symptoms. + +"What, you have been getting into scrapes again?" she said--"how many +since we met last?" + +"There! you make fun of it!" he said indignantly from behind his +fingers--"you're like all the rest." + +Marcella teased him a little more till at last she was astonished by a +flash of genuine wrath from the hastily uncovered eyes. + +"If you're only going to chaff a fellow let's go over there and talk! +And yet I did want to tell you about it--you were awfully kind to me +down at home. I want to tell you--and I don't want to tell you--perhaps +I _oughtn't_ to tell you--you'll think me a brute, I dare say, an +ungentlemanly brute for speaking of it at all--and yet somehow--" + +The boy, crimson, bit his lips. Marcella, arrested and puzzled, laid a +hand on his arm. She had been used to these motherly ways with him at +Mellor, on the strength of her seniority, so inadequately measured by +its two years or so of time! + +"I won't laugh," she said, "tell me." + +"No--really?--shall I?" + +Whereupon there burst forth a history precisely similar it seemed to +some half dozen others she had already heard from the same lips. A +pretty girl--or rather "an exquisite creature!" met at the house of some +relation in Scotland, met again at the "Boats" at Oxford, and yet again +at Commemoration balls, Nuneham picnics, and the rest; adored and +adorable; yet, of course, a sphinx born for the torment of men, taking +her haughty way over a prostrate sex, kind to-day, cruel to-morrow; not +to be won by money, yet, naturally, not to be won without it; possessed +like Rose Aylmer of "every virtue, every grace," whether of form or +family; yet making nothing but a devastating and death-dealing use of +them--how familiar it all was!--and how many more of them there seemed +to be in the world, on a man's reckoning, than on a woman's! + +"And you know," said the lad, eagerly, "though she's so _frightfully_ +pretty--well, frightfully fetching, rather--and well dressed and all the +rest of it, she isn't a bit silly, not one of your empty-headed +girls--not she. She's read a _lot_ of things--a lot! I'm sure, Miss +Boyce"--he looked at her confidently,--"if _you_ were to see her you'd +think her awfully clever. And yet she's so little--and so dainty--and +she dances--my goodness! you should see her dance, skirt-dance I +mean--Letty Lind isn't in it! She's good too, awfully good. I think her +mother's a most dreadful old bore--well, no, I didn't mean that--of +course I didn't mean that!--but she's fussy, you know, and invalidy, and +has to be wrapped up in shawls, and dragged about in bath chairs, and +Betty's an angel to her--she is really--though her mother's always +snapping her head off. And as to the _poor_--" + +Something in his tone, in the way he had of fishing for her approval, +sent Marcella into a sudden fit of laughter. Then she put out a hand to +restrain this plunging lover. + +"Look here--do come to the point--have you proposed to her?" + +"I should rather think I have!" said the boy, fervently. "About once a +week since Christmas. Of course she's played with me--that sort always +does--but I think I might really have a chance with her, if it weren't +for her mother--horrible old--no, of _course_ I don't mean that! But +now it comes in--what I oughtn't to tell you--I _know_ I oughtn't to +tell you! I'm always making a beastly mess of it. It's because I can't +help talking of it!" + +And shaking his curly head in despair, he once more plunged his red +cheeks into his hands and fell abruptly silent. + +Marcella coloured for sympathy. "I really wish you wouldn't talk in +riddles," she said. "What is the matter with you?--of course you must +tell me." + +"Well, I know you won't mind!" cried the lad, emerging. "As if you could +mind! But it sounds like my impudence to be talking to you +about--about--You see," he blurted out, "she's going to Italy with the +Raeburns. She's a connection of theirs, somehow, and Miss Raeburn's +taken a fancy to her lately--and her mother's treated me like dirt ever +since they asked her to go to Italy--and naturally a fellow sees what +_that_ means--and what her mother's after. I don't believe Betty +_would_; he's too old for her, isn't he? Oh, my goodness!"--this time he +smote his knee in real desperation--"now I _have_ done it. I'm simply +_bursting_ always with the thing I'd rather cut my head off than say. +Why they make 'em like me I don't know!" + +"You mean," said Marcella, with impatience--"that her mother wants her +to marry Mr. Raeburn?" + +He looked round at his companion. She was lying back in a deep chair, +her hands lightly clasped on her knee. Something in her attitude, in the +pose of the tragic head, in the expression of the face stamped to-night +with a fatigue which was also a dignity, struck a real compunction into +his mood of vanity and excitement. He had simply not been able to resist +the temptation to talk to her. She reminded him of the Raeburns, and the +Raeburns were in his mind at the present moment by day and by night. He +knew that he was probably doing an indelicate and indiscreet thing, but +all the same his boyish egotism would not be restrained from the +headlong pursuit of his own emotions. There was in him too such a +burning curiosity as to how she would take it--what she would say. + +Now however he felt a genuine shrinking. His look changed. Drawing his +chair close up to her he began a series of penitent and +self-contradictory excuses which Marcella soon broke in upon. + +"I don't know why you talk like that," she said, looking at him +steadily. "Do you suppose I can go on all my life without hearing Mr. +Raeburn's name mentioned? And don't apologise so much! It really doesn't +matter what I suppose--that _you_ think--about my present state of mind. +It is very simple. I ought never to have accepted Mr. Raeburn. I behaved +badly. I know it--and everybody knows it. Still one has to go on living +one's life somehow. The point is that I am rather the wrong person for +you to come to just now, for if there is one thing I ardently wish about +Mr. Raeburn, it is that he should get himself married." + +Frank Leven looked at her in bewildered dismay. + +"I never thought of that," he said. + +"Well, you might, mightn't you?" + +For another short space there was silence between them, while the rush +of talk in the centre of the room was still loud and unspent. + +Then she rated herself for want of sympathy. Frank sat beside her shy +and uncomfortable, his confidence chilled away. + +"So you think Miss Raeburn has views?" she asked him, smiling, and in +her most ordinary voice. + +The boy's eye brightened again with the implied permission to go on +chattering. + +"I know she has! Betty's brother as good as told me that she and Mrs. +Macdonald--that's Betty's mother--she hasn't got a father--had talked it +over. And now Betty's going with them to Italy, and Aldous is going too +for ten days--and when I go to the Macdonalds Mrs. Macdonald treats me +as if I were a little chap in jackets, and Betty worries me to death. +It's sickening!" + +"And how about Mr. Raeburn?" + +"Oh, Aldous seems to like her very much," he said despondently. "She's +always teasing and amusing him. When she's there she never lets him +alone. She harries him out. She makes him read to her and ride with her. +She makes him discuss all sorts of things with her you'd _never_ think +Aldous would discuss--her lovers and her love affairs, and being in +love!--it's extraordinary the way she drives him round. At Easter she +and her mother were staying at the Court, and one night Betty told me +she was bored to death. It was a very smart party, but everything was so +flat and everybody was so dull. So she suddenly got up and ran across to +Aldous. 'Now look here, Mr. Aldous,' she said; 'this'll never do! you've +got to come and dance with me, and _push_ those chairs and tables +aside'--I can fancy the little stamp she'd give--'and make those other +people dance too.' And she made him--she positively made him. Aldous +declared he didn't dance, and she wouldn't have a word of it. And +presently she got to all her tricks, skirt-dancing and the rest of +it--and of course the evening went like smoke." + +Marcella's eyes, unusually wide open, were somewhat intently fixed on +the speaker. + +"And Mr. Raeburn liked it?" she asked in a tone that sounded +incredulous. + +"Didn't he just? She told me they got regular close friends after that, +and he told her everything--oh, well," said the lad, embarrassed, and +clutching at his usual formula--"of course, I didn't mean that. And +she's fearfully flattered, you can see she is, and she tells me that she +adores him--that he's the only great man she's ever known--that I'm not +fit to black his boots, and ought to be grateful whenever he speaks to +me--and all that sort of rot. And now she's going off with them. I shall +have to shoot myself--I declare I shall!" + +"Well, not yet," said Marcella, in a soothing voice; "the case isn't +clear enough. Wait till they come back. Shall we move? I'm going over +there to listen to that talk. But--first--come and see me whenever you +like--3 to 4.30, Brown's Buildings, Maine Street--and tell me how this +goes on?" + +She spoke with a careless lightness, laughing at him with a half +sisterly freedom. She had risen from her seat, and he, whose thoughts +had been wrapped up for months in one of the smallest of the sex, was +suddenly struck with her height and stately gesture as she moved away +from him. + +"By Jove! Why didn't she stick to Aldous," he said to himself +discontentedly as his eyes followed her. "It was only her cranks, and of +course she'll get rid of _them_. Just like my luck!" + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Marcella took a seat next to Miss Hallin, who looked up from +her knitting to smile at her. The girl fell into the attitude of +listening; but for some minutes she was not listening at all. She was +reflecting how little men knew of each other!--even the most intimate +friends--and trying to imagine what Aldous Raeburn would be like, +married to such a charmer as Frank had sketched. His friendship for her +meant, of course, the attraction of contraries--one of the most +promising of all possible beginnings. On the whole, she thought Frank's +chances were poor. + +Then, unexpectedly, her ear was caught by Wharton's name, and she +discovered that what was going on beside her was a passionate discussion +of his present position and prospects in the Labour party--a discussion, +however, mainly confined to Wilkins and the two workmen. Bennett had the +air of the shrewd and kindly spectator who has his own reasons for +treating a situation with reserve; and Hallin was lying back in his +chair flushed and worn out. The previous debate, which had now merged in +these questions of men and personalities, had made him miserable; he had +no heart for anything more. Miss Hallin observed him anxiously, and +made restless movements now and then, as though she had it in her mind +to send all her guests away. + +The two Socialist workmen were talking strongly in favour of an +organised and distinct Labour party, and of Wharton's leadership. They +referred constantly to Parnell, and what he had clone for "those Irish +fellows." The only way to make Labour formidable in the House was to +learn the lesson of Unionism and of Parnellism, to act together and +strike together, to make of the party a "two-handed engine," ready to +smite Tory and Liberal impartially. To this end a separate organisation, +separate place in the House, separate Whips--they were ready, nay +clamorous, for them all. And they were equally determined on Harry +Wharton as a leader. They spoke of the _Clarion_ with enthusiasm, and +declared that its owner was already an independent power, and was, +moreover, as "straight" as he was sharp. + +The contention and the praise lashed Wilkins into fury. After making one +or two visible efforts at a sarcastic self-control which came to +nothing, he broke out into a flood of invective which left the rest of +the room staring. Marcella found herself indignantly wondering who this +big man, with his fierce eyes, long, puffy cheeks, coarse black hair, +and North-country accent, might be. Why did he talk in this way, with +these epithets, this venom? It was intolerable! + +Hallin roused himself from his fatigue to play the peace-maker. But some +of the things Wilkins had been saying had put up the backs of the two +workmen, and the talk flamed up unmanageably--Wilkins's dialect getting +more pronounced with each step of the argument. + +"Well, if I'd ever ha' thowt that I war coomin' to Lunnon to put myself +and my party oonder the heel o' Muster Harry Wharton, I'd ha' stayed at +_home_, I tell tha," cried Wilkins, slapping his knee. "If it's to be +the People's party, why, in the name o' God, must yo put a yoong +ripstitch like yon at the head of it? a man who'll just mak _use_ of us +all, you an' me, and ivery man Jack of us, for his own advancement, an' +ull kick us down when he's done with us! Why shouldn't he? What is he? +Is he a man of _us_--bone of our bone? He's a _landlord_, and an +aristocrat, I tell tha! What have the likes of him ever been but thorns +in our side? When have the landlords ever gone with the people? Have +they not been the blight and the curse of the country for hun'erds of +years? And you're goin' to tell me that a man bred out o' _them_--living +on his rent and interest--grinding the faces of the poor, I'll be bound +if the truth were known, as all the rest of them do--is goin' to lead +_me_, an' those as'll act with me to the pullin' down of the landlords! +Why are we to go lickspittlin' to any man of his sort to do our work for +us? Let him go to his own class--I'm told Mr. Wharton is mighty fond of +countesses, and they of him!--or let him set up as the friend of the +working man just as he likes--I'm quite agreeable!--I shan't make any +bones about takin' his _vote_; but I'm not goin' to make him master over +me, and give him the right to speak for my mates in the House of +Commons. I'd cut my hand off fust!" + +Leven grinned in the background. Bennett lay back in his chair with a +worried look. Wilkins's crudities were very distasteful to him both in +and out of the House. The younger of the Socialist workmen, a mason, +with a strong square face, incongruously lit somehow with the eyes of +the religious dreamer, looked at Wilkins contemptuously. + +"There's none of you in the House will take orders," he said quickly, +"and that's the ruin of us. We all know that. Where do you think we'd +have been in the struggle with the employers, if we'd gone about our +business as you're going about yours in the House of Commons?" + +"I'm not saying we shouldn't _organise_," said Wilkins, fiercely. "What +I'm sayin' is, get a man of the working class--a man who has the _wants_ +of the working class--a man whom the working class can get a hold on--to +do your business for you, and not any bloodsucking landlord or +capitalist. It's a slap i' the face to ivery honest working man i' the +coontry, to mak' a Labour party and put Harry Wharton at t' head of it!" + +The young Socialist looked at him askance. "Of course you'd like it +yourself!" was what he was thinking. "But they'll take a man as can hold +his own with the swells--and quite right too!" + +"And if Mr. Wharton _is_ a landlord he's a good sort!" exclaimed the +shoemaker--a tall, lean man in a well-brushed frock coat. "There's many +on us knows as have been to hear him speak, what he's tried to do about +the land, and the co-operative farming. E's _straight_ is Mr. Wharton. +We 'aven't got Socialism yet--an' it isn't 'is fault bein' a landlord. +Ee was born it." + +"I tell tha he's playin' for his own hand!" said Wilkins, doggedly, the +red spot deepening on his swarthy cheek--"he's runnin' that paper for +his own hand--Haven't I had experience of him? I know it--And I'll prove +it some day! He's one for featherin' his own nest is Mr. Wharton--and +when he's doon it by makkin' fools of us, he'll leave us to whistle for +any good we're iver likely to get out o' _him. He_ go agen the landlords +when it coom to the real toossle,--I know 'em--I tell tha--I know 'em!" + +A woman's voice, clear and scornful, broke into the talk. + +"It's a little strange to think, isn't it, that while we in London go on +groaning and moaning about insanitary houses, and making our small +attempts here and there, half of the country poor of England have been +re-housed in our generation by these same landlords--no fuss about +it--and rents for five-roomed cottages, somewhere about one and +fourpence a week!" + +Hallin swung his chair round and looked at the speaker--amazed! + +Wilkins also stared at her under his eyebrows. He did not like +women--least of all, ladies. + +He gruffly replied that if they had done anything like as much as she +said--which, he begged her pardon, but he didn't believe--it was done +for the landlords' own purposes, either to buy off public opinion, or +just for show and aggrandisement. People who had prize pigs and prize +cattle must have prize cottages of course--"with a race of slaves +inside 'em!" + +Marcella, bright-eyed, erect, her thin right hand hanging over her knee, +went avengingly into facts--the difference between landlords' villages +and "open" villages; the agrarian experiments made by different great +landlords; the advantage to the community, even from the Socialist point +of view of a system which had preserved the land in great blocks, for +the ultimate use of the State, as compared with a system like the +French, which had for ever made Socialism impossible. + +Hallin's astonishment almost swept away his weariness. + +"Where in the world did she get it all from, and is she standing on her +head or am I?" + +After an animated little debate, in which Bennett and the two workmen +joined, while Wilkins sat for the most part in moody, contemptuous +silence, and Marcella, her obstinacy roused, carried through her defence +of the landlords with all a woman's love of emphasis and paradox, +everybody rose simultaneously to say good-night. + +"You ought to come and lead a debate down at our Limehouse club," said +Bennett pleasantly to Marcella, as she held out her hand to him; "you'd +take a lot of beating." + +"Yet I'm a Venturist, you know," she said, laughing; "I _am_." + +He shook his head, laughed too, and departed. + +When the four had gone, Marcella turned upon Hallin. + +"Are there many of these Labour members like _that_?" + +Her tone was still vibrating and sarcastic. + +"He's not much of a talker, our Nehemiah," said Hallin, smiling; "but he +has the most extraordinary power as a speaker over a large popular +audience that I have ever seen. The man's honesty is amazing,--it's his +tempers and his jealousies get in his way. You astonished him; but, for +the matter of that, you astonished Frank and me still more!" + +And as he fell back into his chair, Marcella caught a flash of +expression, a tone that somehow put her on her defence. + +"I was not going to listen to such unjust stuff without a word. Politics +is one thing--slanderous abuse is another!" she said, throwing back her +head with a gesture which instantly brought back to Hallin the scene in +the Mellor drawing-room, when she had denounced the game-laws and +Wharton had scored his first point. + +He was silent, feeling a certain inner exasperation with women and their +ways. + +"'She only did it to annoy,'" cried Frank Leven; "'because she knows it +teases.' _We_ know very well what she thinks of us. But where did you +get it all from, Miss Boyce? I just wish you'd tell me. There's a horrid +Radical in the House I'm always having rows with--and upon my word I +didn't know there was half so much to be said for us!" + +Marcella flushed. + +"Never mind where I got it!" she said. + +In reality, of course, it was from those Agricultural Reports she had +worked through the year before under Wharton's teaching, with so much +angry zest, and to such different purpose. + + * * * * * + +When the door closed upon her and upon Frank Leven, who was to escort +her home, Hallin walked quickly over to the table, and stood looking for +a moment in a sort of bitter reverie at Raeburn's photograph. + +His sister followed him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. + +"Do go to bed, Edward! I am afraid that talk has tired you dreadfully." + +"It would be no good going to bed, dear," he said, with a sigh of +exhaustion. "I will sit and read a bit, and see if I can get myself into +sleeping trim. But you go, Alice--good-night." + +When she had gone he threw himself into his chair again with the +thought--"She must contradict here as she contradicted there! _She_--and +justice! If she could have been just to a landlord for one hour last +year--" + +He spent himself for a while in endless chains of recollection, +oppressed by the clearness of his own brain, and thirsting for sleep. +Then from the affairs of Raeburn and Marcella, he passed with a fresh +sense of strain and effort to his own. That discussion with those four +men which had filled the first part of the evening weighed upon him in +his weakness of nerve, so that suddenly in the phantom silence of the +night, all life became an oppression and a terror, and rest, either +to-night or in the future, a thing never to be his. + +He had come to the moment of difficulty, of tragedy, in a career which +so far, in spite of all drawbacks of physical health and cramped +activities, had been one of singular happiness and success. Ever since +he had discovered his own gifts as a lecturer to working men, content, +cheerfulness, nay, a passionate interest in every hour, had been quite +compatible for him with all the permanent limitations of his lot. The +study of economical and historical questions; the expression through +them of such a hunger for the building of a "city of God" among men, as +few are capable of; the evidence not to be ignored even by his modesty, +and perpetually forthcoming over a long period of time, that he had the +power to be loved, the power to lead, among those toilers of the world +on whom all his thoughts centred--these things had been his joy, and had +led him easily through much self-denial to the careful husbanding of +every hour of strength and time in the service of his ideal end. + +And now he had come upon opposition--the first cooling of friendships, +the first distrust of friends that he had ever known. + +Early in the spring of this year a book called _To-morrow and the Land_ +had appeared in London, written by a young London economist of great +ability, and dealing with the nationalisation of the land. It did not +offer much discussion of the general question, but it took up the +question as it affected England specially and London in particular. It +showed--or tried to show--in picturesque detail what might be the +consequences for English rural or municipal life of throwing all land +into a common or national stock, of expropriating the landlords, and +transferring all rent to the people, to the effacement of taxation and +the indefinite enrichment of the common lot. The book differed from +_Progress and Poverty_, which also powerfully and directly affected the +English working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of great +apparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of the +landlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the average +working man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style, +and--by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directly +from the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially of +London--treated with abundant humour. + +The thing had an enormous success--in popular phrase, "caught on." Soon +Hallin found, that all the more active and intelligent spirits in the +working-class centres where he was in vogue as a lecturer were +touched--nay, possessed--by it. The crowd of more or less socialistic +newspapers which had lately sprung up in London were full of it; the +working men's clubs rang with it. It seemed to him a madness--an +infection; and it spread like one. The book had soon reached an immense +sale, and was in every one's hands. + +To Hallin, a popular teacher, interested above all in the mingled +problems of ethics and economics, such an incident was naturally of +extreme importance. But he was himself opposed by deepest conviction, +intellectual and moral, to the book and its conclusions. The more its +success grew, the more eager and passionate became his own desire to +battle with it. His platform, of course, was secured to him; his +openings many. Hundreds and thousands of men all over England were keen +to know what he had to say about the new phenomenon. + +And he had been saying his say--throwing into it all his energies, all +his finest work. With the result that--for the first time in eleven +years--he felt his position in the working-class movement giving beneath +his feet, and his influence beginning to drop from his hand. Coldness in +place of enthusiasm; critical aloofness in place of affection; readiness +to forget and omit him in matters where he had always hitherto belonged +to the inner circle and the trusted few--these bitter ghosts, with their +hard, unfamiliar looks, had risen of late in his world of idealist +effort and joy, and had brought with them darkness and chill. He could +not give way, for he had a singular unity of soul--it had been the +source of his power--and every economical or social conviction was in +some way bound up with the moral and religious passion which was his +being--his inmost nature. And his sensitive state of nerve and brain, +his anchorite's way of life, did not allow him the distractions of other +men. The spread of these and other similar ideas seemed to him a +question of the future of England; and he had already begun to throw +himself into the unequal struggle with a martyr's tenacity, and with +some prescience of the martyr's fate. + +Even Bennett! As he sat there alone in the dim lamp-light, his head bent +over his knees, his hands hanging loosely before him, he thought +bitterly of the defection of that old friend who had stood by him +through so many lesser contests. It was _impossible_ that Bennett +should think the schemes of that book feasible! Yet he was one of the +honestest of men, and, within a certain range, one of the most +clear-headed. As for the others, they had been all against him. +Intellectually, their opinion did not matter to him; but morally it was +so strange to him to find himself on the side of doubt and dissent, +while all his friends were talking language which was almost the +language of a new faith! + +He had various lecturing engagements ahead, connected with this great +debate which was now surging throughout the Labour world of London. He +had accepted them with eagerness; in these weary night hours he looked +forward to them with terror, seeing before him perpetually thousands of +hostile faces, living in a nightmare of lost sympathies and broken +friendships. Oh, for _sleep_--for the power to rest--to escape this +corrosion of an ever active thought, which settled and reconciled +nothing! + +"_The tragedy of life lies in the conflict between the creative will of +man and the hidden wisdom of the world, which seems to thwart it_." +These words, written by one whose thought had penetrated deep into his +own, rang in his ears as he sat brooding there. Not the hidden fate, or +the hidden evil, but the hidden _wisdom_. Could one die and still +believe it? Yet what else was the task of faith? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"So I understand you wish me to go down at once?" said Louis Craven. +"This is Friday--say Monday?" + +Wharton nodded. He and Craven were sitting in Marcella's little +sitting-room. Their hostess and Edith Craven had escaped through the +door in the back kitchen communicating with the Hurds' tenement, so that +the two men might be left alone a while. The interview between them had +gone smoothly, and Louis Craven had accepted immediate employment on the +_Labour Clarion_, as the paper's correspondent in the Midlands, with +special reference to the important strike just pending. Wharton, whose +tendency in matters of business was always to go rather further than he +had meant to go, for the sake generally of making an impression on the +man with whom he was dealing, had spoken of a two years' engagement, and +had offered two hundred a year. So far as that went, Craven was +abundantly satisfied. + +"And I understand from you," he said, "that the paper _goes in_ for the +strike, that you will fight it through?" + +He fixed his penetrating greenish eyes on his companion. Louis Craven +was now a tall man with narrow shoulders, a fine oval head and face, +delicate features, and a nervous look of short sight, producing in +appearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of a +courtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm. Wharton had +never felt himself personally at ease with him, either now, or in the +old days of Venturist debates. + +"Certainly, we shall fight it through," Wharton replied, with +emphasis--"I have gone through the secretary's statement, which I now +hand over to you, and I never saw a clearer case. The poor wretches have +been skinned too long; it is high time the public backed them up. There +are two of the masters in the House. Denny, I should say, belonged quite +to the worst type of employer going." + +He spoke with light venom, buttoning his coat as he spoke with the air +of the busy public man who must not linger over an appointment. + +"Oh! Denny!" said Craven, musing; "yes, Denny is a hard man, but a just +one according to his lights. There are plenty worse than he." + +Wharton was disagreeably reminded of the Venturist habit of never +accepting anything that was said quite as it stood--of not, even in +small things, "swearing to the words" of anybody. He was conscious of +the quick passing feeling that his judgment, with regard to Denny, ought +to have been enough for Craven. + +"One thing more," said Craven suddenly, as Wharton looked for his +stick--"you see there is talk of arbitration." + +"Oh yes, I know!" said Wharton impatiently; "a mere blind. The men have +been done by it twice before. They get some big-wig from the +neighbourhood--not in the trade, indeed, but next door to it--and, of +course, the award goes against the men." + +"Then the paper will not back arbitration?" + +Craven took out a note-book. + +"No!--The quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff. The men are asking +for a mere pittance, and must get it if they are to live. It's like all +these home industries, abominably ground down. We must go for them! I +mean to go for them hot and strong. Poor devils! did you read the +evidence in that Bluebook last year? Arbitration? no, indeed! let them +live first!" + +Craven looked up absently. + +"And I think," he said, "you gave me Mr. Thorpe's address?" Mr. Thorpe +was the secretary. + +Again Wharton gulped down his annoyance. If he chose to be expansive, it +was not for Craven to take no notice. + +Craven, however, except in print, where he could be as vehement as +anybody else, never spoke but in the driest way of those workman's +grievances, which in reality burnt at the man's heart. A deep +disdain for what had always seemed to him the cheapest form of +self-advertisement, held him back. It was this dryness, combined with an +amazing disinterestedness, which had so far stood in his way. + +Wharton repeated the address, following it up by some rather curt +directions as to the length and date of articles, to which Craven gave +the minutest attention. + +"May we come in?" said Marcella's voice. + +"By all means," said Wharton, with a complete change of tone. "Business +is up and I am off!" + +He took up his hat as he spoke. + +"Not at all! Tea is just coming, without which no guest departs," said +Marcella, taking as she spoke a little tray from the red-haired Daisy +who followed her, and motioning to the child to bring the tea-table. + +Wharton looked at her irresolute. He had spent half an hour with her +_tete-a-tete_ before Louis Craven arrived, and he was really due at the +House. But now that she was on the scene again, he did not find it so +easy to go away. How astonishingly beautiful she was, even in this +disguise! She wore her nurse's dress; for her second daily round began +at half-past four, and her cloak, bonnet, and bag were lying ready on a +chair beside her. The dress was plain brown holland, with collar and +armlets of white linen; but, to Wharton's eye, the dark Italian head, +and the long slenderness of form had never shown more finely. He +hesitated and stayed. + +"All well?" said Marcella, in a half whisper, as she passed Louis Craven +on her way to get some cake. + +He nodded and smiled, and she went back to the tea-table with an eye all +gaiety, pleased with herself and everybody else. + +The quarter of an hour that followed went agreeably enough. Wharton sat +among the little group, far too clever to patronise a cat, let alone a +Venturist, but none the less master and conscious master of the +occasion, because it suited him to take the airs of equality. Craven +said little, but as he lounged in Marcella's long cane chair with his +arms behind his head, his serene and hazy air showed him contented; and +Marcella talked and laughed with the animation that belongs to one whose +plots for improving the universe have at least temporarily succeeded. +Or did it betray, perhaps, a woman's secret consciousness of some +presence beside her, more troubling and magnetic to her than others? + +"Well then, Friday," said Wharton at last, when his time was more than +spent.--"You must be there early, for there will be a crush. Miss Craven +comes too? Excellent! I will tell the doorkeeper to look out for you. +Good-bye!--good-bye!" + +And with a hasty shake of the hand to the Cravens, and one more keen +glance, first at Marcella and then round the little workman's room in +which they had been sitting, he went. + +He had hardly departed before Anthony Craven, the lame elder brother, +who must have passed him on the stairs, appeared. + +"Well--any news?" he said, as Marcella found him a chair. + +"All right!" said Louis, whose manner had entirely changed since Wharton +had left the room. "I am to go down on Monday to report the Damesley +strike that is to be. A month's trial, and then a salary--two hundred a +year. Oh! it'll do." + +He fidgeted and looked away from his brother, as though trying to hide +his pleasure. But in spite of him it transformed every line of the +pinched and worn face. + +"And you and Anna will walk to the Registry Office next week?" said +Anthony, sourly, as he took his tea. + +"It can't be next week," said Edith Craven's quiet voice, interposing. +"Anna's got to work out her shirt-making time. She only left the +tailoresses and began this new business ten days ago. And she was to +have a month at each." + +Marcella's lifted eyebrows asked for explanations. She had not yet seen +Louis's betrothed, but she was understood to be a character, and a +better authority on many Labour questions than he. + +Louis explained that Anna was exploring various sweated trades for the +benefit of an East End newspaper. She had earned fourteen shillings her +last week at tailoring, but the feat had exhausted her so much that he +had been obliged to insist on two or three days respite before moving on +to shirts. Shirts were now brisk, and the hours appallingly long in this +heat. + +"It was on shirts they made acquaintance," said Edith pensively. "Louis +was lodging on the second floor, she in the third floor back, and they +used to pass on the stairs. One day she heard him imploring the little +slavey to put some buttons on his shirts. The slavey tossed her head, +and said she'd see about it. When he'd gone out, Anna came downstairs, +calmly demanded his shirts, and, having the slavey under her thumb, got +them, walked off with them, and mended them all. When Louis came home he +discovered a neat heap reposing on his table. Of course he +wept--whatever he may say. But next morning Miss Anna found her shoes +outside her door, blacked as they had never been blacked before, with a +note inside one of them. Affecting! wasn't it? Thenceforward, as long as +they remained in those lodgings, Anna mended and Louis blacked. +Naturally, Anthony and I drew our conclusions." + +Marcella laughed. + +"You must bring her to see me," she said to Louis. + +"I will," said Louis, with some perplexity; "if I can get hold of her. +But when she isn't stitching she's writing, or trying to set up Unions. +She does the work of six. She'll earn nearly as much as I do when we're +married. Oh! we shall swim!" + +Anthony surveyed his radiant aspect--so unlike the gentle or satirical +detachment which made his ordinary manner--with a darkening eye, as +though annoyed by his effusion. + +"Two hundred a year?" he said slowly; "about what Mr. Harry Wharton +spends on his clothes, I should think. The Labour men tell me he is +superb in that line. And for the same sum that he spends on his clothes, +he is able to buy _you_, Louis, body and soul, and you seem inclined to +be grateful." + +"Never mind," said Louis recklessly. "He didn't buy some one else--and I +_am_ grateful!" + +"No; by Heaven, you shan't be!" said Anthony, with a fierce change of +tone. "_You_ the dependent of that charlatan! I don't know how I'm to +put up with it. You know very well what I think of him, and of your +becoming dependent on him." + +Marcella gave an angry start. Louis protested. + +"Nonsense!" said Anthony doggedly; "you'll have to bear it from me, I +tell you--unless you muzzle me too with an Anna." + +"But I don't see why _I_ should bear it," said Marcella, turning upon +him. "I think you know that I owe Mr. Wharton a debt. Please remember +it!" + +Anthony looked at her an instant in silence. A question crossed his +mind concerning her. Then he made her a little clumsy bow. + +"I am dumb," he said. "My manners, you perceive, are what they always +were." + +"What do you mean by such a remark," cried Marcella, fuming. "How can a +man who has reached the position he has in so short a time--in so many +different worlds--be disposed of by calling him an ugly name? It is more +than unjust--it is absurd! Besides, what can you know of him?" + +"You forget," said Anthony, as he calmly helped himself to more bread +and butter, "that it is some three years since Master Harry Wharton +joined the Venturists and began to be heard of at all. I watched his +beginnings, and if I didn't know him well, my friends and Louis's did. +And most of them--as he knows!--have pretty strong opinions by now about +the man." + +"Come, come, Anthony!" said Louis, "nobody expects a man of that type to +be the pure-eyed patriot. But neither you nor I can deny that he has +done some good service. Am I asked to take him to my bosom? Not at all! +He proposes a job to me, and offers to pay me. I like the job, and mean +to use him and his paper, both to earn some money that I want, and do a +bit of decent work." + +"_You_--use Harry Wharton!" said the cripple, with a sarcasm that +brought the colour to Louis's thin cheek and made Marcella angrier than +before. She saw nothing in his attack on Wharton, except personal +prejudice and ill-will. It was natural enough, that a man of Anthony +Craven's type--poor, unsuccessful, and embittered--should dislike a +popular victorious personality. + +"Suppose we leave Mr. Wharton alone?" she said with emphasis, and +Anthony, making her a little proud gesture of submission, threw himself +back in his chair, and was silent. + +It had soon become evident to Marcella, upon the renewal of her +friendship with the Cravens, that Anthony's temper towards all men, +especially towards social reformers and politicians, had developed into +a mere impotent bitterness. While Louis had renounced his art, and +devoted himself to journalism, unpaid public work and starvation, that +he might so throw himself the more directly into the Socialist battle, +Anthony had remained an artist, mainly employed as before in decorative +design. Yet he was probably the more fierce Venturist and anticapitalist +of the two. Only what with Louis was an intoxication of hope, was on the +whole with Anthony a counsel of despair. He loathed wealth more +passionately than ever; but he believed less in the working man, less in +his kind. Rich men must cease to exist; but the world on any terms would +probably remain a sorry spot. + +In the few talks that he had had with Marcella since she left the +hospital, she had allowed him to gather more or less clearly--though +with hardly a mention of Aldous Raeburn's name--what had happened to her +at Mellor. Anthony Craven thought out the story for himself, finding it +a fit food for a caustic temper. Poor devil--the lover! To fall a victim +to enthusiasms so raw, so unprofitable from any point of view, was hard. +And as to this move to London, he thought he foresaw the certain end of +it. At any rate he believed in her no more than before. But her beauty +was more marked than ever, and would, of course, be the dominant factor +in her fate. He was thankful, at any rate, that Louis in this two years' +interval had finally transferred his heart elsewhere. + +After watching his three companions for a while, he broke in upon their +chat with an abrupt-- + +"What _is_ this job, Louis?" + +"I told you. I am to investigate, report, and back up the Damesley +strike, or rather the strike that begins at Damesley next week." + +"No chance!" said Anthony shortly, "the masters are too strong. I had a +talk with Denny yesterday." + +The Denny he meant, however, was not Wharton's colleague in the House, +but his son--a young man who, beginning life as the heir of one of the +most stiff-backed and autocratic of capitalists, had developed socialist +opinions, renounced his father's allowance, and was now a member of the +"intellectual proletariat," as they have been called, the free-lances of +the Collectivist movement. He had lately joined the Venturists. Anthony +had taken a fancy to him. Louis as yet knew little or nothing of him. + +"Ah, well!" he said, in reply to his brother, "I don't know. I think the +_Clarion can_ do something. The press grows more and more powerful in +these things." + +And he repeated some of the statements that Wharton had made--that +Wharton always did make, in talking of the _Clarion_--as to its growth +under his hands, and increasing influence in Labour disputes. + +"Bunkum!" interrupted Anthony drily; "pure bunkum! My own belief is +that the _Clarion_ is a rotten property, and that he knows it!" + +At this both Marcella and Louis laughed out. Extravagance after a +certain point becomes amusing. They dropped their vexation, and Anthony +for the next ten minutes had to submit to the part of the fractious +person whom one humours but does not argue with. He accepted the part, +saying little, his eager, feverish eyes, full of hostility, glancing +from one to the other. + +However, at the end, Marcella bade him a perfectly friendly farewell. It +was always in her mind that Anthony Craven was lame and solitary, and +her pity no less than her respect for him had long since yielded him the +right to be rude. + +"How are you getting on?" he said to her abruptly as he dropped her +hand. + +"Oh, very well! my superintendent leaves me almost alone now, which is a +compliment. There is a parish doctor who calls me 'my good woman,' and a +sanitary inspector who tells me to go to him whenever I want advice. +Those are my chief grievances, I think." + +"And you are as much in love with the poor as ever?" + +She stiffened at the note of sarcasm, and a retaliatory impulse made her +say:-- + +"I see a great deal more happiness than I expected." + +He laughed. + +"How like a woman! A few ill-housed villagers made you a democrat. A few +well-paid London artisans will carry you safely back to your class. Your +people were wise to let you take this work." + +"Do you suppose I nurse none but well-paid artisans?" she asked him, +mocking. "And I didn't say 'money' or 'comfort,' did I? but 'happiness.' +As for my 'democracy,' you are not perhaps the best judge." + +She stood resting both hands on a little table behind her, in an +attitude touched with the wild freedom which best became her, a gleam of +storm in her great eyes. + +"Why are you still a Venturist?" he asked her abruptly. + +"Because I have every right to be! I joined a society, pledged to work +'for a better future.' According to my lights, I do what poor work I can +in that spirit." + +"_You_ are not a Socialist. Half the things you say, or imply, show it. +And we _are_ Socialists." + +She hesitated, looking at him steadily. + +"No!--so far as Socialism means a political system--the trampling out of +private enterprise and competition, and all the rest of it--I find +myself slipping away from it more and more. No!--as I go about among +these wage-earners, the emphasis--do what I will--comes to lie less and +less on possession--more and more on character. I go to two tenements in +the same building. One is Hell--the other Heaven. Why? Both belong to +well-paid artisans with equal opportunities. Both, so far as I can see, +might have a decent and pleasant life of it. But one is a man--the +other, with all his belongings, will soon be a vagabond. That is not +all, I know--oh! don't trouble to tell me so!--but it is more than I +thought. No!--my sympathies in this district where I work are not so +much with the Socialists that I know here--saving your presence! +but--with the people, for instance, that slave at Charity Organisation! +and get all the abuse from all sides." + +Anthony laughed scornfully. + +"It is always the way with a woman," he said; "she invariably prefers +the tinkers to the reformers." + +"And as to your Socialism," she went on, unheeding, the thought of many +days finding defiant expression--"it seems to me like all other +interesting and important things--destined to help something else! +Christianity begins with the poor and division of goods--it becomes the +great bulwark of property and the feudal state. The Crusades--they set +out to recover the tomb of the Lord!--what they did was to increase +trade and knowledge. And so with Socialism. It talks of a new +order--what it _will_ do is to help to make the old sound!" + +Anthony clapped her ironically. + +"Excellent! When the Liberty and Property Defence people have got hold +of you--ask me to come and hear!" + +Meanwhile, Louis stood behind, with his hands on his sides, a smile in +his blinking eyes. He really had a contempt for what a handsome +half-taught girl of twenty-three might think. Anthony only pretended or +desired to have it. + +Nevertheless, Louis said good-bye to his hostess with real, and, for +him, rare effusion. Two years before, for the space of some months, he +had been in love with her. That she had never responded with anything +warmer than liking and comradeship he knew; and his Anna now possessed +him wholly. But there was a deep and gentle chivalry at the bottom of +all his stern social faiths; and the woman towards whom he had once felt +as he had towards Marcella Boyce could never lose the glamour lent her +by that moment of passionate youth. And now, so kindly, so eagerly!--she +had given him his Anna. + +When they were all gone Marcella threw herself into her chair a moment +to think. Her wrath with Anthony was soon dismissed. But Louis's thanks +had filled her with delicious pleasure. Her cheek, her eye had a child's +brightness. The old passion for ruling and influencing was all alive and +happy. + +"I will see it is all right," she was saying to herself. "I will look +after them." + +What she meant was, "I will see that Mr. Wharton looks after them!" and +through the link of thought, memory flew quickly back to that +_tete-a-tete_ with him which had preceded the Cravens' arrival. + +How changed he was, yet how much the same! He had not sat beside her for +ten minutes before each was once more vividly, specially conscious of +the other. She felt in him the old life and daring, the old imperious +claim to confidence, to intimacy--on the other hand a new atmosphere, a +new gravity, which suggested growing responsibilities, the difficulties +of power, a great position--everything fitted to touch such an +imagination as Marcella's, which, whatever its faults, was noble, both +in quality and range. The brow beneath the bright chestnut curls had +gained lines that pleased her--lines that a woman marks, because she +thinks they mean experience an I mastery. + +Altogether, to have met him again was pleasure; to think of him was +pleasure; to look forward to hearing him speak in Parliament was +pleasure; so too was his new connection with her old friends. And a +pleasure which took nothing from self-respect; which was open, +honourable, eager. As for that ugly folly of the past, she frowned at +the thought of it, only to thrust the remembrance passionately away. +That _he_ should remember or allude to it, would put an end to +friendship. Otherwise friends they would and should be; and the personal +interest in his public career should lift her out of the cramping +influences that flow from the perpetual commerce of poverty and +suffering. Why not? Such equal friendships between men and women grow +more possible every day. While, as for Hallin's distrust, and Anthony +Craven's jealous hostility, why should a third person be bound by either +of them? Could any one suppose that such a temperament as Wharton's +would be congenial to Hallin or to Craven--or--to yet another person, of +whom she did not want to think? Besides, who wished to make a hero of +him? It was the very complexity and puzzle of the character that made +its force. + + * * * * * + +So with a reddened cheek, she lost herself a few minutes in this +pleasant sense of a new wealth in life; and was only roused from the +dreamy running to and fro of thought by the appearance of Minta, who +came to clear away the tea. + +"Why, it is close on the half-hour!" cried Marcella, springing up. +"Where are my things?" + +She looked down the notes of her cases, satisfied herself that her bag +contained all she wanted, and then hastily tied on her bonnet and cloak. + +Suddenly--the room was empty, for Minta had just gone away with the +tea--by a kind of subtle reaction, the face in that photograph on +Hallin's table flashed into her mind--its look--the grizzled hair. With +an uncontrollable pang of pain she dropped her hands from the fastenings +of her cloak, and wrung them together in front of her--a dumb gesture of +contrition and of grief. + +She!--she talk of social reform and "character," she give her opinion, +as of right, on points of speculation and of ethics, she, whose main +achievement so far had been to make a good man suffer! Something +belittling and withering swept over all her estimate of herself, all her +pleasant self-conceit. Quietly, with downcast eyes, she went her way. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Her first case was in Brown's Buildings itself--a woman suffering from +bronchitis and heart complaint, and tormented besides by an ulcerated +foot which Marcella had now dressed daily for some weeks. She lived on +the top floor of one of the easterly blocks, with two daughters and a +son of eighteen. + +When Marcella entered the little room it was as usual spotlessly clean +and smelt of flowers. The windows were open, and a young woman was busy +shirt-ironing on a table in the centre of the room. Both she and her +mother looked up with smiles as Marcella entered. Then, they introduced +her with some ceremony to a "lady," who was sitting beside the patient, +a long-faced melancholy woman employed at the moment in marking linen +handkerchiefs, which she did with extraordinary fineness and delicacy. +The patient and her daughter spoke of Marcella to their friend as "the +young person," but all with a natural courtesy and charm that could not +have been surpassed. + +Marcella knelt to undo the wrappings of the foot. The woman, a pale +transparent creature, winced painfully as the dressing was drawn off; +but between each half stifled moan of pain she said something eager and +grateful to her nurse. "I never knew any one, Nurse, do it as gentle as +you--" or--"I _do_ take it kind of you, Nurse, to do it so _slow_--oh! +there were a young person before you--" or "hasn't she got nice hands, +Mrs. Burton? they don't never seem to _jar_ yer." + +"Poor foot! but I think it is looking better," said Marcella, getting up +at last from her work, when all was clean and comfortable and she had +replaced the foot on the upturned wooden box that supported it--for its +owner was not in bed, but sitting propped up in an old armchair. "And +how is your cough, Mrs. Jervis?" + +"Oh! it's very bad, nights," said Mrs. Jervis, mildly--"disturbs Emily +dreadful. But I always pray every night, when she lifts me into bed, as +I may be took before the morning, an' God ull do it soon." + +"Mother!" cried Emily, pausing in her ironing, "you know you oughtn't to +say them things." + +Mrs. Jervis looked at her with a sly cheerfulness. Her emaciated face +was paler than usual because of the pain of the dressing, but from the +frail form there breathed an indomitable air of _life_, a gay courage +indeed which had already struck Marcella with wonder. + +"Well, yer not to take 'em to heart, Em'ly. It ull be when it will +be--for the Lord likes us to pray, but He'll take his own time--an' +she's got troubles enough of her own, Nurse. D'yer see as she's leff off +her ring?" + +Marcella looked at Emily's left hand, while the girl flushed all over, +and ironed with a more fiery energy than before. + +"I've 'eerd such things of 'im, Nurse, this last two days," she said +with low vehemence--"as I'm _never_ goin' to wear it again. It 'ud burn +me!" + +Emily was past twenty. Some eighteen months before this date she had +married a young painter. After nearly a year of incredible misery her +baby was born. It died, and she very nearly died also, owing to the +brutal ill-treatment of her husband. As soon as she could get on her +feet again, she tottered home to her widowed mother, broken for the time +in mind and body, and filled with loathing of her tyrant. He made no +effort to recover her, and her family set to work to mend if they could +what he had done. The younger sister of fourteen was earning seven +shillings a week at paper-bag making; the brother, a lad of eighteen, +had been apprenticed by his mother, at the cost of heroic efforts some +six years before, to the leather-currying trade, in a highly skilled +branch of it, and was now taking sixteen shillings a week with the +prospect of far better things in the future. He at once put aside from +his earnings enough to teach Emily "the shirt-ironing," denying himself +every indulgence till her training was over. + +Then they had their reward. Emily's colour and spirits came back; her +earnings made all the difference to the family between penury and ease; +while she and her little sister kept the three tiny rooms in which they +lived, and waited on their invalid mother, with exquisite cleanliness +and care. + +Marcella stood by the ironing-table a moment after the girl's speech. + +"Poor Emily!" she said softly, laying her hand on the ringless one that +held down the shirt on the board. + +Emily looked up at her in silence. But the girl's eyes glowed with +things unsaid and inexpressible--the "eternal passion, eternal pain," +which in half the human race have no voice. + +"He was a very rough man was Em'ly's husband," said Mrs. Jervis, in her +delicate thoughtful voice--"a very uncultivated man." + +Marcella turned round to her, startled and amused by the adjective. But +the other two listeners took it quite quietly. It seemed to them +apparently to express what had to be said. + +"It's a sad thing is want of edication," Mrs. Jervis went on in the same +tone. "Now there's that lady there"--with a little courtly wave of her +hand towards Mrs. Burton--"she can't read yer know, Nurse, and I'm that +sorry for her! But I've been reading to her, an' Emily--just while my +cough's quiet--one of my ole tracks." + +She held up a little paper-covered tract worn with use. It was called "A +Pennorth of Grace, or a Pound of Works?" Marcella looked at it in +respectful silence as she put on her cloak. Such things were not in her +line. + +"I do _love_ a track!" said Mrs. Jervis, pensively. "That's why I don't +like these buildings so well as them others, Em'ly. Here you never get +no tracks; and there, what with one person and another, there was a new +one most weeks. But"--her voice dropped, and she looked timidly first at +her friend, and then at Marcella--"she isn't a Christian, Nurse. Isn't +it sad?" + +Mrs. Burton, a woman of a rich mahogany complexion, with a black +"front," and a mouth which turned down decisively at the corners, +looked up from her embroidery with severe composure. + +"No, Nurse, I'm not a Christian," she said in the tone of one stating a +disagreeable fact for which they are noways responsible. "My brother +is--and my sisters--real good Christian people. One of my sisters +married a gentleman up in Wales. She 'as two servants, an' fam'ly +prayers reg'lar. But I've never felt no 'call,' and I tell 'em I can't +purtend. An' Mrs. Jervis here, she don't seem to make me see it no +different." + +She held her head erect, however, as though the unusually high sense of +probity involved, was, after all, some consolation. Mrs. Jervis looked +at her with pathetic eyes. But Emily coloured hotly. Emily was a +churchwoman. + +"Of course you're a Christian, Mrs. Burton," she said indignantly. "What +she means, Nurse, is she isn't a 'member' of any chapel, like mother. +But she's been baptised and confirmed, for I asked her. And of course +she's a Christian." + +"Em'ly!" said Mrs. Jervis, with energy. + +Emily looked round trembling. The delicate invalid was sitting bolt +upright, her eyes sparkling, a spot of red on either hollow cheek. The +glances of the two women crossed; there seemed to be a mute struggle +between them. Then Emily laid down her iron, stepped quickly across to +her mother, and kneeling beside her, threw her arms around her. + +"Have it your own way, mother," she said, while her lip quivered; "I +wasn't a-goin' to cross you." + +Mrs. Jervis laid her waxen cheek against her daughter's tangle of brown +hair with a faint smile, while her breathing, which had grown quick and +panting, gradually subsided. Emily looked up at Marcella with a +terrified self-reproach. They all knew that any sudden excitement might +kill out the struggling flame of life. + +"You ought to rest a little, Mrs. Jervis," said Marcella, with gentle +authority. "You know the dressing must tire you, though you won't +confess it. Let me put you comfortable. There; aren't the pillows easier +so? Now rest--and good-bye." + +But Mrs. Jervis held her, while Emily slipped away. + +"I shall rest soon," she said significantly. "An' it hurts me when Emily +talks like that. It's the only thing that ever comes atween us. She +thinks o' forms an' ceremonies; an' _I_ think o' _grace_." + +Her old woman's eyes, so clear and vivid under the blanched brow, +searched Marcella's face for sympathy. But Marcella stood, shy and +wondering in the presence of words and emotions she understood so +little. So narrow a life, in these poor rooms, under these crippling +conditions of disease!--and all this preoccupation with, this passion +over, the things not of the flesh, the thwarted, cabined flesh, but of +the spirit--wonderful! + + * * * * * + +On coming out from Brown's Buildings, she turned her steps reluctantly +towards a street some distance from her own immediate neighbourhood, +where she had a visit to pay which filled her with repulsion and an +unusual sense of helplessness. A clergyman who often availed himself of +the help of the St. Martin's nurses had asked the superintendent to +undertake for him "a difficult case." Would one of their nurses go +regularly to visit a certain house, ostensibly for the sake of a little +boy of five just come back from the hospital, who required care at home +for a while, _really_ for the sake of his young mother, who had suddenly +developed drinking habits and was on the road to ruin? + +Marcella happened to be in the office when the letter arrived. She +somewhat unwillingly accepted the task, and she had now paid two or +three visits, always dressing the child's sore leg, and endeavouring to +make acquaintance with the mother. But in this last attempt she had not +had much success. Mrs. Vincent was young and pretty, with a flighty, +restless manner. She was always perfectly civil to Marcella, and +grateful to her apparently for the ease she gave the boy. But she +offered no confidences; the rooms she and her husband occupied showed +them to be well-to-do; Marcella had so far found them well-kept; and +though the evil she was sent to investigate was said to be notorious, +she had as yet discovered nothing of it for herself. It seemed to her +that she must be either stupid, or that there must be something about +her which made Mrs. Vincent more secretive with her than with others; +and neither alternative pleased her. + +To-day, however, as she stopped at the Vincents' door, she noticed that +the doorstep, which was as a rule shining white, was muddy and +neglected. Then nobody came to open, though she knocked and rang +repeatedly. At last a neighbour, who had been watching the strange +nurse through her own parlour window, came out to the street. + +"I think, miss," she said, with an air of polite mystery, "as you'd +better walk in. Mrs. Vincent 'asn't been enjyin' very good 'ealth this +last few days." + +Marcella turned the handle, found it yielded, and went in. It was after +six o'clock, and the evening sun streamed in through a door at the back +of the house. But in the Vincents' front parlour the blinds were all +pulled down, and the only sound to be heard was the fretful wailing of a +child. Marcella timidly opened the sitting-room door. + +The room at first seemed to her dark. Then she perceived Mrs. Vincent +sitting by the grate, and the two children on the floor beside her. The +elder, the little invalid, was simply staring at his mother in a +wretched silence; but the younger, the baby of three, was restlessly +throwing himself hither and thither, now pulling at the woman's skirts, +now crying lustily, now whining in a hungry voice, for "Mama! din-din! +Mama! din-din!" + +Mrs. Vincent neither moved nor spoke, even when Marcella came in. She +sat with her hands hanging over her lap in a desolation incapable of +words. She was dirty and unkempt; the room was covered with litter; the +breakfast things were still on the table; and the children were +evidently starving. + +Marcella, seized with pity, and divining what had happened, tried to +rouse and comfort her. But she got no answer. Then she asked for +matches. Mrs. Vincent made a mechanical effort to find them, but +subsided helpless with a shake of the head. At last Marcella found them +herself, lit a tire of some sticks she discovered in a cupboard, and put +on the kettle. Then she cut a slice of bread and dripping for each of +the children--the only eatables she could find--and after she had +dressed Bertie's leg she began to wash up the tea things and tidy the +room, not knowing very well what to be at, but hoping minute by minute +to get Mrs. Vincent to speak to her. + +In the midst of her labours, an elderly woman cautiously opened the door +and beckoned to her. + +Marcella went out into the passage. + +"I'm her mother, miss! I 'eered you were 'ere, an' I follered yer. Oh! +such a business as we 'ad, 'er 'usband an' me, a gettin' of 'er 'ome +last night. There's a neighbour come to me, an' she says: 'Mrs. Lucas, +there's your daughter a drinkin' in that public 'ouse, an' if I was you +I'd go and fetch her out; for she's got a lot o' money, an' she's +treatin' everybody all round.' An' Charlie--that's 'er 'usband--ee come +along too, an' between us we got holt on her. An' iver sence we brought +her 'ome last night, she set there in that cheer, an' niver a word to +nobody! Not to me 't any rate, nor the chillen. I believe 'er 'usband +an' 'er 'ad words this mornin'. But she won't tell me nothin'. She sits +there--just heart-broke"--the woman put up her apron to her eyes and +began crying. "She ain't eatin' nothink all day, an' I dursen't leave +the 'ouse out o' me sight--I lives close by, miss--for fear of 'er doing +'erself a mischief." + +"How long has she been like this?" said Marcella, drawing the door +cautiously to behind her. + +"About fourteen month," said the woman, hopelessly. "An' none of us +knows why. She was such a neat, pretty girl when she married 'im--an' ee +such a steady fellow. An' I've done _my_ best. I've talked to 'er, an' +I've 'id 'er 'at an' her walking things, an' taken 'er money out of 'er +pockets. An', bless yer, she's been all right now for seven weeks--till +last night. Oh, deary, deary, me! whatever 'ull become o' them--'er, an' +'im, an' the children!" + +The tears coursed down the mother's wrinkled face. + +"Leave her to me a little longer," said Marcella, softly; "but come back +to me in about half an hour, and don't let her be alone." + +The woman nodded, and went away. + +Mrs. Vincent turned quickly round as Marcella came back again, and spoke +for the first time: + +"That was my mother you were talkin' to?" + +"Yes," said Marcella, quietly, as she took the kettle off the fire. "Now +I do want you to have a cup of tea, Mrs. Vincent. Will you, if I make +it?" + +The poor creature did not speak, but she followed Marcella's movements +with her weary eyes. At last when Marcella knelt down beside her holding +out a cup of tea and some bread and butter, she gave a sudden cry. +Marcella hastily put down what she carried, lest it should be knocked +out of her hand. + +"He struck me this morning!--Charlie did--the first time in seven years. +Look here!" + +She pulled up her sleeve, and on her white, delicate arm she showed a +large bruise. As she pointed to it her eyes filled with miserable tears; +her lips quivered; anguish breathed in every feature. Yet even in this +abasement Marcella was struck once more with her slim prettiness, her +refined air. This woman drinking and treating in a low public-house at +midnight!--rescued thence by a decent husband! + +She soothed her as best she could, but when she had succeeded in making +the wretched soul take food, and so in putting some physical life into +her, she found herself the recipient of an outburst of agony before +which she quailed. The woman clung to her, moaning about her husband, +about the demon instinct that had got hold of her, she hardly knew +how--by means it seemed originally of a few weeks of low health and +small self-indulgences--and she felt herself powerless to fight; about +the wreck she had brought upon her home, the shame upon her husband, who +was the respected, well-paid foreman of one of the large shops of the +neighbourhood. All through it came back to him. + +"We had words, Nurse, this morning, when he went out to his work. He +said he'd nearly died of shame last night; that he couldn't bear it no +more; that he'd take the children from me. And I was all queer in the +head still, and I sauced him--and then--he looked like a devil--and he +took me by the arm--and _threw_ me down--as if I'd been a sack. An' he +never, _never,_--touched me--before--in all his life. An' he's never +come in all day. An' perhaps I shan't ever see him again. An' last +time--but it wasn't so bad as this--he said he'd try an' love me again +if I'd behave. An' he did try--and I tried too. But now it's no good, +an' perhaps he'll not come back. Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do!" +she flung her arms above her head. "Won't _anybody_ find him? won't +_anybody_ help me?" + +She dropped a hand upon Marcella's arm, clutching it, her wild eyes +seeking her companion's. + +But at the same moment, with the very extremity of her own emotion, a +cloud of impotence fell upon Marcella. She suddenly felt that she could +do nothing--that there was nothing in her adequate to such an +appeal--nothing strong enough to lift the weight of a human life thus +flung upon her. + +She was struck with a dryness, a numbness, that appalled her. She tried +still to soothe and comfort, but nothing that she said went home--took +hold. Between the feeling in her heart which might have reached and +touched this despair, and the woman before her, there seemed to be a +barrier she could not break. Or was it that she was really barren and +poor in soul, and had never realised it before? A strange misery rose in +her too, as she still knelt, tending and consoling, but with no +efficacy--no power. + +At last Mrs. Vincent sank into miserable quiet again. The mother came +in, and silently began to put the children to bed. Marcella pressed the +wife's cold hand, and went out hanging her head. She had just reached +the door when it opened, and a man entered. A thrill passed through her +at the sight of his honest, haggard face, and this time she found what +to say. + +"I have been sitting by your wife, Mr. Vincent. She is very ill and +miserable, and very penitent. You will be kind to her?" + +The husband looked at her, and then turned away. + +"God help us!" he said; and Marcella went without another word, and +with that same wild, unaccustomed impulse of prayer rilling her being +which had first stirred in her at Mellor at the awful moment of Hurd's +death. + + * * * * * + +She was very silent and distracted at tea, and afterwards--saying that +she must write some letters and reports--she shut herself up, and bade +good-night to Minta and the children. + +But she did not write or read. She hung at the window a long time, +watching the stars come out, as the summer light died from the sky, and +even the walls and roofs and chimneys of this interminable London spread +out before her took a certain dim beauty. And then, slipping down on the +floor, with her head against a chair--an attitude of her stormy +childhood--she wept with an abandonment and a passion she had not known +for years. She thought of Mrs. Jervis--the saint--so near to death, so +satisfied with "grace," so steeped in the heavenly life; then of the +poor sinner she had just left and of the agony she had no power to stay. +Both experiences had this in common--that each had had some part in +plunging her deeper into this darkness of self-contempt. + +What had come to her? Daring the past weeks there had been something +wrestling in her--some new birth--some "conviction of sin," as Mrs. +Jervis would have said. As she looked back over all her strenuous youth +she hated it. What was wrong with her? Her own word to Anthony Craven +returned upon her, mocked her--made now a scourge for her own pride, not +a mere, measure of blame for others. Aldous Raeburn, her father and +mother, her poor--one and all rose against her--plucked at +her--reproached her. "Aye! what, indeed, are wealth and poverty?" cried +a voice, which was the voice of them all; "what are opinions--what is +influence, beauty, cleverness?--what is anything worth but +_character_--but _soul?_" + +And character--soul--can only be got by self-surrender; and +self-surrender comes not of knowledge but of love. + +A number of thoughts and phrases, hitherto of little meaning to her, +floated into her mind--sank and pressed there. That strange word "grace" +for instance! + +A year ago it would not have smitten or troubled her. After her first +inevitable reaction against the evangelical training of her school +years, the rebellious cleverness of youth had easily decided that +religion was played out, that Socialism and Science were enough for +mankind. + +But nobody could live in hospital--nobody could go among the +poor--nobody could share the thoughts and hopes of people like Edward +Hallin and his sister, without understanding that it is still here in +the world--this "grace" that "sustaineth"--however variously +interpreted, still living and working, as it worked of old, among the +little Galilean towns, in Jerusalem, in Corinth. To Edward Hallin it did +not mean the same, perhaps, as it meant to the hard-worked clergymen she +knew, or to Mrs. Jervis. But to all it meant the motive power of +life--something subduing, transforming, delivering--something that +to-night she envied with a passion and a yearning that amazed herself. + +How many things she craved, as an eager child craves them! First some +moral change, she knew not what--then Aldous Raeburn's pardon and +friendship--then and above all, the power to lose herself--the power to +_love_. + +Dangerous significant moment in a woman's life--moment at once of +despair and of illusion! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Wharton was sitting in a secluded corner of the library of the House of +Commons. He had a number of loose sheets of paper on a chair beside him, +and others in his hand and on his knee. It was Friday afternoon; +questions were going on in the House; and he was running rapidly for the +last time through the notes of his speech, pencilling here and there, +and every now and then taking up a volume of Hansard that lay near that +he might verify a quotation. + +An old county member, with a rugged face and eye-glasses, who had been +in Parliament for a generation, came to the same corner to look up a +speech. He glanced curiously at Wharton, with whom he had a familiar +House-of-Commons acquaintance. + +"Nervous, eh?" he said, as he put on his eye-glasses to inspect first +Wharton, then the dates on the backs of the Reports. + +Wharton put his papers finally together, and gave a long stretch. + +"Not particularly." + +"Well, it's a beastly audience!" said the other, carrying off his book. + +Wharton, lost apparently in contemplation of the ceiling, fell into a +dreamy attitude. But his eye saw nothing of the ceiling, and was not at +all dreamy. He was not thinking of his speech, nor of the other man's +remark. He was thinking of Marcella Boyce. + +When he left her the other day he had been conscious, only more vividly +and intensely, more possessively as it were, than she, of the same +general impression that had been left upon her. A new opening for +pleasure--their meeting presented itself to him, too, in the same way. +What had he been about all this time? _Forget_?--such a creature? Why, +it was the merest wantonness! As if such women--with such a brow, such +vitality, such a gait--passed in every street! + +What possessed him now was an imperious eagerness to push the matter, to +recover the old intimacy--and as to what might come out of it, let the +gods decide! He could have had but a very raw appreciation of her at +Mellor. It seemed to him that she had never forced him to think of her +then in absence, as he had thought of her since the last meeting. + +As for the nursing business, and the settlement in Brown's Buildings, it +was, of course, mere play-acting. No doubt when she emerged she would be +all the more of a personage for having done it. But she must emerge +soon. To rule and shine was as much her _metier_ as it was the _metier_ +of a bricklayer's labourer to carry hods. By George! what would not Lady +Selina give for beauty of such degree and kind as that! They must be +brought together. He already foresaw that the man who should launch +Marcella Boyce in London would play a stroke for himself as well as for +her. And she must be launched in London. Let other people nurse, and +pitch their tents in little workmen's flats, and _live_ democracy +instead of preaching it. Her fate was fixed for her by her physique. _Il +ne faut pas sortir de son caractere_. + +The sight of Bennett approaching distracted him. + +Bennett's good face showed obvious vexation. + +"He sticks to it," he said, as Wharton jumped up to meet him. "Talks of +his conscience--and a lot of windy stuff. He seems to have arranged it +with the Whips. I dare say he won't do much harm." + +"Except to himself," said Wharton, with dry bitterness. "Goodness! let's +leave him alone!" + +He and Bennett lingered a few minutes discussing points of tactics. +Wilkins had, of course, once more declared himself the _enfant terrible_ +of a party which, though still undefined, was drawing nearer day by day +to organised existence and separate leadership. The effect of to-night's +debate might be of far-reaching importance. Wharton's Resolution, +pledging the House to a Legal Eight Hours' Day for all trades, came at +the end of a long and varied agitation, was at the moment in clear +practical relation to labour movements all over the country, and had in +fact gained greatly in significance and interest since it was first +heard of in public, owing to events of current history. Workable +proposals--a moderate tone--and the appearance, at any rate, of harmony +and a united front among the representatives of labour--if so much at +least could be attained to-night, both Wharton and Bennett believed that +not only the cause itself, but the importance of the Labour party in the +House would be found to have gained enormously. + +"I hope I shall get my turn before dinner," said Bennett, as he was +going; "I want badly to get off for an hour or so. The division won't be +till half-past ten at earliest." + +Wharton stood for a moment in a brown study, with his hands in his +pockets, after Bennett left him. It was by no means wholly clear to him +what line Bennett would take--with regard to one or two points. After a +long acquaintance with the little man, Wharton was not always, nor +indeed generally, at his ease with him. Bennett had curious reserves. As +to his hour off, Wharton felt tolerably certain that he meant to go and +hear a famous Revivalist preacher hold forth at a public hall not far +from the House. The streets were full of placards. + +Well!--to every man his own excitements! What time? He looked first at +his watch, then at the marked question paper Bennett had left behind +him. The next minute he was hurrying along passages and stairs, with his +springing, boyish step, to the Ladies' Gallery. + +The magnificent doorkeeper saluted him with particular deference. +Wharton was in general a favourite with officials. + +"The two ladies are come, sir. You'll find them in the front--oh! not +very full yet, sir--will be directly." + +Wharton drew aside the curtain of the Gallery, and looked in. +Yes!--there was the dark head bent forward, pressed indeed against the +grating which closes the front of the den into which the House of +Commons puts its ladies--as though its owner were already absorbed in +what was passing before her. + +She looked up with an eager start, as she heard his voice in her ear. + +"Oh! now, come and tell us everything--and who everybody is. Why don't +we see the Speaker?--and which is the Government side?--oh, yes, I see. +And who's this speaking now?" + +"Why, I thought you knew everything," said Wharton as, with a greeting +to Miss Craven, he slipped in beside them and took a still vacant chair +for an instant. "How shall I instruct a Speaker's great-niece?" + +"Why, of course I feel as if the place belonged to me!" said Marcella, +impatiently; "but that somehow doesn't seem to help me to people's +names. Where's Mr. Gladstone? Oh, I see. Look, look, Edith!--he's just +come in!--oh, don't be so superior, though you _have_ been here +before--you couldn't tell me heaps of people!" + +Her voice had a note of joyous excitement like a child's. + +"That's because I'm short-sighted," said Edith Craven, calmly; "but it's +no reason why you should show me Mr. Gladstone." + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!--do be quiet! Now, Mr. Wharton, where are the +Irishmen? Oh! I wish we could have an Irish row! And where do you +sit?--I see--and there's Mr. Bennett--and that black-faced man, Mr. +Wilkins, I met at the Hallins--you don't like him, do you?" she said, +drawing back and looking at him sharply. + +"Who? Wilkins? Perhaps you'd better ask me that question later on!" said +Wharton, with a twist of the lip; "he's going to do his best to make a +fool of himself and us to-night--we shall see! It's kind of you to wish +us an Irish row!--considering that if I miss my chance to-night I shall +never get another!" + +"Then for heaven's sake don't let's wish it!" she said decidedly. "Oh, +that's the Irish Secretary answering now, is it?"--a pause--"Dear me, +how civil everybody is. I don't think this is a good place for a +Democrat, Mr. Wharton--I find myself terribly in love with the +Government. But who's that?" + +She craned her neck. Wharton was silent. The next instant she drew +hurriedly back. + +"I didn't see," she murmured; "it's so confusing." + +A tall man had risen from the end of the Government bench, and was +giving an answer connected with the Home Secretary's department. For the +first time since their parting in the Mellor drawing-room Marcella saw +Aldous Raeburn. + +She fell very silent, and leant back in her chair. Yet Wharton's quick +glance perceived that she both looked and listened intently, so long as +the somewhat high-pitched voice was speaking. + +"He does those things very well," he said carelessly, judging it best to +take the bull by the horns. "Never a word too much--they don't get any +change out of him. Do you see that old fellow in the white beard under +the gallery? He is one of the chartered bores. When he gets up to-night +the House will dine. I shall come up and look for you, and hand you over +to a friend if I may--a Staffordshire member, who has his wife +here--Mrs. Lane. I have engaged a table, and I can start with you. +Unfortunately I mustn't be long out of the House, as it's my motion; +but they will look after you." + +The girls glanced a little shyly at each other. Nothing had been said +about dining; but Wharton took it for granted; and they yielded. It was +Marcella's "day off," and she was a free woman. + +"Good-bye, then," he said, getting up. "I shall be on in about twenty +minutes. Wish me well through!" + +Marcella looked round and smiled. But her vivacity had been quenched for +the moment; and Wharton departed not quite so well heartened for the +fray as he could have wished to be. It was hard luck that the Raeburn +ghost should walk this particular evening. + +Marcella bent forward again when he had gone, and remained for long +silent, looking down into the rapidly filling House. Aldous Raeburn was +lying back on the Treasury bench, his face upturned. She knew very well +that it was impossible he should see her; yet every now and then she +shrank a little away as though he must. The face looked to her older and +singularly blanched; but she supposed that must be the effect of the +light; for she noticed the same pallor in many others. + +"_All that my life can do to pour good measure_--_down_--_running +over_--_into yours, I vowed you then!_" + +The words stole into her memory, throbbing there like points of pain. +Was it indeed this man under her eyes--so listless, so unconscious--who +had said them to her with a passion of devotion it shamed her to think +of. + +And now--never so much as an ordinary word of friendship between them +again? "On the broad seas of life enisled"--separate, estranged, for +ever? It was like the touch of death--the experience brought with it +such a chill--such a sense of irreparable fact, of limitations never to +be broken through. + +Then she braced herself. The "things that are behind" must be left. To +have married him after all would have been the greatest wrong. Nor, in +one sense, was what she had done irreparable. She chose to believe Frank +Leven, rather than Edward Hallin. Of course he must and should marry! It +was absurd to suppose that he should not. No one had a stronger sense of +family than he. And as for the girl--the little dancing, flirting +girl!--why the thing happened every day. _His_ wife should not be too +strenuous, taken up with problems and questions of her own. She should +cheer, amuse, distract him. Marcella endeavoured to think of it all with +the dry common-sense her mother would have applied to it. One thing at +least was clear to her--the curious recognition that never before had +she considered Aldous Raeburn, _in and for himself_, as an independent +human being. + +"He was just a piece of furniture in my play last year," she said to +herself with a pang of frank remorse. "He was well quit of me!" + +But she was beginning to recover her spirits, and when at last Raeburn, +after a few words with a minister who had just arrived, disappeared +suddenly behind the Speaker's chair, the spectacle below her seized her +with the same fascination as before. + +The House was filling rapidly. Questions were nearly over, and the +speech of the evening, on which considerable public expectation both +inside and outside Parliament had been for some time concentrated, was +fast approaching. Peers were straggling into the gallery; the reporters +were changing just below her: and some "crack hands" among them, who had +been lounging till now, were beginning to pay attention and put their +paper in order. The Irish benches, the Opposition, the Government--all +were full, and there was a large group of members round the door. + +"There he is!" cried Marcella, involuntarily, with a pulse of +excitement, as Wharton's light young figure made its way through the +crowd. He sat down on a corner seat below the gangway and put on his +hat. + +In five minutes more he was on his feet, speaking to an attentive and +crowded House in a voice--clear, a little hard, but capable of the most +accomplished and subtle variety--which for the first moment sent a +shudder of memory through Marcella. + +Then she found herself listening with as much trepidation and anxiety as +though some personal interest and reputation depended for her, too, on +the success of the speech. Her mind was first invaded by a strong, an +_irritable_ sense of the difficulty of the audience. How was it possible +for any one, unless he had been trained to it for years, to make any +effect upon such a crowd!--so irresponsive, individualist, unfused--so +lacking, as it seemed to the raw spectator, in the qualities and +excitements that properly belong to multitude! Half the men down below, +under their hats, seemed to her asleep; the rest indifferent. And were +those languid, indistinguishable murmurs what the newspapers call +"_cheers_"? + +But the voice below flowed on; point after point came briskly out; the +atmosphere warmed; and presently this first impression passed into one +wholly different--nay, at the opposite pole. Gradually the girl's ardent +sense--informed, perhaps, more richly than most women's with the +memories of history and literature, for in her impatient way she had +been at all times a quick, omnivorous reader--awoke to the peculiar +conditions, the special thrill, attaching to the place and its +performers. The philosopher derides it; the man of letters out of the +House talks of it with a smile as a "Ship of Fools"; both, when occasion +offers, passionately desire a seat in it; each would give his right hand +to succeed in it. + +Why? Because here after all is power--here is the central machine. Here +are the men who, both by their qualities and their defects, are to have +for their span of life the leading--or the wrecking?--of this great +fate-bearing force, this "weary Titan" we call our country. Here things +are not only debated, but done--lamely or badly, perhaps, but still +_done_--which will affect our children's children; which link us to the +Past; which carry us on safely or dangerously to a Future only the gods +know. And in this passage, this chequered, doubtful passage from +thinking to doing, an infinite savour and passion of life is somehow +disengaged. It penetrates through the boredom, through all the failure, +public and personal; it enwraps the spectacle and the actors; it carries +and supports patriot and adventurer alike. + +Ideas, perceptions of this kind--the first chill over--stole upon and +conquered Marcella. Presently it was as though she had passed into +Wharton's place, was seeing with his eyes, feeling with his nerves. It +would be a success this speech--it was a success! The House was gained, +was attentive. A case long familiar to it in portions and fragments, +which had been spoilt by violence and discredited by ignorance, was +being presented to it with all the resources of a great talent--with +brilliancy, moderation, practical detail--moderation above all! From the +slight historical sketch, with which the speech opened, of the English +"working day," the causes and the results of the Factory Acts--through +the general description of the present situation, of the workman's +present hours, opportunities and demands, the growth of the desire for +State control, the machinery by which it was to be enforced, and the +effects it might be expected to have on the workman himself, on the +great army of the "unemployed," on wages, on production, and on the +economic future of England--the speaker carried his thread of luminous +speech, without ever losing his audience for an instant. At every point +he addressed himself to the smoothing of difficulties, to the +propitiation of fears; and when, after the long and masterly handling of +detail, he came to his peroration, to the bantering of capitalist +terrors, to the vindication of the workman's claim to fix the conditions +of his labour, and to the vision lightly and simply touched of the +regenerate working home of the future, inhabited by free men, dedicated +to something beyond the first brutal necessities of the bodily life, +possessed indeed of its proper share of the human inheritance of +leisure, knowledge, and delight--the crowded benches before and behind +him grudged him none of it. The House of Commons is not tolerant of +"flights," except from its chartered masters. But this young man had +earned his flight; and they heard him patiently. For the rest, the +Government had been most attractively wooed; and the Liberal party in +the midst of much plain speaking had been treated on the whole with a +deference and a forbearance that had long been conspicuously lacking in +the utterances of the Labour men. + +"'The mildest mannered man' _et cetera!_" said a smiling member of the +late Government to a companion on the front Opposition bench, as Wharton +sat down amid the general stir and movement which betoken the break-up +of a crowded House, and the end of a successful speech which people are +eager to discuss in the lobbies. "A fine performance, eh? Great advance +on anything last year." + +"Bears about as much relation to facts as I do to the angels!" growled +the man addressed. + +"What! as bad as that?" said the other, laughing. "Look! they have put +up old Denny. I think I shall stay and hear him." And he laid down his +hat again which he had taken up. + +Meanwhile Marcella in the Ladies' Gallery had thrown herself back in her +chair with a long breath. + +"How can one listen to anything else!" she said; and for a long time she +sat staring at the House without hearing a word of what the very +competent, caustic, and well-informed manufacturer on the Government +side was saying. Every dramatic and aesthetic instinct she +possessed--and she was full of them--had been stirred and satisfied by +the speech and the speaker. + +But more than that. He had spoken for the toiler and the poor; his +peroration above all had contained tones and accents which were in fact +the products of something perfectly sincere in the speaker's motley +personality; and this girl, who in her wild way had given herself to the +poor, had followed him with all her passionate heart. Yet, at the same +time, with an amount of intellectual dissent every now and then as to +measures and methods, a scepticism of detail which astonished herself! A +year before she had been as a babe beside him, whether in matters of +pure mind or of worldly experience. Now she was for the first time +conscious of a curious growth--independence. + +But the intellectual revolt, such as it was, was lost again, as soon as +it arose, in the general impression which the speech had left upon +her--in this warm quickening of the pulses, this romantic interest in +the figure, the scene, the young emerging personality. + +Edith Craven looked at her with wondering amusement. She and her +brothers were typical Venturists--a little cynical, therefore, towards +all the world, friend or foe. A Venturist is a Socialist minus cant, and +a cause which cannot exist at all without a passion of sentiment lays it +down--through him--as a first law, that sentiment in public is the +abominable thing. Edith Craven thought that after all Marcella was +little less raw and simple now than she had been in the old days. + +"There!" said Marcella, with relief, "that's done. Now, who's this? That +man _Wilkins_!" + +Her tone showed her disgust. Wilkins had sprung up the instant Wharton's +Conservative opponent had given the first decisive sign of sitting +down. Another man on the same side was also up, but Wilkins, black and +frowning, held his own stubbornly, and his rival subsided. + +With the first sentences of the new speech the House knew that it was to +have an emotion, and men came trooping in again. And certainly the short +stormy utterance was dramatic enough. Dissent on the part of an +important north-country Union from some of the most vital machinery of +the bill which had been sketched by Wharton--personal jealousy and +distrust of the mover of the resolution--denial of his representative +place, and sneers at his kid-gloved attempts to help a class with which +he had nothing to do--the most violent protest against the servility +with which he had truckled to the now effete party of free contract and +political enfranchisement--and the most passionate assertion that +between any Labour party, worthy of the name, and either of the great +parties of the past there lay and must lie a gulf of hatred, +unfathomable and unquenchable, till Labour had got its rights, and +landlord, employer, and dividend-hunter were trampled beneath its +heel--all these ugly or lurid things emerged with surprising clearness +from the torrent of north-country speech. For twenty minutes Nehemiah +Wilkins rioted in one of the best "times" of his life. That he was an +orator thousands of working men had borne him witness again and again; +and in his own opinion he had never spoken better. + +The House at first enjoyed its sensation. Then, as the hard words +rattled on, it passed easily into the stage of amusement. Lady +Cradock's burly husband bent forward from the front Opposition bench, +caught Wharton's eye, and smiled, as though to say: "What!--you haven't +even been able to keep up appearances so far!" And Wilkins's final +attack upon the Liberals--who, after ruining their own chances and the +chances of the country, were now come cap in hand to the working man +whining for his support as their only hope of recovery--was delivered to +a mocking chorus of laughter and cheers, in the midst of which, with an +angry shake of his great shoulders, he flung himself down on his seat. + +Meanwhile Wharton, who had spent the first part of Wilkins's speech in a +state of restless fidget, his hat over his eyes, was alternately sitting +erect with radiant looks, or talking rapidly to Bennett, who had come to +sit beside him. The Home Secretary got up after Wilkins had sat down, +and spent a genial forty minutes in delivering the Government _non +possumus_, couched, of course, in the tone of deference to King Labour +which the modern statesman learns at his mother's knee, but enlivened +with a good deal of ironical and effective perplexity as to which hand +to shake and whose voice to follow, and winding up with a tribute of +compliment to Wharton, mixed with some neat mock condolence with the +Opposition under the ferocities of some others of its nominal friends. + +Altogether, the finished performance of the old stager, the _habitue_. +While it was going on, Marcella noticed that Aldous Raeburn had come +back again to his seat next to the Speaker, who was his official chief. +Every now and then the Minister turned to him, and Raeburn handed him a +volume of Hansard or the copy of some Parliamentary Return whence the +great man was to quote. Marcella watched every movement; then from the +Government bench her eye sped across the House to Wharton sitting once +more buried in his hat, his arms folded in front of him. A little shiver +of excitement ran through her. The two men upon whom her life had so far +turned were once more in presence of, pitted against, each other--and +she, once more, looking on! + +When the Home Secretary sat down, the House was growing restive with +thoughts of dinner, and a general movement had begun--when it was seen +that Bennett was up. Again men who had gone out came back, and those who +were still there resigned themselves. Bennett was a force in the House, +a man always listened to and universally respected, and the curiosity +felt as to the relations between him and this new star and would-be +leader had been for some time considerable. + +When Bennett sat down, the importance of the member for West Brookshire, +both in the House and in the country, had risen a hundred per cent. A +man who over a great part of the north was in labour concerns the +unquestioned master of many legions, and whose political position had +hitherto been one of conspicuous moderation, even to his own hurt, had +given Wharton the warmest possible backing; had endorsed his proposals, +to their most contentious and doubtful details, and in a few generous +though still perhaps ambiguous words had let the House see what he +personally thought of the services rendered to labour as a whole during +the past five years, and to the weak and scattered group of Labour +members in particular, since his entrance into Parliament, by the young +and brilliant man beside him. + +Bennett was no orator. He was a plain man, ennobled by the training of +religious dissent, at the same time indifferently served often by an +imperfect education. But the very simplicity and homeliness of its +expression gave additional weight to this first avowal of a strong +conviction that the time had come when the Labour party _must_ have +separateness and a leader if it were to rise out of insignificance; to +this frank renunciation of whatever personal claims his own past might +have given him; and to the promise of unqualified support to the policy +of the younger man, in both its energetic and conciliatory aspects. He +threw out a little not unkindly indignation, if one may be allowed the +phrase, in the direction of Wilkins--who in the middle of the speech +abruptly walked out--and before he sat down, the close attention, the +looks, the cheers, the evident excitement of the men sitting about +him,--amongst whom were two-thirds of the whole Labour representation in +Parliament--made it clear to the House that the speech marked an epoch +not only in the career of Harry Wharton, but in the parliamentary +history of the great industrial movement. + +The white-bearded bore under the gallery, whom Wharton had pointed out +to Marcella, got up as Bennett subsided. The house streamed out like one +man. Bennett, exhausted by the heat and the effort, mopped his brow with +his red handkerchief, and, in the tension of fatigue, started as he felt +a touch upon his arm. Wharton was bending over to him--perfectly white, +with a lip he in vain tried to steady. + +"I can't thank you," he said; "I should make a fool of myself." + +Bennett nodded pleasantly, and presently both were pressing into the +out-going crowd, avoiding each other with the ineradicable instinct of +the Englishman. + +Wharton did not recover his self-control completely till, after an +ordeal of talk and handshaking in the lobby, he was on his way to the +Ladies' Gallery. Then in a flash he found himself filled with the +spirits, the exhilaration, of a schoolboy. This wonderful experience +behind him!--and upstairs, waiting for him, those eyes, that face! How +could he get her to himself somehow for a moment--and dispose of that +Craven girl? + +"Well!" he said to her joyously, as she turned round in the darkness of +the Gallery. + +But she was seized with sudden shyness, and he felt, rather than saw, +the glow of pleasure and excitement which possessed her. + +"Don't let's talk here," she said. "Can't we go out? I am melted!" + +"Yes, of course! Come on to the terrace. It's a divine evening, and we +shall find our party there. Well, Miss Craven, were you interested?" + +Edith smiled demurely. + +"I thought it a good debate," she said. + +"Confound these Venturist prigs!" was Wharton's inward remark as he led +the way. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"How enchanting!" cried Marcella, as they emerged on the terrace, and +river, shore, and sky opened upon them in all the thousand-tinted light +and shade of a still and perfect evening. "Oh, how hot we were--and how +badly you treat us in those dens!" + +Those confident eyes of Wharton's shone as they glanced at her. + +She wore a pretty white dress of some cotton stuff--it seemed to him he +remembered it of old--and on the waving masses of hair lay a little +bunch of black lace that called itself a bonnet, with black strings tied +demurely under the chin. The abundance of character and dignity in the +beauty which yet to-night was so young and glowing--the rich arresting +note of the voice--the inimitable carriage of the head--Wharton realised +them all at the moment with peculiar vividness, because he felt them in +some sort as additions to his own personal wealth. To-night she was in +his power, his possession. + +The terrace was full of people, and alive with a Babel of talk. Yet, as +he carried his companions forward in search of Mrs. Lane, he saw that +Marcella was instantly marked. Every one who passed them, or made way +for them, looked and looked again. + +The girl, absorbed in her pleasant or agitating impressions, knew +nothing of her own effect. She was drinking in the sunset light--the +poetic mystery of the river--the lovely line of the bridge--the +associations of the place where she stood, of this great building +overshadowing her. Every now and then she started in a kind of terror +lest some figure in the dusk should be Aldous Raeburn; then when a +stranger showed himself she gave herself up again to her young pleasure +in the crowd and the spectacle. But Wharton knew that she was observed; +Wharton caught the whisper that followed her. His vanity, already so +well-fed this evening, took the attention given to her as so much fresh +homage to itself; and she had more and more glamour for him in the +reflected light of this publicity, this common judgment. + +"Ah, here are the Lanes!" he said, detecting at last a short lady in +black amid a group of men. + +Marcella and Edith were introduced. Then Edith found a friend in a young +London member who was to be one of the party, and strolled off with him +till dinner should be announced. + +"I will just take Miss Boyce to the end of the terrace," said Wharton to +Mr. Lane; "we shan't get anything to eat yet awhile. What a crowd! The +Alresfords not come yet, I see." + +Lane shrugged his shoulders as he looked round. + +"Raeburn has a party to-night. And there are at least three or four +others besides ourselves. I should think food and service will be +equally scarce!" + +Wharton glanced quickly at Marcella. But she was talking to Mrs. Lane, +and had heard nothing. + +"Let me just show you the terrace," he said to her. "No chance of dinner +for another twenty minutes." + +They strolled away together. As they moved along, a number of men +waylaid the speaker of the night with talk and congratulations--glancing +the while at the lady on his left. But presently they were away from the +crowd which hung about the main entrance to the terrace, and had reached +the comparatively quiet western end, where were only a few pairs and +groups walking up and down. + +"Shall I see Mr. Bennett?" she asked him eagerly, as they paused by the +parapet, looking down upon the grey-brown water swishing under the fast +incoming tide. "I want to." + +"I asked him to dine, but he wouldn't. He has gone to a +prayer-meeting--at least I guess so. There is a famous American +evangelist speaking in Westminster to-night--I am as certain as I ever +am of anything that Bennett is there--dining on Moody and Sankey. Men +are a medley, don't you think?--So you liked his speech?" + +"How coolly you ask!" she said, laughing. "Did _you_?" + +He was silent a moment, his smiling gaze fixed on the water. Then he +turned to her. + +"How much gratitude do you think I owe him?" + +"As much as you can pay," she said with emphasis. "I never heard +anything more complete, more generous." + +"So you were carried away?" + +She looked at him with a curious, sudden gravity--a touch of defiance. + +"No!--neither by him, nor by you. I don't believe in your Bill--and I am +_sure_ you will never carry it!" + +Wharton lifted his eyebrows. + +"Perhaps you'll tell me where you are," he said, "that I may know how to +talk? When we last discussed these things at Mellor, I _think_--you were +a Socialist?" + +"What does it matter what I was last year?" she asked him gaily, yet +with a final inflection of the voice which was not gay; "I was a baby! +_Now_ perhaps I have earned a few poor, little opinions--but they are a +ragged bundle--and I have never any time to sort them." + +"Have you left the Venturists?" + +"No!--but I am full of perplexities; and the Cravens, I see, will soon +be for turning me out. You understand--I _know_ some working folk now!" + +"So you did last year." + +"No!"--she insisted, shaking her head--"that was all different. But now +I am _in_ their world--I live with them--and they talk to me. One +evening in the week I am 'at home' for all the people I know in our +Buildings--men and women. Mrs. Hurd--you know who I mean?"--her brow +contracted a moment--"she comes with her sewing to keep me company; so +does Edith Craven; and sometimes the little room is packed. The men +smoke--when we can have the windows open!--and I believe I shall soon +smoke too--it makes them talk better. We get all sorts--Socialists, +Conservatives, Radicals--" + +"--And you don't think much of the Socialists?" + +"Well! they are the interesting, dreamy fellows," she said, laughing, +"who don't save, and muddle their lives. And as for argument, the +Socialist workman doesn't care twopence for facts--that don't suit him. +It's superb the way he treats them!" + +"I should like to know who does care!" said Wharton, with a shrug. Then +he turned with his back to the parapet, the better to command her. He +had taken off his hat for coolness, and the wind played with the crisp +curls of hair. "But tell me"--he went on--"who has been tampering with +you? Is it Hallin? You told me you saw him often." + +"Perhaps. But what if it's everything?--_living?_--saving your presence! +A year ago at any rate the world was all black--_or_ white--to me. Now I +lie awake at night, puzzling my head about the shades between--which +makes the difference. A compulsory Eight Hours' Day for all men in all +trades!" Her note of scorn startled him. "You _know_ you won't get it! +And all the other big exasperating things you talk about--public +organisation of labour, and the rest--you won't get them till all the +world is a New Jerusalem--and when the world is a New Jerusalem nobody +will want them!" + +Wharton made her an ironical bow. + +"Nicely said!--though we have heard it before. Upon my word, you have +marched!--or Edward Hallin has carried you. So now you think the poor +are as well off as possible, in the best of all possible worlds--is that +the result of your nursing? You agree with Denny, in fact? the man who +got up after me?" + +His tone annoyed her. Then suddenly the name suggested to her a +recollection that brought a frown. + +"That was the man, then, you attacked in the _Clarion_ this morning!" + +"Ah! you read me!" said Wharton, with sudden pleasure. "Yes--that opened +the campaign. As you know, of course, Craven has gone down, and the +strike begins next week. Soon we shall bring two batteries to bear, he +letting fly as correspondent, and I from the office. I enjoyed writing +that article." + +"So I should think," she said drily; "all I know is, it made _one_ +reader passionately certain that there was another side to the matter! +There may not be. I dare say there isn't; but on me at least that was +the effect. Why is it"--she broke out with vehemence--"that not a single +Labour paper is ever capable of the simplest justice to an opponent?" + +"You think any other sort of paper is any better?" he asked her +scornfully. + +"I dare say not. But that doesn't matter to me! it is _we_ who talk of +justice, of respect, and sympathy from man to man, and then we go and +blacken the men who don't agree with us--whole classes, that is to say, +of our fellow-countrymen, not in the old honest slashing style, +Tartuffes that we are!--but with all the delicate methods of a new art +of slander, pursued almost for its own sake. We know so much +better--always--than our opponents, we hardly condescend even to be +angry. One is only 'sorry'--'obliged to punish'--like the priggish +governess of one's childhood!" + +In spite of himself, Wharton flushed. + +"My best thanks!" he said. "Anything more? I prefer to take my drubbing +all at once." + +She looked at him steadily. + +"Why did you write, or allow that article on the West Brookshire +landlords two days ago?" + +Wharton started. + +"Well! wasn't it true?" + +"No!" she said with a curling lip; "and I think you know it wasn't +true." + +"What! as to the Raeburns? Upon my word, I should have imagined," he +said slowly, "that it represented your views at one time with tolerable +accuracy." + +Her nerve suddenly deserted her. She bent over the parapet, and, taking +up a tiny stone that lay near, she threw it unsteadily into the river. +He saw the hand shake. + +"Look here," he said, turning round so that he too leant over the river, +his arms on the parapet, his voice close to her ear. "Are you always +going to quarrel with me like this? Don't you know that there is no one +in the world I would sooner please if I could?" + +She did not speak. + +"In the first place," he said, laughing, "as to my speech, do you +suppose that I believe in that Bill which I described just now?" + +"I don't know," she said indignantly, once more playing with the stones +on the wall. "It sounded like it." + +"That is my gift--my little _carillon_, as Renan would say. But do you +imagine I want you or any one else to tell me that we shan't get such a +Bill for generations? Of course we shan't!" + +"Then why do you make farcical speeches, bamboozling your friends and +misleading the House of Commons?" + +He saw the old storm-signs with glee--the lightning in the eye, the rose +on the cheek. She was never so beautiful as when she was angry. + +"Because, my dear lady--_we must generate our force_. Steam must be got +up--I am engaged in doing it. We shan't get a compulsory eight hours' +day for all trades--but in the course of the agitation for that precious +illusion, and by the help of a great deal of beating of tom-toms, and +gathering of clans, we shall get a great many other things by the way +that we _do_ want. Hearten your friends, and frighten your +enemies--there is no other way of scoring in politics--and the +particular score doesn't matter. Now don't look at me as if you would +like to impeach me!--or I shall turn the tables. _I_ am still fighting +for my illusions in my own way--_you_, it seems, have given up yours!" + +But for once he had underrated her sense of humour. She broke into a low +merry laugh which a little disconcerted him. + +"You mock me?" he said quickly--"think me insincere, +unscrupulous?--Well, I dare say! But you have no right to mock me. Last +year, again and again, you promised me guerdon. Now it has come to +paying--and I claim!" + +His low distinct voice in her ear had a magnetising effect upon her. She +slowly turned her face to him, overcome by--yet fighting +against--memory. If she had seen in him the smallest sign of reference +to that scene she hated to think of, he would have probably lost this +hold upon her on the spot. But his tact was perfect. She saw nothing but +a look of dignity and friendship, which brought upon her with a rush all +those tragic things they had shared and fought through, purifying things +of pity and fear, which had so often seemed to her the atonement for, +the washing away of that old baseness. + +He saw her face tremble a little. Then she said proudly-- + +"I promised to be grateful. So I am." + +"No, no!" he said, still in the same low tone. "You promised me a +friend. Where is she?" + +She made no answer. Her hands were hanging loosely over the water, and +her eyes were fixed on the haze opposite, whence emerged the blocks of +the great hospital and the twinkling points of innumerable lamps. But +his gaze compelled her at last, and she turned back to him. He saw an +expression half hostile, half moved, and pressed on before she could +speak. + +"Why do you bury yourself in that nursing life?" he said drily. "It is +not the life for you; it does not fit you in the least." + +"You test your friends!" she cried, her cheek flaming again at the +provocative change of voice. "What possible right have you to that +remark?" + +"I know you, and I know the causes you want to serve. You can't serve +them where you are. Nursing is not for you; you are wanted among your +own class--among your equals--among the people who are changing and +shaping England. It is absurd. You are masquerading." + +She gave him a little sarcastic nod. + +"Thank you. I am doing a little honest work for the first time in my +life." + +He laughed. It was impossible to tell whether he was serious or posing. + +"You are just what you were in one respect--terribly in the right! Be a +little humble to-night for a change. Come, condescend to the classes! Do +you see Mr. Lane calling us?" + +And, in fact, Mr. Lane, with his arm in the air, was eagerly beckoning +to them from the distance. + +"Do you know Lady Selina Farrell?" he asked her, as they walked quickly +back to the dispersing crowd. + +"No; who is she?" + +Wharton laughed. + +"Providence should contrive to let Lady Selina overhear that question +once a week--in your tone! Well, she is a personage--Lord Alresford's +daughter--unmarried, rich, has a _salon_, or thinks she has--manipulates +a great many people's fortunes and lives, or thinks she does, which, +after all, is what matters--to Lady Selina. She wants to know you, +badly. Do you think you can be kind to her? There she is--you will let +me introduce you? She dines with us." + +In another moment Marcella had been introduced to a tall, fair lady in a +very fashionable black and pink bonnet, who held out a gracious hand. + +"I have heard so much of you!" said Lady Selina, as they walked along +the passage to the dining-room together. "It must be so wonderful, your +nursing!" + +Marcella laughed rather restively. + +"No, I don't think it is," she said; "there are so many of us." + +"Oh, but the things you do--Mr. Wharton told me--so interesting!" + +Marcella said nothing, and as to her looks the passage was dark. Lady +Selina thought her a very handsome but very _gauche_ young woman. Still, +_gauche_ or no, she had thrown over Aldous Raeburn and thirty thousand a +year; an act which, as Lady Selina admitted, put you out of the common +run. + +"Do you know most of the people dining?" she enquired in her blandest +voice. "But no doubt you do. You are a great friend of Mr. Wharton's, I +think?" + +"He stayed at our house last year," said Marcella, abruptly. "No, I +don't know anybody." + +"Then shall I tell you? It makes it more interesting, doesn't it? It +ought to be a pleasant little party." + +And the great lady lightly ran over the names. It seemed to Marcella +that most of them were very "smart" or very important. Some of the smart +names were vaguely known to her from Miss Raeburn's talk of last year; +and, besides, there were a couple of Tory Cabinet ministers and two or +three prominent members. It was all rather surprising. + +At dinner she found herself between one of the Cabinet ministers and the +young and good-looking private secretary of the other. Both men were +agreeable, and very willing, besides, to take trouble with this unknown +beauty. The minister, who knew the Raeburns very well, was discussing +with himself all the time whether this was indeed the Miss Boyce of that +story. His suspicion and curiosity were at any rate sufficiently strong +to make him give himself much pains to draw her out. + +Her own conversation, however, was much distracted by the attention she +could not help giving to her host and his surroundings. Wharton had Lady +Selina on his right, and the young and distinguished wife of Marcella's +minister on his left. At the other end of the table sat Mrs. Lane, doing +her duty spasmodically to Lord Alresford, who still, in a blind old age, +gave himself all the airs of the current statesman and possible premier. +But the talk, on the whole, was general--a gay and careless +give-and-take of parliamentary, social, and racing gossip, the ball +flying from one accustomed hand to another. + +And Marcella could not get over the astonishment of Wharton's part in +it. She shut her eyes sometimes for an instant and tried to see him as +her girl's fancy had seen him at Mellor--the solitary, eccentric figure +pursued by the hatreds of a renounced Patricianate--bringing the enmity +of his own order as a pledge and offering to the Plebs he asked to lead. +Where even was the speaker of an hour ago? Chat of Ascot and of +Newmarket; discussion with Lady Selina or with his left-hand neighbour +of country-house "sets," with a patter of names which sounded in her +scornful ear like a paragraph from the _World_; above all, a general air +of easy comradeship, which no one at this table, at any rate, seemed +inclined to dispute, with every exclusiveness and every amusement of the +"idle rich," whereof--in the popular idea--he was held to be one of the +very particular foes!-- + +No doubt, as the dinner moved on, this first impression changed +somewhat. She began to distinguish notes that had at first been lost +upon her. She caught the mocking, ambiguous tone under which she herself +had so often fumed; she watched the occasional recoil of the women about +him, as though they had been playing with some soft-pawed animal, and +had been suddenly startled by the gleam of its claws. These things +puzzled, partly propitiated her. But on the whole she was restless and +hostile. How was it possible--from such personal temporising--such a +frittering of the forces and sympathies--to win the single-mindedness +and the power without which no great career is built? She wanted to talk +with him--reproach him! + +"Well--I must go--worse luck," said Wharton at last, laying down his +napkin and rising. "Lane, will you take charge? I will join you outside +later." + +"If he ever finds us!" said her neighbour to Marcella. "I never saw the +place so crowded. It is odd how people enjoy these scrambling meals in +these very ugly rooms." + +Marcella, smiling, looked down with him over the bare coffee-tavern +place, in which their party occupied a sort of high table across the +end, while two other small gatherings were accommodated in the space +below. + +"Are there any other rooms than this?" she asked idly. + +"One more," said a young man across the table, who had been introduced +to her in the dusk outside, and had not yet succeeded in getting her to +look at him, as he desired. "But there is another big party there +to-night--Raeburn--you know," he went on innocently, addressing the +minister; "he has got the Winterbournes and the Macdonalds--quite a +gathering--rather an unusual thing for him." + +The minister glanced quickly at his companion. But she had turned to +answer a question from Lady Selina, and thenceforward, till the party +rose, she gave him little opportunity of observing her. + +As the outward-moving stream of guests was once more in the corridor +leading to the terrace, Marcella hurriedly made her way to Mrs. Lane. + +"I think," she said--"I am afraid--we ought to be going--my friend and +I. Perhaps Mr. Lane--perhaps he would just show us the way out; we can +easily find a cab." + +There was an imploring, urgent look in her face which struck Mrs. Lane. +But Mr. Lane's loud friendly voice broke in from behind. + +"My dear Miss Boyce!--we can't possibly allow it--no! no--just half an +hour--while they bring us our coffee--to do your homage, you know, to +the terrace--and the river--and the moon!--And then--if you don't want +to go back to the House for the division, we will see you safely into +your cab. Look at the moon!--and the tide"--they had come to the wide +door opening on the terrace--"aren't they doing their very best for +you?" + +Marcella looked behind her in despair. _Where_ was Edith? Far in the +rear!--and fully occupied apparently with two or three pleasant +companions. She could not help herself. She was carried on, with Mr. +Lane chatting beside her--though the sight of the shining terrace, with +its moonlit crowd of figures, breathed into her a terror and pain she +could hardly control. + +"Come and look at the water," she said to Mr. Lane; "I would rather not +walk up and down if you don't mind." + +He thought she was tired, and politely led her through the sitting or +promenading groups till once more she was leaning over the parapet, now +trying to talk, now to absorb herself in the magic of bridge, river, and +sky, but in reality listening all the time with a shrinking heart for +the voices and the footfalls that she dreaded. Lady Winterbourne, above +all! How unlucky! It was only that morning that she had received a +forwarded letter from that old friend, asking urgently for news and her +address. + +"Well, how did you like the speech to-night--_the_ speech?" said Mr. +Lane, a genial Gladstonian member, more heavily weighted with estates +than with ideas. "It was splendid, wasn't it?--in the way of speaking. +Speeches like that are a safety-valve--that's my view of it. Have 'em +out--all these ideas--get 'em discussed!"--with a good-humoured shake of +the head for emphasis. "Does nobody any harm and may do good. I can tell +you, Miss Boyce, the House of Commons is a capital place for taming +these clever young men!--you must give them their head--and they make +excellent fellows after a bit. Why--who's this?--My dear Lady +Winterbourne!--this _is_ a sight for sair een!" + +And the portly member with great effusion grasped the hand of a stately +lady in black, whose abundant white hair caught the moonlight. + +"_Marcella_!" cried a woman's voice. + +Yes--there he was!--close behind Lady Winterbourne. In the soft darkness +he and his party had run upon the two persons talking over the wall +without an idea--a suspicion. + +She hurriedly withdrew herself from Lady Winterbourne, hesitated a +second, then held out her hand to him. The light was behind him. She +could not see his face in the darkness; but she was suddenly and +strangely conscious of the whole scene--of the great dark building with +its lines of fairy-lit gothic windows--the blue gulf of the river +crossed by lines of wavering light--the swift passage of a steamer with +its illuminated saloon and crowded deck--of the wonderful mixture of +moonlight and sunset in the air and sky--of this dark figure in front of +her. + +Their hands touched. Was there a murmured word from him? She did not +know; she was too agitated, too unhappy to hear it if there was. She +threw herself upon Lady Winterbourne, in whom she divined at once a +tremor almost equal to her own. + +"Oh! do come with me--come away!--I want to talk to you!" she said +incoherently under her breath, drawing Lady Winterbourne with a strong +hand. + +Lady Winterbourne yielded, bewildered, and they moved along the terrace. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried the elder lady--"to think of finding _you_ +here! How astonishing--how--how dreadful! No!--I don't mean that. Of +course you and he must meet--but it was only yesterday he told me he +had never seen you again--since--and it gave me a turn. I was very +foolish just now. There now--stay here a moment--and tell me about +yourself." + +And again they paused by the river, the girl glancing nervously behind +her as though she were in a company of ghosts. Lady Winterbourne +recovered herself, and Marcella, looking at her, saw the old tragic +severity of feature and mien blurred with the same softness, the same +delicate tremor. Marcella clung to her with almost a daughter's feeling. +She took up the white wrinkled hand as it lay on the parapet, and kissed +it in the dark so that no one saw. + +"I _am_ glad to see you again," she said passionately, "so glad!" + +Lady Winterbourne was surprised and moved. + +"But you have never written all these months, you unkind child! And I +have heard so little of you--your mother never seemed to know. When will +you come and see me--or shall I come to you? I can't stay now, for we +were just going; my daughter, Ermyntrude Welwyn, has to take some one to +a ball. How _strange_"--she broke off--"how very strange that you and he +should have met to-night! He goes off to Italy to-morrow, you know, with +Lord Maxwell." + +"Yes, I had heard," said Marcella, more steadily. "Will you come to tea +with me next week?--Oh, I will write.--And we must go too--where _can_ +my friend be?" + +She looked round in dismay, and up and down the terrace for Edith. + +"I will take you back to the Lanes, anyway," said Lady Winterbourne; +"or shall we look after you?" + +"No! no! Take me back to the Lanes." + +"Mamma, are you coming?" said a voice like a softened version of Lady +Winterbourne's. Then something small and thin ran forward, and a girl's +voice said piteously: + +"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne, my frock and my hair take so long to do! _I_ +shall be cross with my maid, and look like a fiend. Ermyntrude will be +sorry she ever knew me. _Do_ come!" + +"Don't cry, Betty. I certainly shan't take you if you do!" said Lady +Ermyntrude, laughing. "Mamma, is this Miss Boyce--_your_ Miss Boyce?" + +She and Marcella shook hands, and they talked a little, Lady Ermyntrude +under cover of the darkness looking hard and curiously at the tall +stranger whom, as it happened, she had never seen before. Marcella had +little notion of what she was saying. She was far more conscious of the +girlish form hanging on Lady Winterbourne's arm than she was of her own +words, of "Betty's" beautiful soft eyes--also shyly and gravely fixed +upon herself--under that marvellous cloud of fair hair; the long, +pointed chin; the whimsical little face. + +"Well, none of _you_ are any good!" said Betty at last, in a tragic +voice. "I shall have to walk home my own poor little self, and 'ask a +p'leeceman.' Mr. Raeburn!" + +He disengaged himself from a group behind and came--with no alacrity. +Betty ran up to him. + +"Mr. Raeburn! Ermyntrude and Lady Winterbourne are going to sleep here, +if you don't mind making arrangements. But _I_ want a hansom." + +At that very moment Marcella caught sight of Edith strolling along +towards her with a couple of members, and chatting as though the world +had never rolled more evenly. + +"Oh! there she is--there is my friend!" cried Marcella to Lady +Winterbourne. "Good-night--good-night!" + +She was hurrying off when she saw Aldous Raeburn was standing alone a +moment. The exasperated Betty had made a dart from his side to "collect" +another straying member of the party. + +An impulse she could not master scattered her wretched discomfort--even +her chafing sense of being the observed of many eyes. She walked up to +him. + +"Will you tell me about Lord Maxwell?" she said in a tremulous hurry. "I +am so sorry he is ill--I hadn't heard--I--" + +She dared not look up. Was that _his_ voice answering? + +"Thank you. We have been very anxious about him; but the doctors to-day +give a rather better report. We take him abroad to-morrow." + +"Marcella! at last!" cried Edith Craven, catching hold of her friend; +"you lost me? Oh, nonsense; it was all the other way. But look, there is +Mr. Wharton coming out. I must go--come and say good-night--everybody is +departing." + +Aldous Raeburn lifted his hat. Marcella felt a sudden rush of +humiliation--pain--sore resentment. That cold, strange tone--those +unwilling words!--She had gone up to him--as undisciplined in her +repentance as she had been in aggression--full of a passionate yearning +to make friends--somehow to convey to him that she "was sorry," in the +old child's phrase which her self-willed childhood had used so little. +There could be no misunderstanding possible! He of all men knew best how +irrevocable it all was. But why, when life has brought reflection, and +you realise at last that you have vitally hurt, perhaps maimed, another +human being, should it not be possible to fling conventions aside, and +go to that human being with the frank confession which by all the +promises of ethics and religion _ought_ to bring peace--peace and a +soothed conscience? + +But she had been repulsed--put aside, so she took it--and by one of the +kindest and most generous of men! She moved along the terrace in a maze, +seeing nothing, biting her lip to keep back the angry tears. All that +obscure need, that new stirring of moral life within her--which had +found issue in this little futile advance towards a man who had once +loved her and could now, it seemed, only despise and dislike, her--was +beating and swelling stormlike within her. She had taken being loved so +easily, so much as a matter of course! How was it that it hurt her now +so much to have lost love, and power, and consideration? She had never +felt any passion for Aldous Raeburn--had taken him lightly and shaken +him off with a minimum of remorse. Yet to-night a few cold words from +him--the proud manner of a moment--had inflicted a smart upon her she +could hardly bear. They had made her feel herself so alone, unhappy, +uncared for! + +But, on the contrary, she _must_ be happy!--_must_ be loved! To this, +and this only, had she been brought by the hard experience of this +strenuous year. + + * * * * * + +"Oh, Mrs. Lane, _be_ an angel!" exclaimed Wharton's voice. "Just one +turn--five minutes! The division will be called directly, and then we +will all thank our stars and go to bed!" + +In another instant he was at Marcella's side, bare-headed, radiant, +reckless even, as he was wont to be in moments of excitement. He had +seen her speak to Raeburn as he came out on the terrace, but his mind +was too full for any perception of other people's situations--even hers. +He was absorbed with himself, and with her, as she fitted his present +need. The smile of satisfied vanity, of stimulated ambition, was on his +lips; and his good-humour inclined him more than ever to Marcella, and +the pleasure of a woman's company. He passed with ease from triumph to +homage; his talk now audacious, now confiding, offered her a deference, +a flattery, to which, as he was fully conscious, the events of the +evening had lent a new prestige. + +She, too, in his eyes, had triumphed--had made her mark. His ears were +full of the comments made upon her to-night by the little world on the +terrace. If it were not for money--_hateful_ money!--what more brilliant +wife could be desired for any rising man? + +So the five minutes lengthened into ten, and by the time the division +was called, and Wharton hurried off, Marcella, soothed, taken out of +herself, rescued from the emptiness and forlornness of a tragic moment, +had given him more conscious cause than she had ever given him yet to +think her kind and fair. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +"My dear Ned, do be reasonable! Your sister is in despair, and so am I. +Why do you torment us by staying on here in the heat, and taking all +these engagements, which you know you are no more fit for than--" + +"A sick grasshopper," laughed Hallin. "Healthy wretch! Did Heaven give +you that sun-burn only that you might come home from Italy and twit us +weaklings? Do you think I _want_ to look as rombustious as you? 'Nothing +too much,' my good friend!" + +Aldous looked down upon the speaker with an anxiety quite untouched by +Hallin's "chaff." + +"Miss Hallin tells me," he persisted, "that you are wearing yourself out +with this lecturing campaign, that you don't sleep, and that she is more +unhappy about you than she has been for months. Why not give it up now, +rest, and begin again in the winter?" + +Hallin smiled a little as he sat with the tips of his fingers lightly +joined in front of him. + +"I doubt whether I shall live through the winter," he said quietly. + +Raeburn started. Hallin in general spoke of his health, when he allowed +it to be mentioned at all, in the most cheerful terms. + +"Why you should behave as though you _wished_ to make such a prophecy +true I can't conceive!" he said in impatient pain. + +Hallin offered no immediate answer, and Raeburn, who was standing in +front of him, leaning against the wood-work of the open window, looked +unhappily at the face and form of his friend. In youth that face had +possessed a Greek serenity and blitheness, dependent perhaps on its +clear aquiline feature, the steady transparent eyes--_coeli lucida +templa_--the fresh fairness of the complexion, and the boyish brow under +its arch of pale brown hair. And to stronger men there had always been +something peculiarly winning in the fragile grace of figure and +movements, suggesting, as they did, sad and perpetual compromise between +the spirit's eagerness and the body's weakness. + +"Don't make yourself unhappy, my dear boy," said Hallin at last, putting +up a thin hand and touching his friend--"I _shall_ give up soon. +Moreover, it will give me up. Workmen want to do something else with +their evenings in July than spend them in listening to stuffy lectures. +I shall go to the Lakes. But there are a few engagements still ahead, +and--I confess I am more restless than I used to be. The night cometh +when no man can work." + +They fell into a certain amount of discursive talk--of the political +situation, working-class opinion, and the rest. Raeburn had been alive +now for some time to a curious change of balance in his friend's mind. +Hallin's buoyant youth had concerned itself almost entirely with +positive crusades and enthusiasms. Of late he seemed rather to have +passed into a period of negations, of strong opposition to certain +current _isms_ and faiths; and the happy boyish tone of earlier years +had become the "stormy note of men contention-tost," which belongs, +indeed, as truly to such a character as the joy of young ideals. + +He had always been to some extent divided from Raeburn and others of his +early friends by his passionate democracy--his belief in, and trust of, +the multitude. For Hallin, the divine originating life was realised and +manifested through the common humanity and its struggle, as a whole; for +Raeburn, only in the best of it, morally or intellectually; the rest +remaining an inscrutable problem, which did not, indeed, prevent faith, +but hung upon it like a dead weight. Such divisions, however, are among +the common divisions of thinking men, and had never interfered with the +friendship of these two in the least. + +But the developing alienation between Hallin and hundreds of his +working-men friends was of an infinitely keener and sorer kind. Since he +had begun his lecturing and propagandist life, Socialist ideas of all +kinds had made great way in England. And, on the whole, as the +prevailing type of them grew stronger, Hallin's sympathy with them had +grown weaker and weaker. Property to him meant "self-realisation"; and +the abuse of property was no more just ground for a crusade which +logically aimed at doing away with it, than the abuse of other human +powers or instincts would make it reasonable to try and do away +with--say love, or religion. To give property, and therewith the fuller +human opportunity, to those that have none, was the inmost desire of his +life. And not merely common property--though like all true soldiers of +the human cause he believed that common property will be in the future +enormously extended--but in the first place, and above all, to +distribute the discipline and the trust of personal and private +possession among an infinitely greater number of hands than possess them +already. And that not for wealth's sake--though a more equal +distribution of property, and therewith of capacity, must inevitably +tend to wealth--but for the soul's sake, and for the sake of that +continuous appropriation by the race of its moral and spiritual +heritage. + +How is it to be done? Hallin, like many others, would have +answered--"For England--mainly by a fresh distribution of the land." +Not, of course, by violence--which only means the worst form of waste +known to history--but by the continuous pressure of an emancipating +legislation, relieving land from shackles long since struck off other +kinds of property--by the assertion, within a certain limited range, of +communal initiative and control--and above all by the continuous private +effort in all sorts of ways and spheres of "men of good will." For all +sweeping uniform schemes he had the natural contempt of the student--or +the moralist. To imagine that by nationalising sixty annual millions of +rent for instance you could make England a city of God, was not only a +vain dream, but a belittling of England's history and England's task. A +nation is not saved so cheaply!--and to see those energies turned to +land nationalisation or the scheming of a Collectivist millennium, which +might have gone to the housing, educating, and refining of English men, +women, and children of to-day, to moralising the employer's view of his +profit, and the landlord's conception of his estate--filled him with a +growing despair. + +The relation of such a habit of life and mind to the Collectivist and +Socialist ideas now coming to the front in England, as in every other +European country, is obvious enough. To Hallin the social life, the +community, was everything--yet to be a "Socialist" seemed to him more +and more to be a traitor! He would have built his state on the purified +will of the individual man, and could conceive no other foundation for a +state worth having. But for purification there must be effort, and for +effort there must be freedom. Socialism, as he read it, despised and +decried freedom, and placed the good of man wholly in certain external +conditions. It was aiming at a state of things under which the joys and +pains, the teaching and the risks of true possession, were to be for +ever shut off from the poor human will, which yet, according to him, +could never do without them, if man was to be man. + +So that he saw it all _sub specie aeternitatis_, as a matter not of +economic theory, but rather of religion. Raeburn, as they talked, shrank +in dismay from the burning intensity of mood underlying his controlled +speech. He spoke, for instance, of Bennett's conversion to Harry +Wharton's proposed bill, or of the land nationalising scheme he was +spending all his slender stores of breath and strength in attacking, not +with anger or contempt, but with, a passionate sorrow which seemed to +Raeburn preposterous! intolerable!--to be exhausting in him the very +springs and sources of a too precarious life. There rose in Aldous at +last an indignant protest which yet could hardly find itself words. What +help to have softened the edge and fury of religious war, only to +discover new antagonisms of opinion as capable of devastating heart and +affections as any _homoousion_ of old? Had they not already cost him +love? Were they also, in another fashion, to cost him his friend? + + * * * * * + +"Ah, dear old fellow--enough!" said Hallin at last--"take me back to +Italy! You have told me so little--such a niggardly little!" + +"I told you that we went and I came back in a water-spout," said Aldous; +"the first rain in Northern Italy for four months--worse luck! 'Rain at +Reggio, rain at Parma.--At Lodi rain, Piacenza rain!'--that might about +stand for my diary, except for one radiant day when my aunt, Betty +Macdonald, and I descended on Milan, and climbed the Duomo." + +"Did Miss Betty amuse you?" + +Aldous laughed. + +"Well, at least she varied the programme. The greater part of our day in +Milan Aunt Neta and I spent in rushing after her like its tail after a +kite. First of all, she left us in the Duomo Square, running like a +deer, and presently, to Aunt Neta's horror, we discovered that she was +pursuing a young Italian officer in a blue cloak. When we came up with +the pair she was inquiring, in her best Italian, where the 'Signor' got +his cloak, because positively she must have one like it, and he, cap in +hand, was explaining to the Signorina that if she would but follow him +round the corner to his military tailor's, she could be supplied on the +spot. So there we all went, Miss Betty insisting. You can imagine Aunt +Neta. She bought a small shipload of stuff--and then positively skipped +for joy in the street outside--the amazed officer looking on. And as for +her career over the roof of the Duomo--the agitation of it nearly +brought my aunt to destruction--and even I heaved a sigh of relief when +I got them both down safe." + +"Is the creature all tricks?" said Hallin, with a smile. "As you talk of +her to me I get the notion of a little monkey just cut loose from a +barrel organ." + +"Oh! but the monkey has so much heart," said Aldous, laughing again, as +every one was apt to laugh who talked about Betty Macdonald, "and it +makes friends with every sick and sorry creature it comes across, +especially with old maids! It amounts to genius, Betty's way with old +maids. You should see her in the middle of them in the hotel _salon_ at +night--a perfect ring of them--and the men outside, totally neglected, +and out of temper. I have never seen Betty yet in a room with somebody +she thought ill at ease, or put in the shade--a governess, or a +schoolgirl, or a lumpish boy--that she did not devote herself to that +somebody. It is a pretty instinct; I have often wondered whether it is +nature or art." + +He fell silent, still smiling. Hallin watched him closely. Perhaps the +thought which had risen in his mind revealed itself by some subtle sign +or other to Aldous. For suddenly Raeburn's expression changed; the +over-strenuous, harassed look, which of late had somewhat taken the +place of his old philosopher's quiet, reappeared. + +"I did not tell you, Hallin," he began, in a low voice, raising his eyes +to his friend, "that I had seen her again." + +Hallin paused a moment. Then he said: + +"No. I knew she went to the House to hear Wharton's speech, and that she +dined there. I supposed she might just have come across you--but she +said nothing." + +"Of course, I had no idea," said Aldous; "suddenly Lady Winterbourne and +I came across her on the terrace. Then I saw she was with that man's +party. She spoke to me afterwards--I believe now--she meant to be +kind"--his voice showed the difficulty he had in speaking at all--"but I +saw him coming up to talk to her. I am ashamed to think of my own +manner, but I could not help myself." + +His face and eye took, as he spoke, a peculiar vividness and glow. +Raeburn had not for months mentioned to him the name of Marcella Boyce, +but Hallin had all along held two faiths about the matter: first, that +Aldous was still possessed by a passion which had become part of his +life; secondly, that the events of the preceding year had produced in +him an exceedingly bitter sense of ill-usage, of a type which Hallin had +not perhaps expected. + +"Did you see anything to make you suppose," he asked quietly, after a +pause, "that she is going to marry him?" + +"No--no," Aldous repeated slowly; "but she is clearly on friendly, +perhaps intimate, terms with him. And just now, of course, she is more +likely to be influenced by him than ever. He made a great success--of a +kind--in the House a fortnight ago. People seem to think he may come +rapidly to the front." + +"So I understand. I don't believe it. The jealousies that divide that +group are too unmanageable. If he _were_ a Parnell! But he lacks just +the qualities that matter--the reticence, the power of holding +himself aloof from irrelevant things and interests, the hard +self-concentration." + +Aldous raised his shoulders. + +"I don't imagine there is any lack of that! But certainly he holds +himself aloof from nothing and nobody! I hear of him everywhere." + +"What!--among the smart people?" + +Aldous nodded. + +"A change of policy by all accounts," said Hallin, musing. "He must do +it with intention. He is not the man to let himself be be-Capua-ed all +at once." + +"Oh dear, no!" said Aldous, drily. "He does it with intention. Nobody +supposes him to be the mere toady. All the same I think he may very well +overrate the importance of the class he is trying to make use of, and +its influence. Have you been following the strike 'leaders' in the +_Clarion?_" + +"No!" cried Hallin, flushing. "I would not read them for the world! I +might not be able to go on giving to the strike." + +Aldous fell silent, and Hallin presently saw that his mind had harked +back to the one subject that really held the depths of it. The truest +friendship, Hallin believed, would be never to speak to him of Marcella +Boyce--never to encourage him to dwell upon her, or upon anything +connected with her. But his yearning, sympathetic instinct would not let +him follow his own conviction. + +"Miss Boyce, you know, has been here two or three times while you have +been away," he said quickly, as he got up to post a letter. + +Aldous hesitated; then he said-- + +"Do you gather that her nursing life satisfies her?" + +Hallin made a little face. + +"Since when has she become a person likely to be 'satisfied' with +anything? She devotes to it a splendid and wonderful energy. When she +comes here I admire her with all my heart, and pity her so much that I +could cry over her!" + +Aldous started. + +"I don't know what you mean," he said, as he too rose and laid his hand +on Hallin's for a moment. "But don't tell me! It's best for me not to +talk of her. If she were associated in my mind with any other man than +Wharton, I think somehow I could throw the whole thing off. But +this--this--" He broke off; then resumed, while he pretended to look for +a parcel he had brought with him, by way of covering an agitation he +could not suppress. "A person you and I know said to me the other day, +'It may sound unromantic, but I could never think of a woman who had +thrown me over except _with ill-will._' The word astonished me, but +sometimes I understand it. I find myself full of _anger_ to the most +futile, the most ridiculous degree!" + +He drew himself up nervously, already scorning his own absurdity, his +own breach of reticence. Hallin laid his hands on the taller man's +shoulders, and there was a short pause. + +"Never mind, old fellow," said Hallin, simply, at last, as his hands +dropped; "let's go and do our work. What is it you're after?--I forget." + +Aldous found his packet and his hat, explaining himself again, +meanwhile, in his usual voice. He had dropped in on Hallin for a morning +visit, meaning to spend some hours before the House met in the +investigation of some small workshops in the neighbourhood of Drury +Lane. The Home Office had been called upon for increased inspection and +regulation; there had been a great conflict of evidence, and Aldous had +finally resolved in his student's way to see for himself the state of +things in two or three selected streets. + +It was a matter on which Hallin was also well-informed, and felt +strongly. They stayed talking about it a few minutes, Hallin eagerly +directing Raeburn's attention to the two or three points where he +thought the Government could really do good. + +Then Raeburn turned to go. + +"I shall come and drag you out to-morrow afternoon," he said, as he +opened the door. + +"You needn't," said Hallin, with a smile; "in fact, don't; I shall have +my jaunt." + +Whereby Aldous understood that he would be engaged in his common +Saturday practice of taking out a batch of elder boys or girls from one +or other of the schools of which he was manager, for a walk or to see +some sight. + +"If it's your boys," he said, protesting, "you're not fit for it. Hand +them over to me." + +"Nothing of the sort," said Hallin, gaily, and turned him out of the +room. + + * * * * * + +Raeburn found the walk from Hallin's Bloomsbury quarters to Drury Lane +hot and airless. The planes were already drooping and yellowing in the +squares, the streets were at their closest and dirtiest, and the traffic +of Holborn and its approaches had never seemed to him more bewildering +in its roar and volume. July was in, and all freshness had already +disappeared from the too short London summer. + +For Raeburn on this particular afternoon there was a curious forlornness +in the dry and tainted air. His slack mood found no bracing in the sun +or the breeze. Everything was or seemed distasteful to a mind out of +tune--whether this work he was upon, which only yesterday had interested +him considerably, or his Parliamentary occupations, or some tiresome +estate business which would have to be looked into when he got home. He +was oppressed, too, by the last news of his grandfather. The certainty +that this dear and honoured life, with which his own had been so closely +intertwined since his boyhood, was drawing to its close weighed upon him +now heavily and constantly. The loss itself would take from him an +object on which affection--checked and thwarted elsewhere--was still +free to spend itself in ways peculiarly noble and tender; and as for +those other changes to which the first great change must lead--his +transference to the Upper House, and the extension for himself of all +the ceremonial side of life--he looked forward to them with an intense +and resentful repugnance, as to aggravations, perversely thrust on him +from without, of a great and necessary grief. Few men believed less +happily in democracy than Aldous Raeburn; on the other hand, few men +felt a more steady distaste for certain kinds of inequality. + +He was to meet a young inspector at the corner of Little Queen Street, +and they were to visit together a series of small brush-drawing and +box-making workshops in the Drury Lane district, to which the attention +of the Department had lately been specially drawn. Aldous had no sooner +crossed Holborn than he saw his man waiting for him, a tall strip of a +fellow, with a dark bearded face, and a manner which shyness had made a +trifle morose. Aldous, however, knew him to be not only a capital +worker, but a man of parts, and had got much information and some ideas +out of him already. Mr. Peabody gave the under-secretary a slight +preoccupied smile in return for his friendly greeting, and the two +walked on together talking. + +The inspector announced that he proposed to take his companion first of +all to a street behind Drury Lane, of which many of the houses were +already marked for demolition--a "black street," bearing a peculiarly +vile reputation in the neighbourhood. It contained on the whole the +worst of the small workshops which he desired to bring to Raeburn's +notice, besides a variety of other horrors, social and sanitary. + +After ten minutes' walking they turned into the street. With its +condemned houses, many of them shored up and windowless, its narrow +roadway strewn with costers' refuse--it was largely inhabited by +costers frequenting Covent Garden Market--its filthy gutters and broken +pavements, it touched, indeed, a depth of sinister squalor beyond most +of its fellows. The air was heavy with odours which, in this July heat, +seemed to bear with them the inmost essences of things sickening and +decaying; and the children, squatting or playing amid the garbage of the +street, were further than most of their kind from any tolerable human +type. + +A policeman was stationed near the entrance of the street. After they +had passed him, Mr. Peabody ran back and said a word in his ear. + +"I gave him your name," he said briefly, in answer to Raeburn's +interrogative look, when he returned, "and told him what we were after. +The street is not quite as bad as it was; and there are little oases of +respectability in it you would never expect. But there is plenty of the +worst thieving and brutality left in it still. Of course, now you see it +at its dull moment. To-night the place will swarm with barrows and +stalls, all the people will be in the street, and after dark it will be +as near pandemonium as may be. I happen to know the School Board visitor +of these parts; and a City Missionary, too, who is afraid of nothing." + +And standing still a moment, pointing imperceptibly to right and left, +he began in his shy, monotonous voice to run through the inhabitants of +some of the houses and a few typical histories. This group was mainly +peopled by women of the very lowest class and their "bullies"--that is +to say, the men who aided them in plundering, sometimes in murdering, +the stranger who fell into their claws; in that house a woman had been +slowly done to death by her husband and his brutal brothers under every +circumstance of tragic horror; in the next a case of flagrant and +revolting cruelty to a pair of infant children had just been brought to +light. In addition to its vice and its thievery, the wretched place was, +of course, steeped in drink. There were gin-palaces at all the corners; +the women drank, in proportion to their resources, as badly as the men, +and the children were fed with the stuff in infancy, and began for +themselves as early as they could beg or steal a copper of their own. + +When the dismal catalogue was done, they moved on towards the further +end of the street, and a house on the right hand side. Behind the veil +of his official manner Aldous's shrinking sense took all it saw and +heard as fresh food for a darkness and despondency of soul already great +enough. But his companion--a young enthusiast, secretly very critical of +"big-wigs"--was conscious only of the trained man of affairs, +courteous, methodical, and well-informed, putting a series of +preliminary questions with unusual point and rapidity. + +Suddenly, under the influence of a common impression, both men stood +still and looked about them. There was a stir in the street. Windows had +been thrown open, and scores of heads were looking out. People emerged +from all quarters, seemed to spring from the ground or drop from the +skies, and in a few seconds, as it were, the street, so dead-alive +before, was full of a running and shouting crowd. + +"It's a fight!" said Peabody, as the crowd came up with them. "Listen!" + +Shrieks--of the most ghastly and piercing note, rang through the air. +The men and women who rushed past the two strangers--hustling them, yet +too excited to notice them--were all making for a house some ten or +twelve yards in front of them, to their left. Aldous had turned white. + +"It is a woman!" he said, after an instant's listening, "and it sounds +like murder. You go back for that policeman!" + +And without another word he threw himself on the crowd, forcing his way +through it by the help of arms and shoulders which, in years gone by, +had done good service for the Trinity Eight. Drink-sodden men and +screaming women gave way before him. He found himself at the door of the +house, hammering upon it with two or three other men who were there +before him. The noise from within was appalling--cries, groans, +uproar--all the sounds of a deadly struggle proceeding apparently on the +second floor of the house. Then came a heavy fall--then the sound of a +voice, different in quality and accent from any that had gone before, +crying piteously and as though in exhaustion--"Help!" + +Almost at the same moment the door which Aldous and his companions were +trying to force was burst open from within, and three men seemed to be +shot out from the dark passage inside--two wrestling with the third, a +wild beast in human shape, maddened apparently with drink, and splashed +with blood. + +"Ee's done for her!" shouted one of the captors; "an' for the Sister +too!" + +"The Sister!" shrieked a woman behind Aldous--it's the nuss he means! I +sor her go in when I wor at my window half an hour ago. Oh! yer +_blackguard_, you!"--and she would have fallen upon the wretch, in a +frenzy, had not the bystanders caught hold of her. + +"Stand back!" cried a policeman. Three of them had come up at Peabody's +call. The man was instantly secured, and the crowd pushed back. + +Aldous was already upstairs. + +"Which room?" he asked of a group of women crying and cowering on the +first landing--for all sounds from above had ceased. + +"Third floor front," cried one of them. "We all of us _begged_ and +_implored_ of that young person, sir, not to go a-near him! Didn't we, +Betsy?--didn't we, Doll?" + +Aldous ran up. + +On the third floor, the door of the front room was open. A woman lay on +the ground, apparently beaten to death. + +By her side, torn, dishevelled, and gasping, knelt Marcella Boyce. Two +or three other women were standing by in helpless terror and curiosity. +Marcella was bending over the bleeding victim before her. Her own left +arm hung as though disabled by her side; but with the right hand she was +doing her best to staunch some of the bleeding from the head. Her bag +stood open beside her, and one of the chattering women was handing her +what she asked for. The sight stamped itself in lines of horror on +Raeburn's heart. + +In such an exaltation of nerve _she_ could be surprised at nothing. +When she saw Raeburn enter the room, she did not even start. + +"I think," she said, as he stooped down to her--speaking with pauses, as +though to get her breath--"he has--killed her. But there--is a chance. +Are the--police there--and a stretcher?" + +Two constables entered as she spoke, and the first of them instantly +sent his companion back for a stretcher. Then, noticing Marcella's +nursing dress and cloak, he came up to her respectfully. + +"Did you see it, miss?" + +"I--I tried to separate them," she replied, still speaking with the same +difficulty, while she silently motioned to Aldous, who was on the other +side of the unconscious and apparently dying woman, to help her with the +bandage she was applying. "But he was--such a great--powerful brute." + +Aldous, hating the clumsiness of his man's fingers, knelt down and tried +to help her. Her trembling hand touched, mingled with his. + +"I was downstairs," she went on, while the constable took out his +note-book, "attending a child--that's ill--when I heard the screams. +They were on the landing; he had turned her out of the room--then rushed +after her--I _think_--to throw her downstairs--I stopped that. Then he +took up something--oh! there it is!" She shuddered, pointing to a broken +piece of a chair which lay on the floor. "He was quite mad with drink--I +couldn't--do much." + +Her voice slipped into a weak, piteous note. + +"Isn't your arm hurt?" said Aldous, pointing to it. + +"It's not broken--it's wrenched; I can't use it. There--that's all we +can do--till she gets--to hospital." + +Then she stood up, pale and staggering, and asked the policeman if he +could put on a bandage. The man had got his ambulance certificate, and +was proud to say that he could. She took a roll out of her bag, and +quietly pointed to her arm. He did his best, not without skill, and the +deep line of pain furrowing the centre of the brow relaxed a little. +Then she sank down on the floor again beside her patient, gazing +at the woman's marred face--indescribably patient in its deep +unconsciousness--at the gnarled and bloodstained hands, with their +wedding-ring; at the thin locks of torn grey hair--with tears that ran +unheeded down her cheeks, in a passion of anguished pity, which touched +a chord of memory in Raeburn's mind. He had seen her look so once +before--beside Minta Hurd, on the day of Hurd's capture. + +At the same moment he saw that they were alone. The policeman had +cleared the room, and was spending the few minutes that must elapse +before his companion returned with the stretcher, in taking the names +and evidence of some of the inmates of the house, on the stairs outside. + +"You can't do anything more," said Aldous, gently, bending over her. +"Won't you let me take you home?--you want it sorely. The police are +trained to these things, and I have a friend here who will help. They +will remove her with every care--he will see to it." + +Then for the first time her absorption gave way. She remembered who he +was--where they were--how they had last met. And with the remembrance +came an extraordinary leap of joy, flashing through pain and faintness. +She had the childish feeling that he could not look unkindly at her +anymore--after this! When at the White House she had got herself into +disgrace, and could not bring her pride to ask pardon, she would +silently set up a headache or a cut finger that she might be pitied, and +so, perforce, forgiven. The same tacit thought was in her mind now. +No!--after this he _must_ be friends with her. + +"I will just help to get her downstairs," she said, but with a +quivering, appealing accent--and so they fell silent. + +Aldous looked round the room--at the miserable filthy garret with its +begrimed and peeling wall-paper, its two or three broken chairs, its +heap of rags across two boxes that served for a bed; its empty +gin-bottles here and there--all the familiar, one might almost say +conventionalised, signs of human ruin and damnation--then at this +breathing death between himself and her. Perhaps his strongest feeling +was one of fierce and natural protest against circumstance--against her +mother!--against a reckless philanthropy that could thus throw the +finest and fragilest things of a poorly-furnished world into such a +hopeless struggle with devildom. + +"I have been here several times before," she said presently, in a faint +voice, "and there has never been any trouble. By day the street is not +much worse than others--though, of course, it has a bad name. There is a +little boy on the next floor very ill with typhoid. Many of the women in +the house are very good to him and his mother. This poor thing--used to +come in and out--when I was nursing him--Oh, I wish--I _wish_ they would +come!" she broke off in impatience, looking at the deathly form--"every +moment is of importance!" + +As Aldous went to the door to see if the stretcher was in sight, it +opened, and the police came in. Marcella, herself helpless, directed the +lifting of the bloodstained head; the police obeyed her with care and +skill. Then Raeburn assisted in the carrying downstairs, and presently +the police with their burden, and accompanied apparently by the whole +street, were on their way to the nearest hospital. + +Then Aldous, to his despair and wrath, saw that an inspector of police, +who had just come up, was talking to Marcella, no doubt instructing her +as to how and where she was to give her evidence. She was leaning +against the passage wall, supporting her injured arm with her hand, and +seemed to him on the point of fainting. + +"Get a cab at once, will you!" he said peremptorily to Peabody; then +going up to the inspector he drew him forward. They exchanged a few +words, the inspector lifted his cap, and Aldous went back to Marcella. + +"There is a cab here," he said to her. "Come, please, directly. They +will not trouble you any more for the present." + +He led her out through the still lingering crowd and put her into the +cab. As they drove along, he felt every jolt and roughness of the street +as though he were himself in anguish. She was some time before she +recovered the jar of pain caused her by the act of getting into the cab. +Her breath came fast, and he could see that she was trying hard to +control herself and not to faint. + +He, too, restrained himself so far as not to talk to her. But the +exasperation, the revolt within, was in truth growing unmanageably. Was +this what her new career--her enthusiasms--meant, or might mean! +Twenty-three!--in the prime of youth, of charm! Horrible, unpardonable +waste! He could not bear it, could not submit himself to it. + +Oh! let her marry Wharton, or any one else, so long as it were made +impossible for her to bruise and exhaust her young bloom amid such +scenes--such gross physical abominations. Amazing!--how meanly, +passionately timorous the man of Raeburn's type can be for the woman! He +himself may be morally "ever a fighter," and feel the glow, the stern +joy of the fight. But she!--let her leave the human brute and his +unsavoury struggle alone! It cannot be borne--it was never meant--that +she should dip her delicate wings, of her own free will at least, in +such a mire of blood and tears. It was the feeling that had possessed +him when Mrs. Boyce told him of the visit to the prison, the night in +the cottage. + +In her whirl of feverish thought, she divined him very closely. +Presently, as he watched her--hating the man for driving and the cab for +shaking--he saw her white lips suddenly smile. + +"I know," she said, rousing herself to look at him; "you think nursing +is all like that!" + +"I hope not!" he said, with effort, trying to smile too. + +"I never saw a fight before," she said, shutting her eyes again. +"Nobody is ever rude to us--I often pine for experiences!" + +How like her old, wild tone! His rigid look softened involuntarily. + +"Well, you have got one now," he said, bending over to her. "Does your +arm hurt you much?" + +"Yes,--but I can bear it. What vexes me is that I shall have to give up +work for a bit.--Mr. Raeburn!" + +"Yes." His heart beat. + +"We may meet often--mayn't we?--at Lady Winterbourne's--or in the +country? Couldn't we be friends? You don't know how often--" She turned +away her weary head a moment--gathered strength to begin again--"--how +often I have regretted--last year. I see now--that I behaved--more +unkindly"--her voice was almost a whisper--"than I thought then. But it +is all done with--couldn't we just be good friends--understand each +other, perhaps, better than we ever did?" + +She kept her eyes closed, shaken with alternate shame and daring. + +As for him, he was seized with overpowering dumbness and chill. What was +really in his mind was the Terrace--was Wharton's advancing figure. But +her state--the moment--coerced him. + +"We could not be anything but friends," he said gently, but with +astonishing difficulty; and then could find nothing more to say. She +knew his reserve, however, and would not this time be repelled. + +She put out her hand. + +"No!" she said, looking at it and withdrawing it with a shudder; "oh +no!" + +Then suddenly a passion of tears and trembling overcame her. She leant +against the side of the cab, struggling in vain to regain her +self-control, gasping incoherent things about the woman she had not been +able to save. He tried to soothe and calm her, his own heart wrung. But +she hardly heard him. + +At last they turned into Maine Street, and she saw the gateway of +Brown's Buildings. + +"Here we are," she said faintly, summoning all her will; "do you know +you will have to help me across that court, and upstairs--then I shan't +be any more trouble." + +So, leaning on Raeburn's arm, Marcella made her slow progress across the +court of Brown's Buildings and through the gaping groups of children. +Then at the top of her flight of steps she withdrew herself from him +with a wan smile. + +"Now I am home," she said. "Good-bye!" + +Aldous looked round him well at Brown's Buildings as he departed. Then +he got into a hansom, and drove to Lady Winterbourne's house, and +implored her to fetch and nurse Marcella Boyce, using her best +cleverness to hide all motion of his in the matter. + +After which he spent--poor Aldous!--one of the most restless and +miserable nights of his life. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Marcella was sitting in a deep and comfortable chair at the open window +of Lady Winterbourne's drawing-room. The house--in James Street, +Buckingham Gate--looked out over the exercising ground of the great +barracks in front, and commanded the greenery of St. James's Park to the +left. The planes lining the barrack railings were poor, wilted things, +and London was as hot as ever. Still the charm of these open spaces of +sky and park, after the high walls and innumerable windows of Brown's +Buildings, was very great; Marcella wanted nothing more but to lie +still, to dally with a book, to dream as she pleased, and to be let +alone. + +Lady Winterbourne and her married daughter, Lady Ermyntrude, were still +out, engaged in the innumerable nothings of the fashionable afternoon. +Marcella had her thoughts to herself. + +But they were not of a kind that any one need have wished to share. In +the first place, she was tired of idleness. In the early days after Lady +Winterbourne had carried her off, the soft beds and sofas, the trained +service and delicate food of this small but luxurious house had been so +pleasant to her that she had scorned herself for a greedy Sybaritic +temper, delighted by any means to escape from plain living. But she had +been here a fortnight, and was now pining to go back to work. Her mood +was too restless and transitional to leave her long in love with comfort +and folded hands. She told herself that she had no longer any place +among the rich and important people of this world; far away beyond these +parks and palaces, in the little network of dark streets she knew, lay +the problems and the cares that were really hers, through which her +heart was somehow wrestling--must somehow wrestle--its passionate way. +But her wrenched arm was still in a sling, and was, moreover, +under-going treatment at the hands of a clever specialist; and she could +neither go home, as her mother had wished her to do, nor return to her +nursing--a state of affairs which of late had made her a little silent +and moody. + +On the whole she found her chief pleasure in the two weekly visits she +paid to the woman whose life, it now appeared, she _had_ saved--probably +at some risk of her own. The poor victim would go scarred and maimed +through what remained to her of existence. But she lived; and--as +Marcella and Lady Winterbourne and Raeburn had abundantly made up their +minds--would be permanently cared for and comforted in the future. + +Alas! there were many things that stood between Marcella and true rest. +She had been woefully disappointed, nay wounded, as to the results of +that tragic half-hour which for the moment had seemed to throw a bridge +of friendship over those painful, estranging memories lying between her +and Aldous Raeburn. He had called two or three times since she had been +with Lady Winterbourne; he had done his best to make her inevitable +appearance as a witness in the police-court, as easy to her as possible; +the man who had stood by her through such a scene could do no less, in +common politeness and humanity. But each time they met his manner had +been formal and constrained; there had been little conversation; and she +had been left to the bitterness of feeling that she had made a strange +if not unseemly advance, of which he must think unkindly, since he had +let it count with him so little. + +Childishly, angrily--_she wanted him to be friends!_ Why shouldn't he? +He would certainly marry Betty Macdonald in time, whatever Mr. Hallin +might say. Then why not put his pride away and be generous? Their future +lives must of necessity touch each other, for they were bound to the +same neighbourhood, the same spot of earth. She knew herself to be her +father's heiress. Mellor must be hers some day; and before that day, +whenever her father's illness, of which she now understood the incurable +though probably tedious nature, should reach a certain stage, she must +go home and take up her life there again. Why embitter such a +situation?--make it more difficult for everybody concerned? Why not +simply bury the past and begin again? In her restlessness she was +inclined to think herself much wiser and more magnanimous than he. + +Meanwhile in the Winterbourne household she was living among people to +whom Aldous Raeburn was a dear and familiar companion, who admired him +with all their hearts, and felt a sympathetic interest alike in his +private life and his public career. Their circle, too, was his circle; +and by means of it she now saw Aldous in his relations to his equals and +colleagues, whether in the Ministry or the House. The result was a +number of new impressions which she half resented, as we may resent the +information that some stranger will give us upon a subject we imagined +ourselves better acquainted with than anybody else. The promise of +Raeburn's political position struck her quick mind with a curious +surprise. She could not explain it as she had so often tacitly explained +his place in Brookshire--by the mere accidents of birth. After all, +aristocratic as we still are, no party can now afford to choose its men +by any other criterion than personal profitableness. And a man nowadays +is in the long run personally profitable, far more by what he is than by +what he has--so far at least has "progress" brought us. + +She saw then that this quiet, strong man, with his obvious defects of +temperament and manner, had already gained a remarkable degree of +"consideration," using the word in its French sense, among his political +contemporaries. He was beginning to be reckoned upon as a man of the +future by an inner circle of persons whose word counted and carried; +while yet his name was comparatively little known to the public. +Marcella, indeed, had gathered her impression from the most slight and +various sources--mostly from the phrases, the hints, the manner of men +already themselves charged with the most difficult and responsible work +of England. Above all things did she love and admire power--the power of +personal capacity. It had been the secret, it was still half the +secret, of Wharton's influence with her. She saw it here under wholly +different conditions and accessories. She gave it recognition with a +kind of unwillingness. All the same, Raeburn took a new place in her +imagination. + +Then--apart from the political world and its judgments--the intimacy +between him and the Winterbourne family showed her to him in many new +aspects. To Lady Winterbourne, his mother's dear and close friend, he +was almost a son; and nothing could be more charming than the +affectionate and playful tolerance with which he treated her little +oddities and weaknesses. And to all her children he was bound by the +memories and kindnesses of many years. He was the godfather of Lady +Ermyntrude's child; the hero and counsellor of the two sons, who were +both in Parliament, and took his lead in many things; while there was no +one with whom Lord Winterbourne could more comfortably discuss county or +agricultural affairs. In the old days Marcella had somehow tended to +regard him as a man of few friends. And in a sense it was so. He did not +easily yield himself; and was often thought dull and apathetic by +strangers. But here, amid these old companions, his delicacy and +sweetness of disposition had full play; and although, now that Marcella +was in their house, he came less often, and was less free with them than +usual, she saw enough to make her wonder a little that they were all so +kind and indulgent to _her_, seeing that they cared so much for him and +all that affected him. + +Well! she was often judged, humbled, reproached. Yet there was a certain +irritation in it. Was it all her own fault that in her brief engagement +she had realised him so little? Her heart was sometimes oddly sore; her +conscience full of smart; but there were moments when she was as +combative as ever. + +Nor had certain other experiences of this past fortnight been any more +soothing to this sore craving sense of hers. It appeared very soon that +nothing would have been easier for her had she chosen than to become the +lion of the later season. The story of the Batton Street tragedy had, of +course, got into the papers, and had been treated there with the usual +adornments of the "New Journalism." + +The world which knew the Raeburns or knew of them--comparatively a large +world--fell with avidity on the romantic juxtaposition of names. To lose +your betrothed as Aldous Raeburn had lost his, and then to come across +her again in this manner and in these circumstances--there was a +dramatic neatness about it to which the careless Fate that governs us +too seldom attains. London discussed the story a good deal; and would +have liked dearly to see and to exhibit the heroine. Mrs. Lane in +particular, the hostess of the House of Commons dinner, felt that she +had claims, and was one of the first to call at Lady Winterbourne's and +see her guest. She soon discovered that Marcella had no intention +whatever of playing the lion; and must, in fact, avoid excitement and +fatigue. But she had succeeded in getting the girl to come to her once +or twice of an afternoon to meet two or three people. It was better for +the wounded arm that its owner should walk than drive; and Mrs. Lane +lived at a convenient distance, at a house in Piccadilly, just across +the Green Park. + +Here then, as in James Street, Marcella had met in discreet succession +a few admiring and curious persons, and had tasted some of the smaller +sweets of fame. But the magnet that drew her to the Lanes' house had +been no craving for notoriety; at the present moment she was totally +indifferent to what perhaps constitutionally she might have liked; the +attraction had been simply the occasional presence there of Harry +Wharton. He excited, puzzled, angered, and commanded her more than ever. +She could not keep herself away from the chance of meeting him. And Lady +Winterbourne neither knew him, nor apparently wished to know him--a fact +which probably tended to make Marcella obstinate. + +Yet what pleasure had there been after all in these meetings! Again and +again she had seen him surrounded there by pretty and fashionable women, +with some of whom he was on amazingly easy terms, while with all of them +he talked their language, and so far as she could see to a great extent +lived their life. The contradiction of the House of Commons evening +returned upon her perpetually. She thought she saw in many of his new +friends a certain malicious triumph in the readiness with which the +young demagogue had yielded to their baits. No doubt they were at least +as much duped as he. Like Hallin, she did not believe, that at bottom he +was the man to let himself be held by silken bonds if it should be to +his interest to break them. But, meanwhile, his bearing among these +people--the claims they and their amusement made upon his time and his +mind--seemed to this girl, who watched them, with her dark, astonished +eyes, a kind of treachery to his place and his cause. It was something +she had never dreamed of; and it roused her contempt and irritation. + +Then as to herself. He had been all eagerness in his enquiries after her +from Mrs. Lane; and he never saw her in the Piccadilly drawing-room that +he did not pay her homage, often with a certain extravagance, a kind of +appropriation, which Mrs. Lane secretly thought in bad taste, and +Marcella sometimes resented. On the other hand, things jarred between +them frequently. From day to day he varied. She had dreamt of a great +friendship; but instead, it was hardly possible to carry on the thread +of their relation from meeting to meeting with simplicity and trust. On +the Terrace he had behaved, or would have behaved, if she had allowed +him, as a lover. When they met again at Mrs. Lane's he would be +sometimes devoted in his old paradoxical, flattering vein; sometimes, +she thought, even cool. Nay, once or twice he was guilty of curious +little neglects towards her, generally in the presence of some great +lady or other. On one of these occasions she suddenly felt herself +flushing from brow to chin at the thought--"He does not want any one to +suppose for a moment that he wishes to marry me!" + +It had taken Wharton some difficult hours to subdue in her the effects +of that one moment's fancy. Till then it is the simple truth to say that +she had never seriously considered the possibility of marrying him. When +it _did_ enter her mind, she saw that it had already entered his--and +that he was full of doubts! The perception had given to her manner an +increasing aloofness and pride which had of late piqued Wharton into +efforts from which vanity, and, indeed, something else, could not +refrain, if he was to preserve his power. + +So she was sitting by the window this afternoon, in a mood which had in +it neither simplicity nor joy. She was conscious of a certain dull and +baffled feeling--a sense of humiliation--which hurt. Moreover, the scene +of sordid horror she had gone through haunted her imagination +perpetually. She was unstrung, and the world weighed upon her--the pity, +the ugliness, the confusion of it. + + * * * * * + +The muslin curtain beside her suddenly swelled out in a draught of air, +and she put out her hand quickly to catch the French window lest it +should swing to. Some one had opened the door of the room. + +"_Did_ I blow you out of window?" said a girl's voice; and there behind +her, in a half-timid attitude, stood Betty Macdonald, a vision of white +muslin, its frills and capes a little tossed by the wind, the pointed +face and golden hair showing small and elf-like under the big shady hat. + +"Oh, do come in!" said Marcella, shyly; "Lady Winterbourne will be in +directly." + +"So Panton told me," said Betty, sinking down on a high stool beside +Marcella's chair, and taking off her hat; "and Panton doesn't tell _me_ +any stories _now_--I've trained him. I wonder how many he tells in the +day? Don't you think there will be a special little corner of purgatory +for London butlers? I hope Panton will get off easy!" + +Then she laid her sharp chin on her tiny hand, and studied Marcella. +Miss Boyce was in the light black dress that Minta approved; her pale +face and delicate hands stood out from it with a sort of noble emphasis. +When Betty had first heard of Marcella Boyce as the heroine of a certain +story, she had thought of her as a girl one would like to meet, if only +to prick her somehow for breaking the heart of a good man. Now that she +saw her close she felt herself near to falling in love with her. +Moreover, the incident of the fight and of Miss Boyce's share in it had +thrilled a creature all susceptibility and curiosity; and the little +merry thing would sit hushed, looking at the heroine of it, awed by the +thought of what a girl only two years older than herself must have +already seen of sin and tragedy, envying her with all her heart, and by +contrast honesty despising--for the moment--that very happy and popular +person, Betty Macdonald! + +"Do you like being alone?" she asked Marcella, abruptly. + +Marcella coloured. + +"Well, I was just getting very tired of my own company," she said. "I +was very glad to see you come in." + +"Were you?" said Betty, joyously, with a little gleam in her pretty +eyes. Then suddenly the golden head bent forward. "May I kiss you?" she +said, in the wistfullest, eagerest voice. + +Marcella smiled, and, laying her hand on Betty's, shyly drew her. + +"That's better!" said Betty, with a long breath. "That's the second +milestone; the first was when I saw you on the Terrace. Couldn't you +mark all your friendships by little white stones? I could. But the +horrid thing is when you have to mark them back again! Nobody ever did +that with you!" + +"Because I have no friends," said Marcella, quickly; then, when Betty +clapped her hands in amazement at such a speech, she added quickly with +a smile, "except a few I make poultices for." + +"There!" said Betty, enviously, "to think of being really _wanted_--for +poultices--or, anything! I never was wanted in my life! When I die +they'll put on my poor little grave-- + + "She's buried here--that hizzie Betty; + She did na gude--so don't ee fret ye! + +"--oh, there they are!"--she ran to the window--"Lady Winterbourne and +Ermyntrude. Doesn't it make you laugh to see Lady Winterbourne doing her +duties? She gets into her carriage after lunch as one might mount a +tumbril. I expect to hear her tell the coachman to drive to the scaffold +at Hyde Park Corner.' She looks the unhappiest woman in England--and all +the time Ermyntrude declares she likes it, and wouldn't do without her +season for the world! She gives Ermyntrude a lot of trouble, but she +_is_ a dear--a naughty dear--and mothers are _such_ a chance! +Ermyntrude! _where_ did you get that bonnet? You got it without me--and +my feelings won't stand it!" + +Lady Ermyntrude and Betty threw themselves on a sofa together, +chattering and laughing. Lady Winterbourne came up to Marcella and +enquired after her. She was still slowly drawing off her gloves, when +the drawing-room door opened again. + +"Tea, Panton!" said Lady Winterbourne, without turning her head, and in +the tone of Lady Macbeth. But the magnificent butler took no notice. + +"Lady Selina Farrell!" he announced in a firm voice. + +Lady Winterbourne gave a nervous start; then, with the air of a person +cut out of wood, made a slight advance, and held out a limp hand to her +visitor. + +"Won't you sit down?" she said. + +Anybody who did not know her would have supposed that she had never seen +Lady Selina before. In reality she and the Alresfords were cousins. But +she did not like Lady Selina, and never took any pains to conceal it--a +fact which did not in the smallest degree interfere with the younger +lady's performance of her family duties. + +Lady Selina found a seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingers +to draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. She +enquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrude +how her husband and baby in the country were getting on without her. The +tone of this last question made the person addressed flush and draw +herself up. It was put as banter, but certainly conveyed that Lady +Ermyntrude was neglecting her family for the sake of dissipations. Betty +meanwhile curled herself up in a corner of the sofa, letting one pretty +foot swing over the other, and watching the new-comer with a malicious +eye, which instantly and gleefully perceived that Lady Selina thought +her attitude ungraceful. + +Marcella, of course, was greeted and condoled with--Lady Selina, +however, had seen her since the tragedy--and then Lady Winterbourne, +after every item of her family news, and every symptom of her own and +her husband's health had been rigorously enquired into, began to attempt +some feeble questions of her own--how, for instance, was Lord +Alresford's gout? + +Lady Selina replied that he was well, but much depressed by the +political situation. No doubt Ministers had done their best, but he +thought two or three foolish mistakes had been made during the session. +Certain blunders ought at all hazards to have been avoided. He feared +that the party and the country might have to pay dearly for them. But +_he_ had done his best. + +Lady Winterbourne, whose eldest son was a junior whip, had been the +recipient, since the advent of the new Cabinet, of so much rejoicing +over the final exclusion of "that vain old idiot, Alresford," from any +further chances of muddling a public department, that Lady Selina's talk +made her at once nervous and irritable. She was afraid of being +indiscreet; yet she longed to put her visitor down. In her odd +disjointed way, too, she took a real interest in politics. Her craving +idealist nature--mated with a cheery sportsman husband who laughed at +her, yet had made her happy--was always trying to reconcile the ends of +eternal justice with the measures of the Tory party. It was a task of +Sisyphus; but she would not let it alone. + +"I do not agree with you," she said with cold shyness in answer to Lady +Selina's concluding laments--"I am told--our people say--we are doing +very well--except that the session is likely to be dreadfully long." + +Lady Selina raised both her eyebrows and her shoulders. + +"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne! you really mean it?" she said with the +indulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded--"But just think! +The session will go on, every one says, till _quite_ the end of +September. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented? +_All_ our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believes +so _much_ of the friction might have been avoided. He is all in favour +of doing more for Labour. He thinks these Labour men might have been +easily propitiated without anything revolutionary. It's no good +supposing that these poor starving people will wait for ever!" + +"Oh!" said Lady Winterbourne, and sat staring at her visitor. To those +who knew its author well, the monosyllable could not have been more +expressive. Lady Winterbourne's sense of humour had no voice, but +inwardly it was busy with Lord Alresford as the "friend of the poor." +_Alresford_!--the narrowest and niggardliest tyrant alive, so far as his +own servants and estate were concerned. And as to Lady Selina, it was +well known to the Winterbourne cousinship that she could never get a +maid to stay with her six months. + +"What did _you_ think of Mr. Wharton's speech the other night?" said +Lady Selina, bending suavely across the tea-table to Marcella. + +"It was very interesting," said Marcella, stiffly--perfectly conscious +that the name had pricked the attention of everybody in the room, and +angry with her cheeks for reddening. + +"Wasn't it?" said Lady Selina, heartily. "You can't _do_ those things, +of course! But you should show every sympathy to the clever enthusiastic +young men--the men like that--shouldn't you? That's what my father says. +He says we've got to win them. We've got somehow to make them feel us +their friends--or we shall _all_ go to ruin! They have the voting +power--and we are the party of education, of refinement. If we can only +lead that kind of man to see the essential justice of our cause--and at +the same time give them our help--in reason--show them we want to be +their friends--wouldn't it be best? I don't know whether I put it +rightly--you know so much about these things! But we can't undo '67--can +we? We must get round it somehow--mustn't we? And my father thinks +Ministers so unwise! But perhaps"--and Lady Selina drew herself back +with a more gracious smile than ever--"I ought not to be saying these +things to you--of course I know you _used_ to think us Conservatives +very bad people--but Mr. Wharton tells me, perhaps you don't think +_quite_ so hardly of us as you used?" + +Lady Selina's head in its Paris bonnet fell to one side in a gentle +interrogative sort of way. + +Something roused in Marcella. + +"Our cause?" she repeated, while the dark eye dilated--"I wonder what +you mean?" + +"Well, I mean--" said Lady Selina, seeking for the harmless word, in +the face of this unknown explosive-looking girl--"I mean, of course, the +cause of the educated--of the people who have made the country." + +"I think," said Marcella, quietly, "you mean the cause of the rich, +don't you?" + +"Marcella!" cried Lady Winterbourne, catching at the tone rather than +words--"I thought you didn't feel like that any more--not about the +distance between the poor and the rich--and our tyranny--and its being +hopeless--and the poor always hating us--I thought you changed." + +And forgetting Lady Selina, remembering only the old talks at Mellor, +Lady Winterbourne bent forward and laid an appealing hand on Marcella's +arm. + +Marcella turned to her with an odd look. + +"If you only knew," she said, "how much more possible it is to think +well of the rich, when you are living amongst the poor!" + +"Ah! you must be at a distance from us to do us justice?" enquired Lady +Selina, settling her bracelets with a sarcastic lip. + +"_I_ must," said Marcella, looking, however, not at her, but at Lady +Winterbourne. "But then, you see,"--she caressed her friend's hand with +a smile--"it is so easy to throw some people into opposition!" + +"Dreadfully easy!" sighed Lady Winterbourne. + +The flush mounted again in the girl's cheek. She hesitated, then felt +driven to explanations. + +"You see--oddly enough"--she pointed away for an instant to the +north-east through the open window--"it's when I'm over there--among the +people who have nothing--that it does me good to remember that there +are persons who live in James Street, Buckingham Gate!" + +"My dear! I don't understand," said Lady Winterbourne, studying her with +her most perplexed and tragic air. + +"Well, isn't it simple?" said Marcella, still holding her hand and +looking up at her. "It comes, I suppose, of going about all day in those +streets and houses, among people who live in one room--with not a bit of +prettiness anywhere--and no place to be alone in, or to rest in. I come +home and _gloat_ over all the beautiful dresses and houses and gardens I +can think of!" + +"But don't you _hate_ the people that have them?" said Betty, again on +her stool, chin in hand. + +"No! it doesn't seem to matter to me then what kind of people they are. +And I don't so much want to take from them and give to the others. I +only want to be sure that the beauty, and the leisure, and the freshness +are _some_where--not lost out of the world." + +"How strange!--in a life like yours--that one should think so much of +the _ugliness_ of being poor--more than of suffering or pain," said +Betty, musing. + +"Well--in some moods--you do--_I_ do!" said Marcella; "and it is in +those moods that I feel least resentful of wealth. If I say to myself +that the people who have all the beauty and the leisure are often +selfish and cruel--after all they die out of their houses and their +parks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of its +shell. The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain. +And why should one be envious of _them_ personally? They have had the +best chances in the world and thrown them away--are but poor animals at +the end! At any rate I can't hate them--they seem to have a +function--when I am moving about Drury Lane!" she added with a smile. + +"But how can one help being ashamed?" said Lady Winterbourne, as her +eyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehow +into playing devil's advocate. + +"No! No!" said Marcella, eagerly, "don't be ashamed! As to the people +who make beauty more beautiful--who share it and give it--I often feel +as if I could say to them on my knees, Never, _never_ be ashamed merely +of being rich--of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoy +them! One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than a +cripple, or having two eyes rather than one!" + +"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered, +"when one has all the beauty and the freedom--and other people must +_die_ without any--" + +"Oh, I know, I _know_!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair; +"that's what makes the world the world. And one begins with thinking it +can be changed--that it _must_ and _shall_ be changed!--that everybody +could have wealth--could have beauty and rest, and time to think, that +is to say--if things were different--if one could get Socialism--if one +could beat down the capitalist--if one could level down, and level up, +till everybody had 200 _l._ a year. One turns and fingers the puzzle all +day long. It seems so _near_ coming right--one guesses a hundred ways in +which it might be done! Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt--one +begins to see that it never _will_, never _can_ come right--not in any +mechanical way of that sort--that _that_ isn't what was meant!" + +Her voice dropped drearily. Betty Macdonald gazed at her with a girl's +nascent adoration. Lady Winterbourne was looking puzzled and unhappy, +but absorbed like Betty in Marcella. Lady Selina, studying the three +with smiling composure, was putting on her veil, with the most careful +attention to fringe and hairpins. As for Ermyntrude, she was no longer +on the sofa; she had risen noiselessly, finger on lip, almost at the +beginning of Marcella's talk, to greet a visitor. She and he were +standing at the back of the room, in the opening of the conservatory, +unnoticed by any of the group in the bow window. + +"Don't you think," said Lady Selina, airily, her white fingers still +busy with her bonnet, "that it would be a very good thing to send all +the Radicals--the well-to-do Radicals I mean--to live among the poor? It +seems to teach people such extremely useful things!" + +Marcella straightened herself as though some one had touched her +impertinently. She looked round quickly. + +"I wonder what you suppose it teaches?" + +"Well," said Lady Selina, a little taken aback and hesitating; "well! I +suppose it teaches a person to be content--and not to cry for the moon!" + +"You _think_," said Marcella, slowly, "that to live among the poor can +teach any one--any one that's _human_--to be _content_!" + +Her manner had the unconscious intensity of emphasis, the dramatic force +that came to her from another blood than ours. Another woman could +hardly have fallen into such a tone without affectation--without pose. +At this moment certainly Betty, who was watching her, acquitted her of +either, and warmly thought her a magnificent creature. + +Lady Selina's feeling simply was that she had been roughly addressed by +her social inferior. She drew herself up. + +"As I understand you," she said stiffly, "you yourself confessed that to +live with poverty had led you to think more reasonably of wealth." + +Suddenly a movement of Lady Ermyntrude's made the speaker turn her head. +She saw the pair at the end of the room, looked astonished, then smiled. + +"Why, Mr. Raeburn! where have you been hiding yourself during this great +discussion? Most consoling, wasn't it--on the whole--to us West End +people?" + +She threw back a keen glance at Marcella. Lady Ermyntrude and Raeburn +came forward. + +"I made him be quiet," said Ermyntrude, not looking, however, quite at +her ease; "it would have been a shame to interrupt." + +"I think so, indeed!" said Lady Selina, with emphasis. "Good-bye, dear +Lady Winterbourne; good-bye, Miss Boyce! You have comforted me very +much! Of _course_ one is sorry for the poor; but it is a great thing to +hear from anybody who knows as much about it as _you_ do, that--after +all--it is no crime--to possess a little!" + +She stood smiling, looking from the girl to the man--then, escorted by +Raeburn in his very stiffest manner, she swept out of the room. + +When Aldous came back, with a somewhat slow and hesitating step, he +approached Marcella, who was standing silent by the window, and asked +after the lame arm. He was sorry, he said, to see that it was still in +its sling. His tone was a little abrupt. Only Lady Winterbourne saw the +quick nervousness of the eyes, + +"Oh! thank you," said Marcella, coldly, "I shall get back to work next +week." + +She stooped and took up her book. + +"I must please go and write some letters," she said, in answer to Lady +Winterbourne's flurried look. + +And she walked away. Betty and Lady Ermyntrude also went to take off +their things. + +"Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, holding out her hand to him. + +He took it, glanced unwillingly at her wistful, agitated face, pressed +the hand, and let it go. + +"Isn't it sad," said his old friend, unable to help herself, "to see her +battling like this with life--with thought--all alone? Isn't it sad, +Aldous?" + +"Yes," he said. Then, after a pause, "Why _doesn't_ she go home? My +patience gives out when I think of Mrs. Boyce." + +"Oh! it isn't Mrs. Boyce's fault," said Lady Winterbourne, hopelessly. +"And I don't know why one should be sorry for her particularly--why one +should want her to change her life again. She does it splendidly. Only +I never, _never_ feel that she is a bit happy in it." + +It was Hallin's cry over again. + +He said nothing for a moment; then he forced a smile. + +"Well! neither you nor I can help it, can we?" he said. The grey eyes +looked at her steadily--bitterly. Lady Winterbourne, with the sensation +of one who, looking for softness, has lit on granite, changed the +subject. + +Meanwhile, Marcella upstairs was walking restlessly up and down. She +could hardly keep herself from rushing off--back to Brown's Buildings at +once. _He_ in the room while she was saying those things! Lady Selina's +words burnt in her ears. Her morbid, irritable sense was all one +vibration of pride and revolt. Apology--appeal--under the neatest comedy +guise! Of course!--now that Lord-Maxwell was dying, and the ill-used +suitor was so much the nearer to his earldom. A foolish girl had +repented her of her folly--was anxious to make those concerned +understand--what more simple? + +Her nerves were strained and out of gear. Tears came in a proud, +passionate gush; and she must needs allow herself the relief of them. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile, Lady Selina had gone home full of new and uncomfortable +feelings. She could not get Marcella Boyce out of her head--neither as +she had just seen her, under the wing of "that foolish woman, Madeleine +Winterbourne," nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with Harry +Wharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any way +eclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strange +and ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she lay +resting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that never +in all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into _her_ face +with the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she had +seen on Harry Wharton's, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terrace +together--nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonald +had put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine's feet. + +There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night. +Wharton was to be among the guests. He was fast becoming one of the +_habitues_ of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to Lady +Selina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozing +peacefully in a deep arm-chair. + +Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, which +worked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenial +to it, run over some possibilities of the future. + +She was interrupted by the entrance of her maid, who, with the quickened +breath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to her +formidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids was +very ill. Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who always +attended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness +_might_ turn to rheumatic fever. + +"Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!" said Lady Selina. "Let Mrs. +Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and make +arrangements. You understand?" + +The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she had +been crying. + +"If your ladyship would but let her stay," she said timidly, "we'd all +take our turns at nursing her. She comes from Ireland, perhaps you'll +remember, my lady. She's no friends in London, and she's frightened to +death of going to the hospital." + +"That's nonsense!" said Lady Selina, sternly. "Do you think I can have +all the work of the house put out because some one is ill? She might die +even--one never knows. Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her about +her wages, and to look out for somebody else at once." + +The girl's mouth set sullenly as she went about her work--put out the +shining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, the +various powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina's +toilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cry +of a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend: "O +Marie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay--I'll do everything the +doctor tells me--I'll make _haste_ and get well--I'll give no trouble. +And it's all along of the work--and the damp up in these rooms--the +doctor said so." + +An hour later Lady Selina was in the stately drawing-room of Alresford +House, receiving her guests. She was out of sorts and temper, and though +Wharton arrived in due time, and she had the prospect to enliven her +during dinner--when he was of necessity parted from her by people of +higher rank--of a _tete-a-tete_ with him before the evening was over, +the dinner went heavily. The Duke on her right hand, and the Dean on her +left, were equally distasteful to her. Neither food nor wine had savour; +and once, when in an interval of talk she caught sight of her father's +face and form at the further end, growing more vacant and decrepit week +by week, she was seized with a sudden angry pang of revolt and +repulsion. Her father wearied and disgusted her. Life was often triste +and dull in the great house. Yet, when the old man should have found his +grave, she would be a much smaller person than she was now, and the days +would be so much the more tedious. + +Wharton, too, showed less than his usual animation. She said to herself +at dinner that he had the face of a man in want of sleep. His young +brilliant look was somewhat tarnished, and there was worry in the +restless eye. And, indeed, she knew that things had not been going so +favourably for him in the House of late--that the stubborn opposition +of the little group of men led by Wilkins was still hindering that +concentration of the party and definition of his own foremost place in +it which had looked so close and probable a few weeks before. She +supposed he had been exhausting himself, too, over that shocking Midland +strike. The _Clarion_ had been throwing itself into the battle of the +men with a monstrous violence, for which she had several times +reproached him. + +When all the guests had gone but Wharton, and Lord Alresford, duly +placed for the sake of propriety in his accustomed chair, was safely +asleep, Lady Selina asked what was the matter. + +"Oh, the usual thing!" he said, as he leant against the mantelpiece +beside her. "The world's a poor place, and my doll's stuffed with +sawdust. Did you ever know any doll that wasn't?" + +She looked up at him a moment without speaking. + +"Which means," she said, "that you can't get your way in the House?" + +"No," said Wharton, meditatively, looking down at his boots. "No--not +yet." + +"You think you will get it some day?" + +He raised his eyes. + +"Oh yes!" he said; "oh dear, yes!--some day." + +She laughed. + +"You had better come over to us." + +"Well, there is always that to think of, isn't there? You can't deny you +want all the new blood you can get!" + +"If you only understood your moment and your chance," she said quickly, +"you would make the opportunity and do it at once." + +He looked at her aggressively. + +"How easy it comes to you Tories to rat!" he said. + +"Thank you! it only means that we are the party of common sense. Well, I +have been talking to your Miss Boyce." + +He started. + +"Where?" + +"At Lady Winterbourne's. Aldous Raeburn was there. Your beautiful +Socialist was very interesting--and rather surprising. She talked of the +advantages of wealth; said she had been converted--by living among the +poor--had changed her mind, in fact, on many things. We were all much +edified--including Mr. Raeburn. How long do you suppose that business +will remain 'off'? To my mind I never saw a young woman more eager to +undo a mistake." Then she added slowly, "The accounts of Lord Maxwell +get more and more unsatisfactory." + +Wharton stared at her with sparkling eyes. "How little you know her!" he +said, not without a tone of contempt. + +"Oh! very well," said Lady Selina, with the slightest shrug of her white +shoulders. + +He turned to the mantelpiece and began to play with some ornaments upon +it. + +"Tell me what she said," he enquired presently. + +Lady Selina gave her own account of the conversation. Wharton recovered +himself. + +"Dear me!" he said, when she stopped. "Yes--well--we may see another +act. Who knows? Well, good-night, Lady Selina." + +She gave him her hand with her usual aristocrat's passivity, and he +went. But it was late indeed that night before she ceased to speculate +on what the real effect of her words had been upon him. + +As for Wharton, on his walk home he thought of Marcella Boyce and of +Raeburn with a certain fever of jealous vanity which was coming, he told +himself, dangerously near to passion. He did not believe Lady Selina, +but nevertheless he felt that her news might drive him into rash steps +he could ill afford, and had indeed been doing his best to avoid. +Meanwhile it was clear to him that the mistress of Alresford House had +taken an envious dislike to Marcella. How plain she had looked to-night +in spite of her gorgeous dress! and how intolerable Lord Alresford grew! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +But what right had Wharton to be thinking of such irrelevant matters as +women and love-making at all? He had spoken of public worries to Lady +Selina. In reality his public prospects in themselves were, if anything, +improved. It was his private affairs that were rushing fast on +catastrophe, and threatening to drag the rest with them. + +He had never been so hard pressed for money in his life. In the first +place his gambling debts had mounted up prodigiously of late. His +friends were tolerant and easy-going. But the more tolerant they were +the more he was bound to frequent them. And his luck for some time had +been monotonously bad. Before long these debts must be paid, and some of +them--to a figure he shrank from dwelling upon--were already urgent. + +Then as to the _Clarion_, it became every week a heavier burden. The +expenses of it were enormous; the returns totally inadequate. +Advertisements were falling off steadily; and whether the working cost +were cut down, or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whose +letters from the strike district were being now universally read, were +put on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same. It was +becoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to be +met; so that Wharton's usual good temper now deserted him entirely as +soon as he had crossed the _Clarion_ threshold; bitterness had become +the portion of the staff, and even the office boys walked in gloom. + +Yet, at the same time, withdrawing from the business, was almost as +difficult as carrying it on. There were rumours in the air which had, +already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern. Wharton, +indeed, saw no prospect whatever of selling except at ruinous loss. +Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not only +precipitated a number of his financial obligations; it would have been +politically, a dangerous confession of failure made at a very critical +moment. For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the +_Clarion_ had never been so important politically, never so much read by +the persons on whom Wharton's parliamentary future depended, as it was +at this moment. The advocacy of the Damesley strike had been so far a +stroke of business for Wharton as a Labour Member. + +It was now the seventh week of the strike, and Wharton's "leaders," +Craven's letters from the seat of war, and the _Clarion_ strike fund, +which articles and letters had called into existence, were as vigorous +as ever. The struggle itself had fallen into two chapters. In the first +the metal-workers concerned, both men and women, had stood out for the +old wages unconditionally and had stoutly rejected all idea of +arbitration. At the end of three or four weeks, however, when grave +suffering had declared itself among an already half-starved population, +the workers had consented to take part in the appointment of a board of +conciliation. This board, including the workmen's delegates, overawed +by the facts of foreign competition as they were disclosed by the +masters, recommended terms which would have amounted to a victory for +the employers. + +The award was no sooner known in the district than the passionate +indignation of the great majority of the workers knew no bounds. +Meetings were held everywhere; the men's delegates at the board were +thrown over, and Craven, who with his new wife was travelling +incessantly over the whole strike area, wrote a letter to the _Clarion_ +on the award which stated the men's case with extreme ability, was +immediately backed up by Wharton in a tremendous "leader," and was +received among the strikers with tears almost of gratitude and +enthusiasm. + +Since then all negotiations had been broken off. The _Clarion_ had gone +steadily against the masters, against the award, against further +arbitration. The theory of the "living wage," of which more recent days +have heard so much, was preached in other terms, but with equal vigour; +and the columns of the _Clarion_ bore witness day by day in the long +lists of subscriptions to the strike fund, to the effects of its +eloquence on the hearts and pockets of Englishmen. + +Meanwhile there were strange rumours abroad. It was said that the trade +was really on the eve of a complete and striking revolution in its whole +conditions--could this labour war be only cleared out of the way. The +smaller employers had been for long on the verge of ruin; and the larger +men, so report had it, were scheming a syndicate on the American plan +to embrace the whole industry, cut down the costs of production, and +regulate the output. + +But for this large capital would be wanted. Could capital be got? The +state of things in the trade, according to the employers, had been +deplorable for years; a large part of the market had been definitely +forfeited, so they declared, for good, to Germany and Belgium. It would +take years before even a powerful syndicate could work itself into a +thoroughly sound condition. Let the men accept the award of the +conciliation board; let there be some stable and reasonable prospect of +peace between masters and men, say, for a couple of years; and a certain +group of bankers would come forward; and all would be well. The men +under the syndicate would in time get more than their old wage. _But the +award first_; otherwise the plan dropped, and the industry must go its +own way to perdition. + +"'Will you walk into my parlour?'" said Wharton, scornfully, to the +young Conservative member who, with a purpose, was explaining these +things to him in the library of the House of Commons, "the merest trap! +and, of course, the men will see it so. Who is to guarantee them even +the carrying through, much less the success, of your precious syndicate? +And, in return for your misty millennium two years hence, the men are to +join at once in putting the employers in a stronger position than ever? +Thank you! The 'rent of ability' in the present state of things is, no +doubt, large. But in this particular case the _Clarion_ will go on doing +its best--I promise you--to nibble some of it away!" + +The Conservative member rose in indignation. + +"I should be sorry to have as many starving people on my conscience as +you'll have before long!" he said as he took up his papers. + +At that moment Denny's rotund and square-headed figure passed along the +corridor, to which the library door stood open. + +"Well, if I thrive upon it as well as Denny does, I shall do!" returned +Wharton, with his usual caustic good-humour, as his companion departed. + +And it delighted him to think as he walked home that Denny, who had +again of late made himself particularly obnoxious in the House of +Commons, on two or three occasions, to the owner of the _Clarion_, had +probably instigated the quasi-overtures he had just rejected, and must +be by now aware of their result. + +Then he sent for Craven to come and confer with him. + +Craven accordingly came up from the Midlands, pale, thin, and exhausted, +with the exertions and emotions of seven weeks' incessant labour. Yet +personally Wharton found him, as before, dry and unsympathetic; and +disliked him, and his cool, ambiguous manner, more than ever. As to the +strike, however, they came to a complete understanding. The _Clarion_, +or rather the _Clarion_ fund, which was doing better and better, held +the key of the whole situation. If that fund could be maintained, the +men could hold out. In view of the possible formation of the syndicate, +Craven denounced the award with more fierceness than ever, maintaining +the redoubled importance of securing the men's terms before the +syndicate was launched. Wharton promised him with glee that he should be +supported to the bitter end. + +_If_, that is to say--a proviso he did not discuss with Craven--the +_Clarion_ itself could be kept going. In August a large sum, obtained +two years before on the security of new "plant," would fall due. The +time for repayment had already been extended; and Wharton had +ascertained that no further extension was possible. + +Well! bankruptcy would be a piquant interlude in his various social and +political enterprises! How was it to be avoided? He had by now plenty of +rich friends in the City or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, +likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of +money that he required was large--larger, indeed, than he cared to +verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost +nil. + +As to friends in the City, indeed, the only excursion of a business kind +that he had made into those regions since his election was now adding +seriously to his anxieties--might very well turn out, unless the matter +were skilfully managed, to be one of the blackest spots on his horizon. + +In the early days of his parliamentary life, when, again, mostly for the +_Clarion's_ sake, money happened to be much wanted, he had become +director of what promised to be an important company, through the +interest and good nature of a new and rich acquaintance, who had taken a +liking to the young member. The company had been largely "boomed," and +there had been some very profitable dealing in the original shares. +Wharton had made two or three thousand pounds, and contributed both +point and finish to some of the early prospectuses. + +Then, after six months, he had withdrawn from the Board, under +apprehensions that had been gradually realised with alarming accuracy. +Things, indeed, had been going very wrong indeed; there were a number of +small investors; and the annual meeting of the company, to be held now +in some ten days, promised a storm. Wharton discovered, partly to his +own amazement, for he was a man who quickly forgot, that during his +directorate he had devised or sanctioned matters that were not at all +likely to commend themselves to the shareholders, supposing the past +were really sifted. The ill-luck of it was truly stupendous; for on the +whole he had kept himself financially very clean since he had become a +member; having all through a jealous eye to his political success. + + * * * * * + +As to the political situation, nothing could be at once more promising +or more anxious! + +An important meeting of the whole Labour group had been fixed for August +10, by which time it was expected that a great measure concerning Labour +would be returned from the House of Lords with highly disputable +amendments. The last six weeks of the session would be in many ways more +critical for Labour than its earlier months had been; and it would be +proposed by Bennett, at the meeting on the 10th, to appoint a general +chairman of the party, in view of a campaign which would fill the +remainder of the session and strenuously occupy the recess. + +That Bennett would propose the name of the member for West Brookshire +was perfectly well known to Wharton and his friends. That the nomination +would meet with the warmest hostility from Wilkins and a small group of +followers was also accurately forecast. + +To this day, then, Wharton looked forward as to the crisis of his +parliamentary fortunes. All his chances, financial or social, must now +be calculated with reference to it. Every power, whether of combat or +finesse, that he commanded must be brought to bear upon the issue. + +What was, however, most remarkable in the man and the situation at the +moment was that, through all these gathering necessities, he was by no +means continuously anxious or troubled in his mind. During these days of +July he gave himself, indeed, whenever he could, to a fatalist oblivion +of the annoyances of life, coupled with a passionate pursuit of all +those interests where his chances were still good and the omens still +with him. + +Especially--during the intervals of ambition, intrigue, journalism, and +unsuccessful attempts to raise money--had he meditated the beauty of +Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. +As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her +for the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily denying him +elsewhere. + +At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial position +was reflected even in what, to himself, at any rate, he was boldly +beginning to call his "passion" for her. It had come to his knowledge +that Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectation +in clearing the Mellor estate. He had made skilful use of a railway +lately opened on the edge of his property; had sold building land in +the neighbourhood of a small country town on the line, within a +convenient distance of London; had consolidated and improved several of +his farms and relet them at higher rents; was, in fact, according to +Wharton's local informant, in a fair way to be some day, if he lived, +quite as prosperous as his grandfather, in spite of old scandals and +invalidism. Wharton knew, or thought he knew, that he would not live, +and that Marcella would be his heiress. The prospect was not perhaps +brilliant, but it was something; it affected the outlook. + +Although, however, this consideration counted, it was, to do him +justice, _Marcella_, the creature herself, that he desired. But for her +presence in his life he would probably have gone heiress-hunting with +the least possible delay. As it was, his growing determination to win +her, together with his advocacy of the Damesley workers--amply sufficed, +during the days that followed his evening talk with Lady Selina, to +maintain his own illusions about himself and so to keep up the zest of +life. + +Yes!--to master and breathe passion into Marcella Boyce, might safely be +reckoned on, he thought, to hurry a man's blood. And after it had gone +so far between them--after he had satisfied himself that her fancy, her +temper, her heart, were all more or less occupied with him--was he to +see her tamely recovered by Aldous Raeburn--by the man whose advancing +parliamentary position was now adding fresh offence to the old grievance +and dislike? No! not without a dash--a throw for it! + +For a while, after Lady Selina's confidences, jealous annoyance, +together with a certain reckless state of nerves, turned him almost into +the pining lover. For he could not see Marcella. She came no more to +Mrs. Lane; and the house in James Street was not open to him. He +perfectly understood that the Winterbournes did not want to know him. + +At last Mrs. Lane, a shrewd little woman with a half contemptuous liking +for Wharton, let him know--on the strength of a chance meeting with Lady +Ermyntrude--that the Winterbournes would be at the Masterton party on +the 26th. They had persuaded Miss Boyce to stay for it, and she would go +back to her work the Monday after. Wharton carelessly replied that he +did not know whether he would be able to put in an appearance at the +Mastertons'. He might be going out of town. + +Mrs. Lane looked at him and said, "Oh, really!" with a little laugh. + + * * * * * + +Lady Masterton was the wife of the Colonial Secretary, and her grand +mansion in Grosvenor Square was the principal rival to Alresford House +in the hospitalities of the party. Her reception on July 25 was to be +the last considerable event of a protracted but now dying season. +Marcella, detained in James Street day after day against her will by the +weakness of the injured arm and the counsels of her doctor, had at last +extracted permission to go back to work on the 27th; and to please Betty +Macdonald she had promised to go with the Winterbournes to the Masterton +party on the Saturday. Betty's devotion, shyly as she had opened her +proud heart to it, had begun to mean a good deal to her. There was balm +in it for many a wounded feeling; and, besides, there was the constant, +half eager, half painful interest of watching Betty's free and childish +ways with Aldous Raeburn, and of speculating upon what would ultimately +come out of them. + +So, when Betty first demanded to know what she was going to wear, and +then pouted over the dress shown her, Marcella submitted humbly to being +"freshened up" at the hands of Lady Ermyntrude's maid, bought what Betty +told her, and stood still while Betty, who had a genius for such things, +chattered, and draped, and suggested. + +"I wouldn't make you fashionable for the world!" cried Betty, with a +mouthful of pins, laying down masterly folds of lace and chiffon the +while over the white satin with which Marcella had provided her. "What +was it Worth said to me the other day?--Ce qu'on porte, Mademoiselle? O +pas grand'chose!--presque pas de corsage, et pas du tout de +manches!'--No, that kind of thing wouldn't suit you. But _distinguished_ +you shall be, if I sit up all night to think it out!" + +In the end Betty was satisfied, and could hardly be prevented from +hugging Marcella there and then, out of sheer delight in her own +handiwork, when at last the party emerged from the cloak-room into the +Mastertons' crowded hall. Marcella too felt pleasure in the reflections +of herself as they passed up the lavishly bemirrored staircase. The +chatter about dress in which she had been living for some days had +amused and distracted her; for there were great feminine potentialities +in her; though for eighteen months she had scarcely given what she wore +a thought, and in her pre-nursing days had been wont to waver between a +kind of proud neglect, which implied the secret consciousness of beauty, +and an occasional passionate desire to look well. So that she played her +part to-night very fairly; pinched Betty's arm to silence the elf's +tongue; and held herself up as she was told, that Betty's handiwork +might look its best. But inwardly the girl's mood was very tired and +flat. She was pining for her work; pining even for Minta Hurd's peevish +look, and the children to whom she was so easily an earthly providence. + +In spite of the gradual emptying of London, Lady Masterton's rooms were +very full. Marcella found acquaintances. Many of the people whom she had +met at Mrs. Lane's, the two Cabinet Ministers of the House of Commons +dinner, Mr. Lane himself--all were glad or eager to recall themselves to +her as she stood by Lady Winterbourne, or made her way half absently +through the press. She talked, without shyness--she had never been shy, +and was perhaps nearer now to knowing what it might mean than she had +been as a schoolgirl--but without heart; her black eye wandering +meanwhile, as though in quest. There was a gay sprinkling of uniforms in +the crowd, for the Speaker was holding a _levee_, and as it grew late +his guests began to set towards Lady Masterton. Betty, who had been +turning up her nose at the men she had so far smiled upon, all of whom +she declared were either bald or seventy, was a little propitiated by +the uniforms; otherwise, she pronounced the party very dull. + +"Well, upon my word!" she cried suddenly, in a tone that made Marcella +turn upon her. The child was looking very red and very upright--was +using her fan with great vehemence, and Frank Leven was humbly holding +out his hand to her. + +"I don't like being startled," said Betty, pettishly. "Yes, you _did_ +startle me--you did--you did! And then you begin to contradict before +I've said a word! I'm sure you've been contradicting all the way +upstairs--and why don't you say 'How do you do?' to Miss Boyce?" + +Frank, looking very happy, but very nervous, paid his respects rather +bashfully to Marcella--she laughed to see how Betty's presence subdued +him--and then gave himself up wholly to Betty's tender mercies. + +Marcella observed them with an eager interest she could not wholly +explain to herself. It was clear that all thought of anything or anybody +else had vanished for Frank Leven at the sight of Betty. Marcella +guessed, indeed knew, that they had not met for some little time; and +she was touched by the agitation and happiness on the boy's handsome +face. But Betty? what was the secret of her kittenish, teasing ways--or +was there any secret? She held her little head very high and chattered +very fast--but it was not the same chatter that she gave to Marcella, +nor, so far as Marcella could judge, to Aldous Raeburn. New elements of +character came out in it. It was self-confident, wilful, imperious. +Frank was never allowed to have an opinion; was laughed at before his +words were out of his mouth; was generally heckled, played with, and +shaken in a way which seemed alternately to enrage and enchant him. In +the case of most girls, such a manner would have meant encouragement; +but, as it was Betty, no one could be sure. The little thing was a great +puzzle to Marcella, who had found unexpected reserves in her. She might +talk of her love affairs to Aldous Raeburn; she had done nothing of the +sort with her new friend. And in such matters Marcella herself was far +more reserved than most modern women. + +"Betty!" cried Lady Winterbourne, "I am going on into the next room." + +Then in a lower tone she said helplessly to Marcella: + +"Do make her come on!" + +Marcella perceived that her old friend was in a fidget. Stooping her +tall head, she said with a smile: + +"But look how she is amusing herself!" + +"My dear!--that's just it! If you only knew how her mother--tiresome +woman--has talked to me! And the young man has behaved so beautifully +till now--has given neither Ermyntrude nor me any trouble." + +Was that why Betty was leading him such a life? Marcella wondered,--then +suddenly--was seized with a sick distaste for the whole scene--for +Betty's love affairs--for her own interest in them--for her own self and +personality above all. Her great black eyes gazed straight before them, +unseeing, over the crowd, the diamonds, the lights; her whole being +gave itself to a quick, blind wrestle with some vague overmastering +pain, some despair of life and joy to which she could give no name. + +She was roused by Betty's voice: + +"Mr. Raeburn! will _you_ tell me who people are? Mr. Leven's no more use +than my fan. Just imagine--I asked him who that lady in the tiara +is--and he vows he doesn't know! Why, it just seems that when you go to +Oxford, you leave the wits you had before, behind! And then--of +course"--Betty affected a delicate hesitation--"there's the difficulty +of being quite sure that you'll ever get any new ones!--But +there--look!--I'm in despair!--she's vanished--and I shall _never_ +know!" + +"One moment!" said Raeburn, smiling, "and I will take you in pursuit. +She has only gone into the tea-room." + +His hand touched Marcella's. + +"Just a _little_ better," he said, with a sudden change of look, in +answer to Lady Winterbourne's question. "The account to-night is +certainly brighter. They begged me not to come, or I should have been +off some days ago. And next week, I am thankful to say, they will be +home." + +Why should she be standing there, so inhumanly still and +silent?--Marcella asked herself. Why not take courage again--join +in--talk--show sympathy? But the words died on her lips. After +to-night--thank heaven!--she need hardly see him again. + +He asked after herself as usual. Then, just as he was turning away with +Betty, he came back to her, unexpectedly. + +"I should like to tell you about Hallin," he said gently. "His sister +writes to me that she is happier about him, and that she hopes to be +able to keep him away another fortnight. They are at Keswick." + +For an instant there was pleasure in the implication of common ground, a +common interest--here if no-where else. Then the pleasure was lost in +the smart of her own strange lack of self-government as she made a +rather stupid and awkward reply. + +Raeburn's eyes rested on her for a moment. There was in them a flash of +involuntary expression, which she did not notice--for she had turned +away--which no one saw--except Betty. Then the child followed him to the +tea-room, a little pale and pensive. + +Marcella looked after them. + +In the midst of the uproar about her, the babel of talk fighting against +the Hungarian band, which was playing its wildest and loudest in the +tea-room, she was overcome by a sudden rush of memory. Her eyes were +tracing the passage of those two figures through the crowd; the man in +his black court suit, stooping his refined and grizzled head to the girl +beside him, or turning every now and then to greet an acquaintance, with +the manner--cordial and pleasant, yet never quite gay even when he +smiled--that she, Marcella, had begun to notice of late as a new thing; +the girl lifting her small face to him, the gold of her hair showing +against his velvet sleeve. But the inward sense was busy with a number +of other impressions, past, and, as it now seemed, incredible. + +The little scene when Aldous had given her the pearls, returned so long +ago--why! she could see the fire blazing in the Stone Parlour, feel his +arm about her!--the drive home after the Gairsley meeting--that poignant +moment in his sitting-room the night of the ball--his face, his anxious, +tender face, as she came down the wide stairs of the Court towards him +on that terrible evening when she pleaded with him and his grandfather +in vain:--had these things, incidents, relations, been ever a real part +of the living world? Impossible! Why, there he was--not ten yards from +her--and yet more irrevocably separate from her than if the Sahara +stretched between them. The note of cold distance in his courteous +manner put her further from him than the merest stranger. + +Marcella felt a sudden terror rush through her as she blindly followed +Lady Winterbourne; her limbs trembled under her; she took advantage of a +conversation between her companion and the master of the house to sink +down for a moment on a settee, where she felt out of sight and notice. + +What was this intolerable sense of loss and folly, this smarting +emptiness, this rage with herself and her life? She only knew that +whereas the touch, the eye of Aldous Raeburn had neither compelled nor +thrilled her, so long as she possessed his whole heart and +life--_now_--that she had no right to either look or caress; now that he +had ceased even to regard her as a friend, and was already perhaps +making up that loyal and serious mind of his to ask from another woman +the happiness she had denied him; now, when it was absurdly too late, +she could-- + +Could what? Passionate, wilful creature that she was!--with that breath +of something wild and incalculable surging through the inmost places of +the soul, she went through a moment of suffering as she sat pale and +erect in her corner--brushed against by silks and satins, chattered +across by this person and that--such as seemed to bruise all the +remaining joy and ease out of life. + +But only a moment! Flesh and blood rebelled. She sprang up from her +seat; told herself that she was mad or ill; caught sight of Mr. Lane +coming towards them, and did her best by smile and greeting to attract +him to her. + +"You look very white, my dear Miss Boyce," said that cheerful and +fatherly person. "Is it that tiresome arm still? Now, don't please go +and be a heroine any more!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Meanwhile, in the tea-room, Betty was daintily sipping her claret-cup, +while Aldous stood by her. + +"No," said Betty, calmly, looking straight at the lady in the tiara who +was standing by the buffet, "she's not beautiful, and I've torn my dress +running after her. There's only one beautiful person here to-night!" + +Aldous found her a seat, and took one himself beside her, in a corner +out of the press. But he did not answer her remark. + +"Don't you think so, Mr. Aldous?" said Betty, persisting, but with a +little flutter of the pulse. + +"You mean Miss Boyce?" he said quietly, as he turned to her. + +"Of course!" cried Betty, with a sparkle in her charming eyes; "what +_is_ it in her face? It excites me to be near her. One feels that she +will just have lived _twice_ as much as the rest of us by the time she +comes to the end. You don't mind my talking of her, Mr. Aldous?" + +There was an instant's silence on his part. Then he said in a +constrained voice, looking away from his companion, "I don't _mind_ it, +but I am not going to pretend to you that I find it easy to talk of +her." + +"It would be a shame of you to pretend anything," said Betty, fervently, +"after all I've told you! I confessed all my scrapes to you, turned out +all my rubbish bag of a heart--well, nearly all"--she checked herself +with a sudden flush--"And you've been as kind to me as any big brother +could be. But you're dreadfully lofty, Mr. Aldous! You keep yourself to +yourself. I don't think it's fair!" + +Aldous laughed. + +"My dear Miss Betty, haven't you found out by now that I am a good +listener and a bad talker? I don't talk of myself or"--he +hesitated--"the things that have mattered most to me--because, in the +first place, it doesn't come easy to me--and, in the next, I can't, you +see, discuss my own concerns without discussing other people's." + +"Oh, good gracious!" said Betty, "what you must have been thinking about +me! I declare I'll never tell you anything again!"--and, beating her +tiny foot upon the ground, she sat, scarlet, looking down at it. + +Aldous made all the smiling excuses he could muster. He had found Betty +a most beguiling and attaching little companion, both at the Court in +the Easter recess, and during the Italian journey. Her total lack of +reserve, or what appeared so, had been first an amazement to him, and +then a positive pleasure and entertainment. To make a friend of +him--difficult and scrupulous as he was, and now more than ever--a woman +must be at the cost of most of the advances. But, after the first +evening with him, Betty had made them in profusion, without the smallest +demur, though perfectly well aware of her mother's ambitions. There was +a tie of cousinship between them, and a considerable difference of age. +Betty had decided at once that a mother was a dear old goose, and that +great friends she and Aldous Raeburn should be--and, in a sense, great +friends they were. + +Aldous was still propitiating her, when Lady Winterbourne came into the +tea-room, followed by Marcella. The elder lady threw a hurried and not +very happy glance at the pair in the corner. Marcella appeared to be in +animated talk with a young journalist whom Raeburn knew, and did not +look their way. + +"Just _one_ thing!" said Betty, bending forward and speaking eagerly in +Aldous's ear. "It was all a mistake--wasn't it? Now I know her I feel +sure it was. You don't--you don't--really think badly of her?" + +Aldous heard her unwillingly. He was looking away from her towards the +buffet, when she saw a change in the eyes--a tightening of the lip--a +something keen and hostile in the whole face. + +"Perhaps Miss Boyce will be less of a riddle to all of us before long!" +he said hastily, as though the words escaped him. "Shall we get out of +this very uncomfortable corner?" + +Betty looked where he had looked, and saw a young man greeting Marcella +with a manner so emphatic and intimate, that the journalist had +instantly moved out of his way. The young man had a noticeable pile of +fair curls above a very white and rounded forehead. + +"Who is that talking to Miss Boyce?" she asked of Aldous; "I have seen +him, but I can't remember the name." + +"That is Mr. Wharton, the member for one of our divisions," said +Aldous, as he rose from his chair. + +Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As she +too rose, she said resentfully to Aldous: + +"Well, you _have_ snubbed me!" + +As usual, he could not find the effective or clever thing to say. + +"I did not mean to," he replied simply; but Betty, glancing at him, saw +something in his face which gripped her heart. A lump rose in her +throat. + +"Do let's go and find Ermyntrude!" she said. + + * * * * * + +But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman, on +his way to the buffet with a cup to set down, touched him on the arm. +Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish, +good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most important +solicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons. + +"May I have a word with you presently?" said Mr. Pearson, in a pleasant +undertone. "I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurred +to me that I might meet you to-night. Excuse my interrupting you." + +He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away. + +Wharton had a momentary qualm. Then it struck him that Mr. Pearson's +manner was decidedly friendly. + +"In a moment," he said. "We might find a corner, I think, in that +further room." + +He made a motion of the head towards a little boudoir which lay beyond +the tea-room. + +Mr. Pearson nodded and passed on. + +Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Leven. At the +approach of the member for West Brookshire, Lady Winterbourne and her +daughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet. + +"A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment," he said; then he +dropped his voice a little; "but I have been looking forward to this +evening, this chance, for days--shall I find you here again in five +minutes?" + +Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said that would depend on the time +and Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair. +Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye. + +"Any one would think he was prime minister already! I never met him yet +anywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave as +though he had the world on his shoulders? Your _real_ swells always seem +to have nothing to do." + +"Do you know so many busy people?" Marcella asked him sweetly. + +"Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce!" said the boy, sulkily +thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I am going to work like blazes +this winter, if only my dons will let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she +_ripping_ to-night--Betty?" + +And, pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he stared +at the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined by +Aldous Raeburn and Betty, standing side by side. + +"What do you want me to say?" said Marcella, with a little cold laugh. +"I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please put my cup down." + +At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearson +behind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain. +She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by the +manner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourne +party--he approached her. + +"There is such a charming little room in there," he said, stooping his +head to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?" + +The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; she +followed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she passed. + +He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he found +a seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden from +view by a stand of flowers. + +As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come, +and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Her +heart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, then +gave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness. + +He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her as +she sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made her +a passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen her +under the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme, +incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only. +His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelings +which he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any power +to check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he had +regretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voice +dropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on the +memory of that one instant." But he had respected her suffering, her +struggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had gone +away into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had alone +enabled him to get through his parliamentary work. + +Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room and +dress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, passion--had +revived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have often +puzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series of +perplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause, +in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at times +to be-little his own enthusiasms and hers--his life and honour were +engaged; and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered, +and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of a +number of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed with +her--worries practical and financial, connected with the _Clarion_, with +the experiments he had been carrying out on his estate, and with other +troublesome matters. He had felt a thousand times that his fortunes, +political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to ask +any woman to share them.--Then, again, he had seen her--and his +resolution, his scruple, had melted in his breast! + +Well! there were still troubles in front! But he was no longer cowed by +them. In spite of them, he dared now to throw himself at her feet, to +ask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring her +beauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To _her_ +a man might show his effort and his toil,--from _her_ he might claim a +sympathy it would be vain to ask of any smaller woman. + +Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him. Only his +eyes--more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she had +ever known them--beseeched her--his hand sought hers. + +She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reason +nor of feeling. She felt his spell, as she had always done. The woman in +her thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. The +heart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so--the +past could only be silenced by filling the present with movement and +warm life. + +Yet what tremors of conscience--what radical distrust of herself and +him! And the first articulate words she found to say to him were very +much what she had said to Aldous so long ago--only filled with a +bitterer and more realised content. + +"After all, what do we know of each other! You don't know me--not as I +am. And I feel--" + +"Doubts?" he said, smiling. "Do you imagine that that seems anything but +natural to me? _I_ can have none; but _you_--After all, we are not quite +boy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us! But ask +yourself--has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all!" + +Their eyes met again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his. +Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of the +figures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convinced +and moved himself abundantly. Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filled +with the strangest mixture of passion--and a sort of disillusion--almost +contempt! If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of that +head and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more of +the _abandonment_ of love--have explored his own emotion more perfectly. + +Still, the situation was poignant enough--in one sense complete. Was +Raeburn still there--in that next room? + +"My answer?" he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in the +shelter of the flowers. For _he_ was aware of the practical facts--the +hour, the place--if she was not. + +She roused herself. + +"I can't," she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp, +however, prevented. "I _can't_ answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton. I +should have much to think over--so much! It might all look quite +different to me. You must give me time." + +"To-morrow?" he said quietly. + +"No!" she said impetuously, "not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and I +must have quiet and time. In a fortnight--not before. I will write." + +"Oh, impossible!" he said, with a little frown. + +And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over the +face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful +arms. She shrank from it--feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear; +but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on the +arm nearest to him. + +"I gave you no leave!" she said passionately, under her breath, as he +let her go. + +He met her flashing look with tender humbleness. + +"_Marcella_!" + +The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered--yet a chill had +passed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic. + +"_Not_ to-morrow," she repeated steadily, though dreading lest she +should burst into tears, "and not till I see clearly--till I can--" She +caught her breath. "Now I am going back to Lady Winterbourne." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +For some hours after he reached his own room, Wharton sat in front of +his open window, sunk in the swift rushing of thought, as a bramble +sways in a river. The July night first paled, then flushed into morning; +the sun rose above the empty street and the light mists enwrapping the +great city, before he threw himself on his bed, exhausted enough at last +to fall into a restless sleep. + +The speculation of those quick-pulsed hours was in the end about equally +divided between Marcella and the phrases and turns of his interview with +Mr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred in +him by that interview--heightened by the sight of Raeburn--that had +driven him past recall by the most natural of transitions, into his +declaration to Marcella. + +But he had no sooner reached his room than, at first with iron will, he +put the thought of Marcella, of the scene which had just passed, away +from him. His pulses were still quivering. No matter! It was the brain +he had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work. + +Mr. Pearson? Well!--Mr. Pearson had offered him a _bribe_; there could +be no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter for +an instant. Nor had he any illusions as to his own behaviour. Even now +he had no further right to the sleep of the honest man. + +Let him realise, however, what had happened. He had gone to Lady +Masterton's party, in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is upon +him, and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and +_eau de vie_ before the knife falls. Never had things looked so +desperate; never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted. +Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed property +would pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might be +ultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment, +socially and politically undone. + +There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce. +Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her; +and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate +claim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternately +attracted and repelled her. + +Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted. + +Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against the +window-frame close to the spot where, a quarter of an hour later, +Marcella had sat among the flowers--the dapper figure, the long, fair +moustaches, the hand playing with the eye-glass. + +"I have been asked--er--er--" What a conceited manner the fellow +had!--"to get some conversation with you, Mr. Wharton, on the subject of +the Damesley strike. You give me leave?" + +Whereupon, in less than ten minutes, the speaker had executed an +important commission, and, in offering Wharton a bribe of the most +bare-faced kind, had also found time for supplying him with a number of +the most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it. + +The masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully admitted the power of +the _Clarion_ and its owner. No doubt, it would not be possible for the +paper to keep up its strike fund indefinitely; there were perhaps +already signs of slackening. Still it had been maintained for a +considerable time; and so long as it was reckoned on, in spite of the +wide-spread misery and suffering now prevailing, the men would probably +hold out. + +In these circumstances, the principal employers concerned had thought it +best to approach so formidable an opponent and to put before him +information which might possibly modify his action. They had authorised +Mr. Pearson to give him a full account of what was proposed in the way +of re-organisation of the trade, including the probable advantages which +the work-people themselves would be likely to reap from it in the +future. + +Mr. Pearson ran in a few sentences through the points of the scheme. +Wharton stood about a yard away from him, his hands in his pockets, a +little pale and frowning--looking intently at the speaker. + +Then Mr. Pearson paused and cleared his throat. + +Well!--that was the scheme. His principals believed that, when both it +and the employers' determination to transfer their business to the +Continent rather than be beaten by the men were made fully known to the +owner of the _Clarion_, it must affect his point of view. Mr. Pearson +was empowered to give him any details he might desire. Meanwhile--so +confident were they in the reasonableness of the case that they even +suggested that the owner of the _Clarion_ himself should take part in +the new Syndicate. On condition of his future co-operation--it being +understood that the masters took their stand irrevocably on the +award--the men at present responsible for the formation of the Syndicate +proposed to allot Mr. Wharton ten Founder's Shares in the new +undertaking. + +Wharton, sitting alone, recalling these things, was conscious again of +that start in every limb, that sudden rush of blood to the face, as +though a lash had struck him. + +For in a few seconds his mind took in the situation. Only the day +before, a city acquaintance had said to him, "If you and your confounded +paper were out of the way, and this thing could be placed properly on +the market, there would be a boom in it at once. I am told that in +twenty-four hours the Founder's Shares would be worth 2,000 _l._ +apiece!" + +There was a pause of silence. Then Wharton threw a queer dark look at +the solicitor, and was conscious that his pulse was thumping. + +"There can be no question I think, Mr. Pearson--between you and me--as +to the nature of such a proposal as that!" + +"My dear sir," Mr. Pearson had interrupted hastily, "let me, above all, +ask you to take _time_--time enough, at any rate, to turn the matter +well over in your mind. The interests of a great many people, besides +yourself, are concerned. Don't give me an answer to-night; it is the +last thing I desire. I have thrown out my suggestion. Consider it. +To-morrow is Sunday. If you are disposed to carry it further, come and +see me Monday morning--that's all. I will be at your service at any +hour, and I can then give you a much more complete outline of the +intentions of the Company. Now I really must go and look for Mrs. +Pearson's carriage." + +Wharton followed the great man half mechanically across the little room, +his mind in a whirl of mingled rage and desire. Then suddenly he stopped +his companion: + +"Has George Denny anything to do with this proposal, Mr. Pearson?" + +Mr. Pearson paused, with a little air of vague cogitation. + +"George Denny? Mr. George Denny, the member for Westropp? I have had no +dealings whatever with that gentleman in the matter." + +Wharton let him pass. + +Then as he himself entered the tea-room, he perceived the bending form +of Aldous Raeburn chatting to Lady Winterbourne on his right, and that +tall whiteness close in front, waiting for him. + +His brain cleared in a flash. He was perfectly conscious that a bribe +had just been offered him, of the most daring and cynical kind, and that +he had received the offer in the tamest way. An insult had been put upon +him which had for ever revealed the estimate held of him by certain +shrewd people, for ever degraded him in his own eyes. + +Nevertheless, he was also conscious that the thing was done. The bribe +would be accepted, the risk taken. So far as his money-matters were +concerned he was once more a free man. The mind had adjusted itself, +reached its decision in a few minutes. + +And the first effect of the mingled excitement and self-contempt which +the decision brought with it had been to drive him into the scene with +Marcella. Instinctively he asked of passion to deliver him quickly from +the smart of a new and very disagreeable experience. + + * * * * * + +Well! why should he not take these men's offer? + +He was as much convinced as they that this whole matter of the strike +had of late come to a deadlock. So long as the public would give, the +workers, passionately certain of the justice of their own cause, and +filled with new ambitions after more decent living, would hold out. On +the other hand, he perfectly understood that the masters had also in +many ways a strong case, that they had been very hard hit by the strike, +and that many of them would rather close their works or transfer them +bodily to the Continent than give way. Some of the facts Pearson had +found time to mention had been certainly new and striking. + +At the same time he never disguised from himself for an instant that but +for a prospective 20,000 _l._ the facts concerned would not have +affected him in the least. Till to-night it had been to his interest to +back the strike, and to harass the employers. Now things were changed; +and he took a curious satisfaction in the quick movements of his own +intelligence, as his thought rapidly sketched the "curve" the _Clarion_ +would have to take, and the arguments by which he would commend it. + +As to his shares, they would be convertible of course into immediate +cash. Some man of straw would be forthcoming to buy what he would +possess in the name of another man of straw. It was not supposed--he +took for granted--by the men who had dared to tempt him, that he would +risk his whole political reputation and career for anything less than a +bird in the hand. + +Well! what were the chances of secrecy? + +Naturally _they_ stood to lose less by disclosure, a good deal, than he +did. And Denny, one of the principal employers, was his personal enemy. +He would be likely enough for the present to keep his name out of the +affair. But no man of the world could suppose that the transaction would +pass without his knowledge. Wharton's own hasty question to Mr. Pearson +on the subject seemed to himself now, in cold blood, a remarkably +foolish one. + +He walked up and down thinking this point out. It was the bitter pill of +the whole affair. + +In the end, with a sudden recklessness of youth and resource, he +resolved to dare it. There would _not_ be much risk. Men of business do +not as a rule blazon their own dirty work, and public opinion would be +important to the new Syndicate. + +_Some_ risk, of course, there would be. Well! his risks, as they stood, +were pretty considerable. He chose the lesser--not without something of +a struggle, some keen personal smart. He had done a good many mean and +questionable things in his time, but never anything as gross as this. +The thought of what his relation to a certain group of men--to Denny +especially--would be in the future, stung sharply. But it is the part +of the man of action to put both scruple and fear behind him on +occasion. His career was in question. + +Craven? Well, Craven would be a difficulty. He would telegraph to him +first thing in the morning before the offices closed, and see him on +Monday. For Marcella's sake the man must be managed--somehow. + +And--Marcella! How should she ever know, ever suspect! She already +disliked the violence with which the paper had supported the strike. He +would find no difficulty whatever in justifying all that she or the +public would see, to her. + +Then insensibly he let his thoughts glide into thinking of the money. +Presently he drew a sheet of paper towards him and covered it with +calculations as to his liabilities. By George! how well it worked out! +By the time he threw it aside, and walked to the window for air, he +already felt himself a _bona-fide_ supporter of the Syndicate--the +promoter in the public interest of a just and well-considered scheme. + +Finally, with a little joyous energetic movement which betrayed the +inner man, he flung down his cigarette, and turned to write an ardent +letter to Marcella, while the morning sun stole into the dusty room. + +Difficult? of course! Both now and in the future. It would take him half +his time yet--and he could ill afford it--to bring her bound and +captive. He recognised in her the southern element, so strangely mated +with the moral English temper. Yet he smiled over it. The subtleties of +the struggle he foresaw enchanted him. + +And she would be mastered! In this heightened state of nerve his man's +resolution only rose the more fiercely to the challenge of her +resistance. + +Nor should she cheat him with long delays. His income would be his own +again, and life decently easy. He already felt himself the vain showman +of her beauty. + +A thought of Lady Selina crossed his mind, producing amusement and +compassion--indulgent amusement, such as the young man is apt to feel +towards the spinster of thirty-five who pays him attention. A certain +sense of re-habilitation, too, which at the moment was particularly +welcome. For, no doubt, he might have married her and her fortune had he +so chosen. As it was, why didn't she find some needy boy to take pity on +her? There were plenty going, and she must have abundance of money. Old +Alresford, too, was fast doddering off the stage, and then where would +she be--without Alresford House, or Busbridge, or those various other +pedestals which had hitherto held her aloft? + + * * * * * + +Early on Sunday morning Wharton telegraphed to Craven, directing him to +"come up at once for consultation." The rest of the day the owner of the +_Clarion_ spent pleasantly on the river with Mrs. Lane and a party of +ladies, including a young Duchess, who was pretty, literary, and +socialistic. At night he went down to the _Clarion_ office, and produced +a leader on the position of affairs at Damesley which, to the practised +eye, contained one paragraph--but one only--wherein the dawn of a new +policy might have been discerned. + +Naturally the juxtaposition of events at the moment gave him +considerable anxiety. He knew very well that the Damesley bargain could +not be kept waiting. The masters were losing heavily every day, and were +not likely to let him postpone the execution of his part of the contract +for a fortnight or so to suit his own convenience. It was like the sale +of an "old master." His influence must be sold now--at the ripe +moment--or not at all. + +At the same time it was very awkward. In one short fortnight the meeting +of the party would be upon him. Surrender on the Damesley question would +give great offence to many of the Labour members. It would have to be +very carefully managed--very carefully thought out. + +By eleven o'clock on Monday he was in Mr. Pearson's office. After the +first involuntary smile, concealed by the fair moustaches, and instantly +dismissed, with which the eminent lawyer greeted the announcement of his +visitor's name, the two augurs carried through their affairs with +perfect decorum. Wharton realised, indeed, that he was being firmly +handled. Mr. Pearson gave the _Clarion_ a week in which to accomplish +its retreat and drop its strike fund. And the fund was to be "checked" +as soon as possible. + +A little later, when Wharton abruptly demanded a guarantee of secrecy, +Mr. Pearson allowed himself his first--visible--smile. + +"My dear sir, are such things generally made public property? I can +give you no better assurance than you can extract yourself from the +circumstances. As to writing--well!--I should advise you very strongly +against anything of the sort. A long experience has convinced me that in +any delicate negotiation the less that is _written_ the better." + +Towards the end Wharton turned upon his companion sharply, and asked: + +"How did you discover that I wanted money?" + +Mr. Pearson lifted his eyebrows pleasantly. + +"Most of the things in this world, Mr. Wharton, that one wants to know, +can be found out. Now--I have no wish to hurry you--not in the least, +but I may perhaps mention that I have an important appointment directly. +Don't you think--we might settle our business?" + +Wharton was half-humorously conscious of an inward leap of fury with the +necessities which had given this man--to whom he had taken an +instantaneous dislike--the power of dealing thus summarily with the +member for West Brookshire. However, there was no help for it; he +submitted, and twenty minutes afterwards he left Lincoln's Inn carrying +documents in the breast-pocket of his coat which, when brought under his +bankers' notice, would be worth to him an immediate advance of some +eight thousand pounds. The remainder of the purchase-money for his +"shares" would be paid over to him as soon as his part of the contract +had been carried out. + +He did not, however, go to his bank, but straight to the _Clarion_ +office, where he had a mid-day appointment with Louis Craven. + +At first sight of the tall, narrow-shouldered form and anxious face +waiting for him in his private room, Wharton felt a movement of +ill-humour. + +Craven had the morning's _Clarion_ in his hand. + +"This _cannot_ mean"--he said, when they had exchanged a brief +salutation--"that the paper is backing out?" + +He pointed to the suspicious paragraph in Wharton's leader, his delicate +features quivering with an excitement he could ill repress. + +"Well, let us sit down and discuss the thing," said Wharton, closing the +door, "that's what I wired to you for." + +He offered Craven a cigarette, which was refused, took one himself, and +the two men sat confronting each other with a writing-table between +them. Wharton was disagreeably conscious at times of the stiff papers in +his coat-pocket, and was perhaps a little paler than usual. Otherwise he +showed no trace of mental disturbance; and Craven, himself jaded and +sleepless, was struck with a momentary perception of his companion's +boyish good looks--the tumbling curls, that Wharton straightened now and +then, the charming blue eyes, the athlete's frame. Any stranger would +have taken Craven for the older man; in reality it was the other way. + +The conversation lasted nearly an hour. Craven exhausted both argument +and entreaty, though when the completeness of the retreat resolved upon +had been disclosed to him, the feeling roused in him was so fierce that +he could barely maintain his composure. He had been living among scenes +of starvation and endurance, which, to his mind, had all the character +of martyrdom. These men and women were struggling for two objects--the +power to live more humanly, and the free right of combination--to both +of which, if need were, he would have given his own life to help them +without an instant's hesitation. Behind his blinking manner he saw +everything with the idealist's intensity, the reformer's passion. To be +fair to an employer was not in his power. To spend his last breath, were +it called for, in the attempt to succour the working-man against his +capitalist oppressors, would have seemed to him the merest matter of +course. + +And his mental acuteness was quite equal to his enthusiasm, and far more +evident. In his talk with Wharton, he for a long time avoided, as +before, out of a certain inner disdain, the smallest touch of sentiment. +He pointed out--what, indeed, Wharton well knew--that the next two or +three weeks of the strike would be the most critical period in its +history; that, if the work-people could only be carried through them, +they were almost sure of victory. He gave his own reasons for believing +that the employers could ultimately be coerced, he offered proof of +yielding among them, proof also that the better men in their ranks were +fully alive to and ashamed of the condition of the workers. As to the +Syndicate, he saw no objection to it, _provided_ the workers' claims +were first admitted. Otherwise it would only prove a more powerful +engine of oppression. + +Wharton's arguments may perhaps be left to the imagination. He would +have liked simply to play the proprietor and the master--to say, "This +is my decision, those are my terms--take my work or leave it." But +Craven was Miss Boyce's friend; he was also a Venturist. Chafing under +both facts, Wharton found that he must state his case. + +And he did state it with his usual ability. He laid great stress on +"information from a private source which I cannot disregard," to the +effect that, if the resistance went on, the trade would be broken up; +that several of the largest employers were on the point of making +arrangements for Italian factories. + +"I know," he said finally, "that but for the _Clarion_ the strike would +drop. Well! I have come to the conclusion that the responsibility is too +heavy. I shall be doing the men themselves more harm than good. There is +the case in a nutshell. We differ--I can't help that. The responsibility +is mine." + +Craven rose with a quick, nervous movement. The prophet spoke at last. + +"You understand," he said, laying a thin hand on the table, "that the +condition of the workers in this trade is _infamous_!--that the award +and your action together plunge them back into a state of things which +is a _shame_ and a _curse_ to England!" + +Wharton made no answer. He, too, had risen, and was putting away some +papers in a drawer. A tremor ran through Craven's tall frame; and for an +instant, as his eye rested on his companion, the idea of foul play +crossed his mind. He cast it out, that he might deal calmly with his own +position. + +"Of course, you perceive," he said, as he took up his hat, "that I can +no longer on these terms remain the _Clarion's_ correspondent. Somebody +else must be found to do this business." + +"I regret your decision, immensely," said Wharton, with perfect +suavity, "but of course I understand it. I trust, however, that you will +not leave us altogether. I can give you plenty of work that will suit +you. Here, for instance"--he pointed to a pile of Blue Books from the +Labour Commission lying on the table--"are a number of reports that want +analysing and putting before the public. You could do them in town at +your leisure." + +Craven struggled with himself. His first instinct was to fling the offer +in Wharton's face. Then he thought of his wife; of the tiny new +household just started with such small, happy, self-denying shifts; of +the woman's inevitable lot, of the hope of a child. + +"Thank you," he said, in a husky voice. "I will consider, I will write." + +Wharton nodded to him pleasantly, and he went. + +The owner of the _Clarion_ drew a long breath. + +"Now I think on the whole it would serve my purpose best to sit down and +write to _her_--after that. It would be well that _my_ account should +come first." + +A few hours later, after an interview with his bankers and a further +spell of letter-writing, Wharton descended the steps of his club in a +curious restless state. The mortgage on the _Clarion_ had been arranged +for, his gambling debts settled, and all his other money matters were +successfully in train. Nevertheless, the exhilaration of the morning had +passed into misgiving and depression. + +Vague presentiments hung about him all day, whether in the House of +Commons or elsewhere, and it was not till he found himself on his legs +at a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the Government +Bill and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence in +the general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton, and Harry +Wharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power. + +A letter from Marcella--written before she had received either of +his--reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting. A +touching letter!--yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcerted +him. + +"Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. It +might be--I believe it would be--best for us both. But if you will +not--if I must give my answer, then, as I said, I must have time. It is +only quite recently that I have _realised_ the enormity of what I did +last year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life--or +another's--a second time. Not to be _sure_ is for me torment. Why +perfect simplicity of feeling--which would scorn the very notion of +questioning itself--seems to be beyond me, I do not know. That it is so +fills me with a sort of shame and bitterness. But I must follow my +nature. + +"So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your +'cause,' your life-work, attracts me strongly. I should not any longer +accept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion matters +infinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with a +friend 'in everything except opinion.' All that would matter to me now +would be to feel that _your_ heart was wholly in your work, in your +public acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I might +differ from. But there--for we must be frank with each other--is just my +difficulty. _Why_ do you do so many contradictory things? Why do you +talk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you can +with the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talk +their language; you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems; you accept +their standards. Oh!--to the really 'consecrate' in heart and thought I +could give my life so easily, so slavishly even! There is no one weaker +than I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon--and a strength, +pure at the core, that I can respect and follow. + +"Here in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to the +best of whom life is very real and simple--and often, of course, very +sad. And I am another being in it from what I was at Lady +Winterbourne's. Everything looks differently to me. No, no! you must +please wait till the inner voice speaks so that I can hear it +plainly--for your sake at least as much as for mine. If you persisted in +coming to see me now, I should have to put an end to it all." + +"Strange is the modern woman!" thought Wharton to himself, not without +sharp pique, as he pondered that letter in the course of his drive home +from the meeting. "I talk to her of passion, and she asks me in return +why I do things inconsistent with my political opinions! puts me through +a moral catechism, in fact! What is the meaning of it all--confound it! +--her state of mind and mine? Is the good old _ars amandi_ perishing out +of the world? Let some Stendhal come and tell us why!" + +But he sat up to answer her, and could not get free from an inward +pleading or wrestle with her, which haunted him through all the +intervals of these rapid days. + +Life while they lasted was indeed a gymnast's contest of breath and +endurance. The _Clarion_ made its retreat in Wharton's finest style, and +the fact rang through labouring England. The strike-leaders came up from +the Midlands; Wharton had to see them. He was hotly attacked in the +House privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennett +showed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile the Conservative papers talked +the usual employers' political economy; and the Liberal papers, whose +support of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of no +particular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they were +glad to get, and went in strongly for the award. + +Through it all Wharton showed extraordinary skill. The columns of the +_Clarion_ teemed with sympathetic appeals to the strikers, flanked by +long statements of "hard fact"--the details of foreign competition and +the rest, the plans of the masters--freely supplied him by Mr. Pearson. +With Bennett and his colleagues in the House he took a bold line; +admitted that he had endangered his popularity both inside Parliament +and out of it at a particularly critical moment; and implied, though he +did not say, that some men were still capable of doing independent +things to their own hurt. Meanwhile he pushed a number of other matters +to the front, both in the paper and in his own daily doings. He made at +least two important speeches in the provinces, in the course of these +days, on the Bill before the House of Lords; he asked questions in +Parliament on the subject of the wages paid to Government employes; and +he opened an attack on the report of a certain Conservative Commission +which had been rousing the particular indignation of a large mass of +South London working men. + +At the end of ten days the strike was over; the workers, sullen and +enraged, had submitted, and the plans of the Syndicate were in all the +papers. Wharton, looking round him, realised to his own amazement that +his political position had rather gained than suffered. The general +impression produced by his action had been on the whole that of a man +strong enough to take a line of his own, even at the risk of +unpopularity. There was a new tone of respect among his opponents, and, +resentful as some of the Labour members were, Wharton did not believe +that what he had done would ultimately damage his chances on the 10th at +all. He had vindicated his importance, and he held his head high, +adopting towards his chances of the leadership a strong and careless +tone that served him well. + +Meanwhile there were, of course, clever people behind the scenes who +looked on and laughed. But they held their tongues, and Wharton, who had +carefully avoided the mention of names during the negotiations with +Pearson, did his best to forget them. He felt uncomfortable, indeed, +when he passed the portly Denny in the House or in the street. Denny had +a way of looking at the member for West Brookshire out of the corner of +a small, slit-like eye. He did it more than usual during these days, +and Wharton had only to say to himself that for all things there is a +price--which the gods exact. + +Wilkins, since the first disclosure of the _Clarion_ change of policy, +had been astonishingly quiet. Wharton had made certain of violent attack +from him. On the contrary, Wilkins wore now in the House a subdued and +pre-occupied air that escaped notice even with his own party in the +general fulness of the public mind. A few caustic north-countryisms on +the subject of the _Clarion_ and its master did indeed escape him now +and then, and were reported from mouth to mouth; but on the whole he lay +very low. + +Still, whether in elation or anxiety, Wharton seemed to himself +throughout the whole period to be a _fighter_, straining every muscle, +his back to the wall and his hand against every man. There at the end of +the fortnight stood the three goal-posts that must be passed, in victory +or defeat; the meeting that would for the present decide his +parliamentary prospects, his interview with Marcella, and--the +confounded annual meeting of the "People's Banking Company," with all +its threatened annoyances. + +He became, indeed, more and more occupied with this latter business as +the days went on. But he could see no way of evading it. He would have +to fight it; luckily, now, he had the money. + +The annual meeting took place two days before that fixed for the +committee of the Labour party. Wharton was not present at it, and in +spite of ample warning he gave way to certain lively movements of +disgust and depression when at his club he first got hold of the +evening papers containing the reports. His name, of course, figured +amply in the denunciations heaped upon the directors of all dates; the +sums which he with others were supposed to have made out of the first +dealings with the shares on the Stock Exchange were freely mentioned; +and the shareholders as a body had shown themselves most uncomfortably +violent. He at once wrote off a letter to the papers disclaiming all +responsibility for the worst irregularities which had occurred, and +courting full enquiry--a letter which, as usual, both convinced and +affected himself. + +Then he went, restless and fuming, down to the House. Bennett passed him +in the lobby with an uneasy and averted eye. Whereupon Wharton seized +upon him, carried him into the Library, and talked to him, till Bennett, +who, in spite of his extraordinary shrewdness and judgment in certain +departments, was a babe in matters of company finance, wore a somewhat +cheered countenance. + +They came out into the lobby together, Wharton holding his head very +high. + +"I shall deal with the whole thing in my speech on Thursday!" he said +aloud, as they parted. + +Bennett gave him a friendly nod and smile. + +There was in this little man, with his considerable brain and his poet's +heart, something of the "imperishable child." Like a wholesome child, he +did not easily "think evil"; his temper towards all men--even the owners +of "way-leaves" and mining royalties--was optimist. He had the most +naive admiration for Wharton's ability, and for the academic +attainments he himself secretly pined for; and to the young complex +personality itself he had taken from the beginning an unaccountable +liking. The bond between the two, though incongruous and recent, was +real; Wharton was as glad of Bennett's farewell kindness as Bennett had +been of the younger man's explanations. + +So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting, +championing, explaining; while Wharton, laden with parliamentary +business, vivid, unabashed, and resourceful, let it be known to all whom +it concerned that in his solicitor's opinion he had a triumphant answer +to all charges; and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the soreness +of those poor devils of shareholders. + +The hours passed on. Wednesday was mainly spent by Wharton in a series +of conferences and intrigues either at the House or at his club; when he +drove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged--the +train irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of the +party certain. + +Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable; but +the vehemence and rancour shown by the great Nehemiah during the summer +in the pursuit of his anti-Wharton campaign had to some extent defeated +themselves. A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not a +formidable weapon. Wharton would have felt perfectly easy on the subject +but for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins's part during the last +forty-eight hours--whenever, in fact, the two men had run across each +other in the House--marked by a sort of new and insolent good humour, +that puzzled him. But there is a bravado of defeat. Yes!--he thought +Wilkins was disposed of. + +From his present point of ease--debts paid, banker propitiated, income +assured--it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnight +before. Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain it +must have been accepted. After all his luck had held! Once get through +this odious company business--as to which, with a pleasing +consciousness of turning the tables, he had peremptorily instructed Mr. +Pearson himself--and the barque of his fortunes was assured. + +Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs from +him. His very hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood. There +stole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought--a +world well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rule +small inclination to dwell therein. But he was touched and shaken +to-night by his own achievement. The heavenly powers had been +unexpectedly kind to him, and he was half moved to offer them something +in return. + +"Do as you are done by"--that was an ethic he understood. And in moments +of feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to his +friends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtful +thing--but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vague +philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his +mind. The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christian +never. He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of +unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhaps +the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. He +would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling +to think of. + +_Marcella_!--ah! Marcella! He gave himself to the thought of her with a +new and delightful tenderness which had in it elements of compunction. +After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers, he had +instantly written to her. "Every public man"--he had said to her, +finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her--"is +liable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are at +once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe +perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask--I +know--that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your +thoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your +face! The time is long!" + +To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had rung sadly +and coldly. No doubt Louis Craven had something to do with it. It would +have alarmed him could he simply have found the time to think about it. +Yet she was ready to see him on the 11th; and his confidence in his own +powers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he had +told her at Lady Masterton's! Well! What passion ever yet but had its +subterfuges? One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish, +wild falcon that she was. Then--pleasure and brave living! And she also +should have her way. She should breathe into him the language of those +great illusions he had found it of late so hard to feign with her; and +they two would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, passion, +affairs--life explored and exploited--and at last--"_que la mort me +treuve plantant mes choulx--mais nonchalant d'elle!--et encore plus de +mon jardin imparfaict_!" + +He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the same +temper in which the devout man would have made an act of faith. Then, +with a long breath and a curious emotion, he went to try and sleep +himself into the new day. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +The following afternoon about six o'clock Marcella came in from her +second round. After a very busy week, work happened to be slack; and she +had been attending one or two cases in and near Brown's Buildings rather +because they were near than because they seriously wanted her. She +looked to see whether there was any letter or telegram from the office +which would have obliged her to go out again. Nothing was to be seen; +and she put down her bag and cloak, childishly glad of the extra hour of +rest. + +She was, indeed, pale and worn. The moral struggle which had filled the +past fortnight from end to end had deepened all the grooves and strained +the forces of life; and the path, though glimmering, was not wholly +plain. + +A letter lay unfinished in her drawer--if she sent it that night, there +would be little necessity or inducement for Wharton to climb those +stairs on the morrow. Yet, if he held her to it, she must see him. + +As the sunset and the dusk crept on she still sat silent and alone, sunk +in a depression which showed itself in every line of the drooping form. +She was degraded in her own eyes. The nature of the impulses which had +led her to give Wharton the hold upon her she had given him had become +plain to her. What lay between them, and the worst impulses that poison +the lives of women, but differences of degree, of expression? After +those wild hours of sensuous revolt, a kind of moral terror was upon +her. + +What had worked in her? What was at the root of this vehemence of moral +reaction, this haunting fear of losing for ever the _best_ in +life--self-respect, the comradeship of the good, communion with things +noble and unstained--which had conquered at last the mere _woman_, the +weakness of vanity and of sex? She hardly knew. Only there was in her a +sort of vague thankfulness _for her daily work_. It did not seem to be +possible to see one's own life solely under the aspects of selfish +desire while hands and mind were busy with the piteous realities of +sickness and of death. From every act of service--from every contact +with the patience and simplicity of the poor--_something_ had spoken to +her, that divine ineffable something for ever "set in the world," like +beauty, like charm, for the winning of men to itself. "Follow truth!" it +said to her in faint mysterious breathings--"the truth of your own +heart. The sorrow to which it will lead you is the only _joy_ that +remains to you." + +Suddenly she looked round her little room with a rush of tenderness. The +windows were open to the evening and the shouts of children playing in +the courtyard came floating up. A bowl of Mellor roses scented the air; +the tray for her simple meal stood ready, and beside it a volume of "The +Divine Comedy," one of her mother's very rare gifts to her, in her +motherless youth--for of late she had turned thirstily to poetry. There +was a great peace and plainness about it all; and, besides, touches of +beauty--tokens of the soul. Her work spoke in it; called to her; +promised comfort and ennobling. She thought with yearning, too, of her +parents; of the autumn holiday she was soon to spend with them. Her +heart went out--sorely--to all the primal claims upon it. + + * * * * * + +Nevertheless, clear as was the inner resolution, the immediate future +filled her with dread. Her ignorance of herself--her excitable +folly--had given Wharton rights which her conscience admitted. He would +not let her go without a struggle, and she must face it. + +As to the incidents which had happened during the fortnight--Louis +Craven's return, and the scandal of the "People's Banking Company"--they +had troubled and distressed her; but it would not be true to say that +they had had any part in shaping her slow determination. Louis Craven +was sore and bitter. She was very sorry for him; and his reports of the +Damesley strikers made her miserable. But she took Wharton's "leaders" +in the _Clarion_ for another equally competent opinion on the same +subject; and told herself that she was no judge. As for the Company +scandal, she had instantly and proudly responded to the appeal of his +letter, and put the matter out of her thoughts, till at least he should +give his own account. So much at any rate she owed to the man who had +stood by her through the Hurd trial. Marcella Boyce would not readily +believe in his dishonour! She did not in fact believe it. In spite of +later misgivings, the impression of his personality, as she had first +conceived it, in the early days at Mellor, was still too strong. + +No--rather--she had constantly recollected throughout the day what was +going on in Parliament. These were for him testing and critical hours, +and she felt a wistful sympathy. Let him only rise to his part--take up +his great task. + + * * * * * + +An imperious knocking on her thin outer door roused her. She went to +open it and saw Anthony Craven,--the perspiration standing on his brow, +his delicate cripple's face white and fierce. + +"I want to talk to you," he said without preface. "Have you seen the +afternoon papers?" + +"No," she said in astonishment, "I was just going to send for them. What +is wrong?" + +He followed her into the sitting-room without speaking; and then he +unfolded the _Pall Mall_ he had in his hand and pointed to a large-print +paragraph on the central page with a shaking hand. + +Marcella read: + +"EXCITING SCENES IN THE HOUSE.--MEETING OF THE LABOUR MEMBERS.--A +committee of the Labour representatives in Parliament met this afternoon +at 2 o'clock for the purpose of electing a chairman, and appointing +whips to the party, thus constituting a separate parliamentary group. +Much interest was felt in the proceedings, which it was universally +supposed would lead to the appointment of Mr. H. S. Wharton, the member +for West Brookshire, as chairman and leader of the Labour party. The +excitement of the meeting and in the House may be imagined when--after a +short but very cordial and effective speech from Mr. Bennett, the member +for North Whinwick, in support of Mr. Wharton's candidature--Mr. +Wilkins, the miner's member for Derlingham, rose and made a series of +astounding charges against the personal honour of the member for West +Brookshire. Put briefly, they amount to this: that during the recent +strike at Damesley the support of the _Clarion_ newspaper, of which Mr. +Wharton is owner and practically editor, was _bought_ by the employers +in return for certain shares in the new Syndicate; that the money for +these shares--which is put as high as 20,000 _l._--had already gone into +Mr. Wharton's private pocket; and that the change of policy on the part +of the _Clarion_, which led to the collapse of the strike, was thus +entirely due to what the Labour members can only regard under the +circumstances as a bribe of a most disgraceful kind. The effect produced +has been enormous. The debate is still proceeding, and reporters have +been excluded. But I hope to send a fuller account later." + +Marcella dropped the paper from her hand. + +"What does it mean?" she said to her companion. + +"Precisely what it says," replied Anthony, with a nervous impatience he +could not repress. "Now," he added, as his lameness forced him to sit +down, "will you kindly allow me some conversation with you? It was +you--practically--who introduced Louis to that man. You meant well to +Louis, and Mr. Wharton has been your friend. We therefore feel that we +owe you some explanation. For that paragraph"--he pointed to the +paper--"is, substantially--Louis's doing, and mine." + +"_Yours?_" she said mechanically. "But Louis has been going on working +for the paper--I persuaded him." + +"I know. It was not we who actually discovered the thing. But we set a +friend to work. Louis has had his suspicions all along. And at last--by +the merest chance--we got the facts." + +Then he told the story, staring at her the while with his sparkling +eyes, his thin invalid's fingers fidgeting with his hat. If there was in +truth any idea in his mind that the relations between his companion and +Harry Wharton were more than those of friendship, it did not avail to +make him spare her in the least. He was absorbed in vindictive feeling, +which applied to her also. He might _say_ for form's sake that she had +meant well; but in fact he regarded her at this moment as a sort of +odious Canidia whose one function had been to lure Louis to misfortune. +Cut off himself, by half a score of peculiarities, physical and other, +from love, pleasure, and power, Anthony Craven's whole affections and +ambitions had for years centred in his brother. And now Louis was not +only violently thrown out of employment, but compromised by the +connection with the _Clarion_; was, moreover, saddled with a wife--and +in debt. + +So that his explanation was given with all the edge he could put upon +it. Let her stop him, if she pleased!--but she did not stop him. + +The facts were these: + +Louis had, indeed, been persuaded by Marcella, for the sake of his wife +and bread and butter, to go on working for the _Clarion_, as a reviewer. +But his mind was all the time feverishly occupied with the apostasy of +the paper and its causes. Remembering Wharton's sayings and letters +throughout the struggle, he grew less and less able to explain the +incident by the reasons Wharton had himself supplied, and more and more +convinced that there was some mystery behind. + +He and Anthony talked the matter over perpetually. One evening Anthony +brought home from a meeting of the Venturists that George Denny, the son +of one of the principal employers in the Damesley trade, whose name he +had mentioned once before in Marcella's ears. Denny was by this time the +candidate for a Labour constituency, an ardent Venturist, and the +laughing-stock of his capitalist family, with whom, however, he was +still on more or less affectionate terms. His father thought him an +incorrigible fool, and his mother wailed over him to her friends. But +they were still glad to see him whenever he would condescend to visit +them; and all friction on money matters was avoided by the fact that +Denny had for long refused to take any pecuniary help from his father, +and was nevertheless supporting himself tolerably by lecturing and +literature. + +Denny was admitted into the brothers' debate, and had indeed puzzled +himself a good deal over the matter already. He had taken a lively +interest in the strike, and the articles in the _Clarion_ which led to +its collapse had seemed to him both inexplicable and enraging. + +After his talk with the Cravens, he went away, determined to dine at +home on the earliest possible opportunity. He announced himself +accordingly in Hertford Street, was received with open arms, and then +deliberately set himself, at dinner and afterwards, to bait his father +on social and political questions, which, as a rule, were avoided +between them. + +Old Denny fell into the trap, lost his temper and self-control +completely, and at a mention of Harry Wharton--skilfully introduced at +the precisely right moment--as an authority on some matter connected +with the current Labour programme, he threw himself back in his chair +with an angry laugh. + +"Wharton? _Wharton_? You quote that fellow to _me?_" + +"Why shouldn't I?" said the son, quietly. + +"Because, my good sir,--he's a _rogue_,--that's all!--a common rogue, +from my point of view even--still more from yours." + +"I know that any vile tale you can believe about a Labour leader you do, +father," said George Denny, with dignity. + +Whereupon the older man thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and +drawing out a small leather case, in which he was apt to carry important +papers about with him, extracted from it a list containing names and +figures, and held it with a somewhat tremulous hand under his son's +eyes. + +"Read it, sir! and hold your tongue! Last week my friends and I _bought_ +that man--and his precious paper--for a trifle of 20,000 _l._ or +thereabouts. It paid us to do it, and we did it. I dare say _you_ will +think the preceding questionable. In my eyes it was perfectly +legitimate, a piece of _bonne guerre_. The man was ruining a whole +industry. Some of us had taken his measure, had found out too--by good +luck!--that he was in sore straits for money--mortgages on the paper, +gambling debts, and a host of other things--discovered a shrewd man to +play him, and made our bid! He rose to it like a gudgeon--gave us no +trouble whatever. I need not say, of course"--he added, looking up at +his son--"that I have shown you that paper in the _very strictest +confidence_. But it seemed to me it was my duty as a father to warn you +of the nature of some of your associates!" + +"I understand," said George Denny, as, after a careful study of the +paper--which contained, for the help of the writer's memory, a list of +the sums paid and founders' shares allotted to the various "promoters" +of the new Syndicate--he restored it to its owner. "Well, I, father, +have _this_ to say in return. I came here to-night in the hope of +getting from you this very information, and in the public interest I +hold myself not only free but _bound_ to make public use of it, at the +earliest possible opportunity!" + +The family scene may be imagined. But both threats and blandishments +were entirely lost upon the son. There was in him an idealist obstinacy +which listened to nothing but the cry of a _cause_, and he declared that +nothing would or should prevent him from carrying the story of the bribe +direct to Nehemiah Wilkins, Wharton's chief rival in the House, and so +saving the country and the Labour party from the disaster and disgrace +of Wharton's leadership. There was no time to lose, the party meeting in +the House was only two days off. + +At the end of a long struggle, which exhausted everybody concerned, and +was carried on to a late hour of the night, Denny _pere_, influenced by +a desire to avoid worse things--conscious, too, of the abundant evidence +he possessed of Wharton's acceptance and private use of the money--and, +probably, when it came to the point, not unwilling,--under +compulsion!--to tumble such a hero from his pedestal, actually wrote, +under his son's advice, a letter to Wilkins. It was couched in the most +cautious language, and professed to be written in the interests of +Wharton himself, to put an end "to certain ugly and unfounded rumours +that have been brought to my knowledge." The negotiation itself was +described in the driest business terms. "Mr. Wharton, upon cause shown, +consented to take part in the founding of the Syndicate, and in return +for his assistance, was allotted ten founders' shares in the new +company. The transaction differed in nothing from those of ordinary +business"--a last sentence slily added by the Socialist son, and +innocently accepted by one of the shrewdest of men. + +After which Master George Denny scarcely slept, and by nine o'clock next +morning was in a hansom on his way to Wilkins's lodgings in Westminster. +The glee of that black-bearded patriot hardly needs description. He +flung himself on the letter with a delight and relief so exuberant that +George Denny went off to another more phlegmatic member of the +anti-Wharton "cave," with entreaties that an eye should be kept on the +member for Derlingham, lest he should do or disclose anything before the +dramatic moment. + +Then he himself spent the next forty-eight hours in ingenious efforts to +put together certain additional information as to the current value of +founders' shares in the new company, the nature and amount of Wharton's +debts, and so on. Thanks to his father's hints he was able in the end +to discover quite enough to furnish forth a supplementary statement. So +that, when the 10th arrived, the day rose upon a group of men +breathlessly awaiting a play within a play--with all their parts +rehearsed, and the prompter ready. + + * * * * * + +Such in substance, was Anthony's story. So carried away was he by the +excitement and triumph of it, that he soon ceased to notice what its +effect might be upon his pale and quick-breathing companion. + +"And now what has happened?" she asked him abruptly, when at last he +paused. + +"Why, you saw!" he said in astonishment, pointing to the evening +paper--"at least the beginning of it. Louis is at the House now. I +expect him every moment. He said he would follow me here." + +Marcella pressed her hands upon her eyes a moment as though in pain. +Anthony looked at her with a tardy prick of remorse. + +"I hear Louis's knock!" he said, springing up. "May I let him in?" And, +without waiting for reply, he hobbled as fast as his crutch would carry +him to the outer door. Louis came in. Marcella rose mechanically. He +paused on the threshold, his short sight trying to make her out in the +dusk. Then his face softened and quivered. He walked forward quickly. + +"I know you have something to forgive us," he said, "and that this will +distress you. But we could not give you warning. Everything was so +rapid, and the public interests involved so crushing." + +He was flushed with vengeance and victory, but as he approached her his +look was deprecating--almost timid. Only the night before, Anthony for +the first time had suggested to him an idea about her. He did not +believe it--had had no time in truth to think of it in the rush of +events. But now he saw her, the doubt pulled at his heart. Had he indeed +stabbed the hand that had tried to help him? + +Anthony touched him impatiently on the arm. "What has happened, Louis? I +have shown Miss Boyce the first news." + +"It is all over," said Louis, briefly. "The meeting was breaking up as I +came away. It had lasted nearly five hours. There was a fierce fight, of +course, between Wharton and Wilkins. Then Bennett withdrew his +resolution, refused to be nominated himself--nearly broke down, in fact, +they say; he had always been attached to Wharton, and had set his heart +upon making him leader--and finally, after a long wrangle, Molloy was +appointed chairman of the party." + +"Good!" cried Anthony, not able to suppress the note of exultation. + +Louis did not speak. He looked at Marcella. + +"Did he defend himself?" she asked in a low, sharp voice. + +Louis shrugged his shoulders. + +"Oh, yes. He spoke--but it did him no good. Everybody agreed that the +speech was curiously ineffective. One would have expected him to do it +better. But he seemed to be knocked over. He said, of course, that he +had satisfied himself, and given proof in the paper, that the strike +could not be maintained, and that being so he was free to join any +syndicate he pleased. But he spoke amid dead silence, and there was a +general groan when he sat down. Oh, it was not this business only! +Wilkins made great play in part of his speech with the Company scandal +too. It is a complete smash all round." + +"Which he will never get over?" said Marcella, quickly. + +"Not with our men. What he may do elsewhere is another matter. Anthony +has told you how it came out?" + +She made a sign of assent. She was sitting erect and cold, her hands +round her knees. + +"I did not mean to keep anything from you," he said in a low voice, +bending to her. "I know--you admired him--that he had given you cause. +But--my mind has been on _fire_--ever since I came back from those +Damesley scenes!" + +She offered no reply. Silence fell upon all three for a minute or two; +and in the twilight each could hardly distinguish the others. Every now +and then the passionate tears rose in Marcella's eyes; her heart +contracted. That very night when he spoke to her, when he used all those +big words to her about his future, those great ends for which he had +claimed her woman's help--he had these things in his mind. + +"I think," said Louis Craven presently, touching her gently on the +arm--he had tried once in vain to attract her attention--"I think I hear +some one asking for you outside on the landing--Mrs. Hurd seems to be +bringing them in." + +As he spoke, Anthony suddenly sprang to his feet, and the outer door +opened. + +"Louis!" cried Anthony, "it is _he_!" + +"Are yer at home, miss?" said Minta Hurd, putting in her head; "I can +hardly see, it's so dark. Here's a gentleman wants to see you." + +As she spoke, Wharton passed her, and stood--arrested--by the sight of +the three figures. At the same moment Mrs. Hurd lit the gas in the +little passage. The light streamed upon his face, and showed him the +identity of the two men standing beside Marcella. + +Never did Marcella forget that apparition--the young grace and power of +the figure--the indefinable note of wreck, of catastrophe--the Lucifer +brightness of the eyes in the set face. She moved forward. Anthony +stopped her. + +"Good-night, Miss Boyce!" + +She shook hands unconsciously with him and with Louis. The two Cravens +turned to the door. Wharton advanced into the room, and let them pass. + +"You have been in a hurry to tell your story!" he said, as Louis walked +by him. + +Contemptuous hate breathed from every feature, but he was perfectly +self-controlled. + +"Yes--" said Craven, calmly--"Now it is your turn." + +The door was no sooner shut than Wharton strode forward and caught her +hand. + +"They have told you everything? Ah!--" + +His eye fell upon the evening paper. Letting her go, he felt for a chair +and dropped into it. Throwing himself back, his hands behind his head, +he drew a long breath and his eyes closed. For the first time in his +life or hers she saw him weak and spent like other men. Even his nerve +had been worn down by the excitement of these five fighting hours. The +eyes were lined and hollow--the brow contracted; the young roundness of +the cheek was lost in the general pallor and patchiness of the skin; the +lower part of the face seemed to have sharpened and lengthened,--and +over the whole had passed a breath of something aging and withering the +traces of which sent a shiver through Marcella. She sat down near him, +still in her nurse's cloak, one trembling hand upon her lap. + +"Will you tell me what made you do this?" she asked, not being able to +think of anything else to say. + +He opened his eyes with a start. + +In that instant's quiet the scene he had just lived through had been +rushing before him again--the long table in the panelled committee-room, +the keen angry faces gathered about it. Bennett, in his blue tie and +shabby black coat, the clear moist eyes vexed and miserable--Molloy, +small and wiry, business-like in the midst of confusion, cool in the +midst of tumult--and Wilkins, a black, hectoring leviathan, thundering +on the table as he flung his broad Yorkshire across it, or mouthing out +Denny's letter in the midst of the sudden electrical silence of some +thirty amazed and incredulous hearers. + +"_Spies,_ yo call us?" with a finger like a dart, threatening the +enemy--"Aye; an' yo're aboot reet! I and my friends--we _have_ been +trackin' and spyin' for weeks past. We _knew_ those men, those starvin' +women and bairns, were bein' _sold_, but we couldn't prove it. Now +we've come at the how and the why of it! And we'll make it harder for +men like you to _sell 'em again_! Yo call it infamy?--well, _we_ call it +detection." + +Then rattling on the inner ear came the phrases of the attack which +followed on the director of "The People's Banking Association," the +injured innocent of as mean a job, as unsavoury a bit of vulturous +finance, as had cropped into publicity for many a year--and finally the +last dramatic cry: + +"But it's noa matter, yo say! Mester Wharton has nobbut played his party +and the workin' man a dirty trick or two--_an' yo mun have a gentleman!_ +Noa--the workin' man isn't fit _himself_ to speak wi' his own enemies i' +th' gate--_yo mun have a gentleman_!--an' Mester Wharton, he says he'll +tak' the post, an' dea his best for yo--an', remember, _yo mun have a +gentleman_! Soa now--Yes! or No!--wull yo?--or _woan't yo_?" + +And at that, the precipitation of the great unwieldy form half across +the table towards Wharton's seat--the roar of the speaker's immediate +supporters thrown up against the dead silence of the rest! + +As to his own speech--he thought of it with a soreness, a disgust which +penetrated to bones and marrow. He had been too desperately taken by +surprise--had lost his nerve--missed the right tone throughout. Cool +defiance, free self-justification, might have carried him through. +Instead of which--faugh! + +All this was the phantom-show of a few seconds' thought. He roused +himself from a miserable reaction of mind and body to attend to +Marcella's question. + +"Why did I do it?" he repeated; "why--" + +He broke off, pressing both his hands upon his brow. Then he suddenly +sat up and pulled himself together. + +"Is that tea?" he said, touching the tray. "Will you give me some?" + +Marcella went into the back kitchen and called Minta. While the boiling +water was brought and the tea was made, Wharton sat forward with his +face on his hands and saw nothing. Marcella whispered a word in Minta's +ear as she came in. The woman paused, looked at Wharton, whom she had +not recognised before in the dark--grew pale--and Marcella saw her hands +shaking as she set the tray in order. Wharton knew nothing and thought +nothing of Kurd's widow, but to Marcella the juxtaposition of the two +figures brought a wave of complex emotion. + +Wharton forced himself to eat and drink, hardly speaking the while. +Then, when the tremor of sheer exhaustion had to some extent abated, he +suddenly realised who this was that was sitting opposite to him +ministering to him. + +She felt his hand--his quick powerful hand--on hers. + +"To _you_ I owe the whole truth--let me tell it!" + +She drew herself away instinctively--but so softly that he did not +realise it. He threw himself back once more in the chair beside her--one +knee over the other, the curly head so much younger to-night than the +face beneath it supported on his arms, his eyes closed again for +rest--and plunged into the story of the _Clarion_. + +It was admirably told. He had probably so rehearsed it to himself +several times already. He described his action as the result of a double +influence working upon him--the influence of his own debts and +necessities, and the influence of his growing conviction that the +maintenance of the strike had become a blunder, even a misfortune for +the people themselves. + +"Then--just as I was at my wit's end, conscious besides that the paper +was on a wrong line, and must somehow be got out of it--came the +overtures from the Syndicate. I knew perfectly well I ought to have +refused them--of _course_ my whole career was risked by listening to +them. But at the same time they gave me assurances that the workpeople +would ultimately gain--they proved to me that I was helping to +extinguish the trade. As to the _money_--when a great company has to be +launched, the people who help it into being get _paid_ for it--it is +invariable--it happens every day. I like the system no more than you may +do--or Wilkins. But consider. I was in such straits that _bankruptcy_ +lay between me and my political future. Moreover--I had lost nerve, +sleep, balance. I was scarcely master of myself when Pearson first +broached the matter to me--" + +"Pearson!" cried Marcella, involuntarily. She recalled the figure of the +solicitor; had heard his name from Frank Leven. She remembered Wharton's +impatient words--"There is a tiresome man wants to speak to me on +business--" + +It was _then I_--that evening! Something sickened her. + +Wharton raised himself in his chair and looked at her attentively with +his young haggard eyes. In the faint lamplight she was a pale vision of +the purest and noblest beauty. But the lofty sadness of her face filled +him with a kind of terror. Desire--impotent pain--violent resolve, swept +across him. He had come to her, straight from the scene of his ruin, as +to the last bulwark left him against a world bent on his destruction, +and bare henceforward of all delights. + +"Well, what have you to say to me?" he said, suddenly, in a low changed +voice--"as I speak--as I look at you--I see in your face that you +distrust--that you have judged me; those two men, I suppose, have done +their work! Yet from you--_you_ of all people--I might look not only for +justice--but--I will dare say it--for kindness!" + +She trembled. She understood that he appealed to the days at Mellor, and +her lips quivered. + +"No," she exclaimed, almost timidly--"I try to think the best. I see the +pressure was great." + +"And consider, please," he said proudly, "what the reasons were for that +pressure." + +She looked at him interrogatively--a sudden softness in her eyes. If at +that moment he had confessed himself fully, if he had thrown himself +upon her in the frank truth of his mixed character--and he could have +done it, with a Rousseau-like completeness--it is difficult to say what +the result of this scene might have been. In the midst of shock and +repulsion, she was filled with pity; and there were moments when she was +more drawn to his defeat and undoing, than she had ever been to his +success. + +Yet how question him? To do so, would be to assume a right, which in +turn would imply _his_ rights. She thought of that mention of "gambling +debts," then of his luxurious habits, and extravagant friends. But she +was silent. Only, as she sat there opposite to him, one slim hand +propping the brow, her look invited him. + +He thought he saw his advantage. + +"You must remember," he said, with the same self-assertive bearing, +"that I have never been a rich man, that my mother spent my father's +savings on a score of public objects, that she and I started a number of +experiments on the estate, that my expenses as a member of Parliament +are very large, and that I spent thousands on building up the _Clarion_. +I have been ruined by the _Clarion_, by the cause the _Clarion_ +supported. I got no help from my party--where was it to come from? They +are all poor men. I had to do everything myself, and the struggle has +been more than flesh and blood could bear! This year, often, I have not +known how to move, to breathe, for anxieties of every sort. Then came +the crisis--my work, my usefulness, my career, all threatened. The men +who hated me saw their opportunity. I was a fool and gave it them. And +my enemies have used it--to the bitter end!" + +Tone and gesture were equally insistent and strong. What he was saying +to himself was that, with a woman of Marcella's type, one must "bear it +out." This moment of wreck was also with him the first moment of +all-absorbing and desperate desire. To win her--to wrest her from the +Cravens' influence--that had been the cry in his mind throughout his +dazed drive from the House of Commons. Her hand in his--her strength, +her beauty, the romantic reputation that had begun to attach to her, at +his command--and he would have taken the first step to recovery, he +would see his way to right himself. + +Ah! but he had missed his chance! Somehow, every word he had been saying +rang false to her. She could have thrown herself as a saving angel on +the side of weakness and disaster which had spoken its proper language, +and with a reckless and confiding truth had appealed to the largeness of +a woman's heart. But this patriot--ruined so nobly--for such +disinterested purposes--left her cold! She began to think even--hating +herself--of the thousands he was supposed to have made in the gambling +over that wretched company--no doubt for the "cause" too! + +But before she could say a word he was kneeling beside her. + +"_Marcella_ I give me my answer!--I am in trouble and defeat--be a +woman, and come to me!" + +He had her hands. She tried to recover them. + +"No!" she said, with passionate energy, "_that_ is impossible. I had +written to you before you came, before I had heard a word of this. +Please, _please_ let me go!" + +"Not till you explain!"--he said, still holding her, and roused to a +white heat of emotion--"_why_ is it impossible? You said to me once, +with all your heart, that you thanked me, that I had taught you, helped +you. You cannot ignore the bond between us! And you are free. I have a +right to say to you--you thirst to save, to do good--come and save a +man that cries to you!--he confesses to _you_, freely enough, that he +has made a hideous mistake--help him to redeem it!" + +She rose suddenly with all her strength, freeing herself from him, so +that he rose too, and stood glowering and pale. + +"When I said that to you," she cried, "I was betraying "--her voice +failed her an instant--"we were both false--to the obligation that +should have held us--restrained us. No! _no!_ I will never be your wife! +We should hurt each other--poison each other!" + +Her eyes shone with wild tears. As he stood there before her she was +seized with a piteous sense of contrast--of the irreparable--of what +might have been. + +"What do you mean?" he asked her, roughly. + +She was silent. + +His passion rose. + +"Do you remember," he said, approaching her again, "that you have given +me cause to hope? It is those two fanatics that have changed +you--possessed your mind." + +She looked at him with a pale dignity. + +"My letters must have warned you," she said simply. "If you had come +to-morrow--in prosperity--you would have got the same answer, at once. +To-day--now--I have had weak moments, because--because I did not know +how to add pain to pain. But they are gone--I see my way! _I do not love +you_--that is the simple, the whole truth--I could not follow you!" + +He stared at her an instant in a bitter silence. + +"I have been warned,"--he said slowly, but in truth losing control of +himself, "not only by you--and I suppose I understand! You repent last +year. Your own letter said as much. You mean to recover, the ground--the +place you lost. Ah, well!--most natural!--most fitting! When the time +comes--and my bones are less sore--I suppose I shall have my second +congratulations ready! Meanwhile--" + +She gave a low cry and burst suddenly into a passion of weeping, turning +her face from him. But when in pale sudden shame he tried to excuse +himself--to appease her--she moved away, with a gesture that overawed +him. + +"_You_ have not confessed yourself"--she said, and his look wavered +under the significance of hers--"but you drive me to it. Yes, _I +repent!_"--her breast heaved, she caught her breath. "I have been trying +to cheat myself these last few weeks--to run away from grief--and the +other night when you asked me--I would have given all I have and am to +feel like any happy girl, who says 'Yes' to her lover. I tried to feel +so. But even then, though I was miserable and reckless, I knew in my +heart--it was impossible! If you suppose--if you like to suppose--that +I--I have hopes or plans--as mean as they would be silly--you must--of +course. But I have given no one any _right_ to think so or say so. Mr. +Wharton--" + +Gathering all her self-control, she put out her white hand to him. +"Please--please say good-bye to me. It has been hideous vanity--and +mistake--and wretchedness--our knowing each other--from the beginning. +I _am_ grateful for all you did, I shall always be grateful. I hope--oh! +I hope--that--that you will find a way through this trouble. I don't +want to make it worse by a word. If I could do anything! But I can't. +You must please go. It is late. I wish to call my friend, Mrs. Hurd." + +Their eyes met--hers full of a certain stern yet quivering power, his +strained and bloodshot, in his lined young face. + +Then, with a violent gesture--as though he swept her out of his path--he +caught up his hat, went to the door, and was gone. + +She fell on her chair almost fainting, and sat there for long in the +summer dark, covering her face. But it was not his voice that haunted +her ears. + +"_You have done me wrong--I pray God you may not do yourself a greater +wrong in the future!_" + +Again and again, amid the whirl of memory, she pressed the sad +remembered words upon the inward wound and fever--tasting, cherishing +the smart of them. And as her trance of exhaustion and despair gradually +left her, it was as though she crept close to some dim beloved form in +whom her heart knew henceforward the secret and sole companion of its +inmost life. + + + + + +BOOK IV. + + +"You and I-- +Why care by what meanders we are here +I' the centre of the labyrinth? Men have died +Trying to find this place which we have found." + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Ah! how purely, cleanly beautiful was the autumn sunrise! After her long +hardening to the stale noisomeness of London streets, the taint of +London air, Marcella hung out of her window at Mellor in a thirsty +delight, drinking in the scent of dew and earth and trees, watching the +ways of the birds, pouring forth a soul of yearning and of memory into +the pearly silence of the morning. + +High up on the distant hill to the left, beyond the avenue, the pale +apricots and golds of the newly-shorn stubbles caught the mounting +light. The beeches of the avenue were turning fast, and the chestnuts +girdling the church on her right hand were already thin enough to let +the tower show through. That was the bell--the old bell given to the +church by Hampden's friend, John Boyce--striking half-past five; and +close upon it came the call of a pheasant in the avenue. There he was, +fine fellow, with his silly, mincing run, redeemed all at once by the +sudden whirr of towering flight. + +To-day Mary Harden and the Rector would be at work in the church, and +to-morrow was to be the Harvest Festival. Was it two years?--or in an +hour or two would she be going with her basket from the Cedar Garden, to +find that figure in the brown shooting-coat standing with the Hardens on +the altar steps? + +Alas!--alas!--her head dropped on her hands as she knelt by the open +window. How changed were all the aspects of the world! Three weeks +before, the bell in that little church had tolled for one who, in the +best way and temper of his own generation, had been God's servant and +man's friend--who had been Marcella's friend--and had even, in his last +days, on a word from Edward Hallin, sent her an old man's kindly +farewell. + +"Tell her," Lord Maxwell had written with his own hand to Hallin, "she +has taken up a noble work, and will make, I pray God, a noble woman. She +had, I think, a kindly liking for an old man, and she will not disdain +his blessing." + +He had died at Geneva, Aldous and Miss Raeburn with him. For instead of +coming home in August, he had grown suddenly worse, and Aldous had gone +out to him. They had brought him to the Court for burial, and the new +Lord Maxwell, leaving his aunt at the Court, had almost immediately +returned to town,--because of Edward Hallin's state of health. + +Marcella had seen much of Hallin since he and his sister had come back +to London in the middle of August. Hallin's apparent improvement had +faded within a week or two of his return to his rooms; Aldous was at +Geneva; Miss Hallin was in a panic of alarm; and Marcella found herself +both nurse and friend. Day after day she would go in after her nursing +rounds, share their evening meal, and either write for Hallin, or help +the sister--by the slight extra weight of her professional voice--to +keep him from writing and thinking. + +He would not himself admit that he was ill at all, and his whole +energies at the time were devoted to the preparation of a series of +three addresses on the subject of Land Reform, which were to be +delivered in October to the delegates of a large number of working-men's +clubs from all parts of London. So strong was Hallin's position among +working-men reformers, and so beloved had been his personality, that as +soon as his position towards the new land nationalising movement, now +gathering formidable strength among the London working men, had come to +be widely understood, a combined challenge had been sent him by some +half-dozen of the leading Socialist and Radical clubs, asking him to +give three weekly addresses in October to a congress of London +delegates, time to be allowed after the lecture for questions and +debate. + +Hallin had accepted the invitation with eagerness, and was throwing an +intensity of labour into the writing of his three lectures which often +seemed to his poor sister to be not only utterly beyond his physical +strength, but to carry with it a note as of a last effort, a farewell +message, such as her devoted affection could ill endure. For all the +time he was struggling with cardiac weakness and brain irritability +which would have overwhelmed any one less accustomed to make his account +with illness, or to balance against feebleness of body a marvellous +discipline of soul. + +Lord Maxwell was still alive, and Hallin, in the midst of his work, was +looking anxiously for the daily reports from Aldous, living in his +friend's life almost as much as in his own--handing on the reports, too, +day by day to Marcella, with a manner which had somehow slipped into +expressing a new and sure confidence in her sympathy--when she one +evening found Minta Hurd watching for her at the door with a telegram +from her mother: "Your father suddenly worse. Please come at once." She +arrived at Mellor late that same night. + +On the same day Lord Maxwell died. Less than a week later he was buried +in the little Gairsley church. Mr. Boyce was then alarmingly ill, and +Marcella sat in his darkened room or in her own all day, thinking from +time to time of what was passing three miles away--of the great house in +its mourning--of the figures round the grave. Hallin, of course, would +be there. It was a dripping September day, and she passed easily from +moments of passionate yearning and clairvoyance to worry herself about +the damp and the fatigue that Hallin must be facing. + +Since then she had heard occasionally from Miss Hallin. Everything was +much as it had been, apparently. Edward was still hard at work, still +ill, still serene. "Aldous"--Miss Hallin could not yet reconcile herself +to the new name--was alone in the Curzon Street house, much occupied and +harassed apparently by the legal business of the succession, by the +election presently to be held in his own constituency, and by the +winding-up of his work at the Home Office. He was to resign his +under-secretaryship; but with the new session and a certain +rearrangement of offices it was probable that he would be brought back +into the Ministry. Meanwhile he was constantly with them; and she +thought that his interest in Edward's work and anxiety about his health +were perhaps both good for him as helping to throw off something of his +own grief and depression. + +Whereby it will be noticed that Miss Hallin, like her brother, had by +now come to speak intimately and freely to Marcella of her old lover and +their friend. + +Now for some days, however, she had received no letter from either +brother or sister, and she was particularly anxious to hear. For this +was the fourth of October, and on the second he was to have delivered +the first of his addresses. How had the frail prophet sped? She had her +fears. For her weekly "evenings" in Brown's Buildings had shown her a +good deal of the passionate strength of feeling developed during the +past year in connection with this particular propaganda. She doubted +whether the London working man at the present moment was likely to give +even Hallin a fair hearing on the point. However, Louis Craven was to be +there. And he had promised to write even if Susie Hallin could find no +time. Some report ought to reach Mellor by the evening. + +Poor Cravens! The young wife, who was expecting a baby, had behaved with +great spirit through the _Clarion_ trouble; and, selling their bits of +furniture to pay their debts, they had gone to lodge near Anthony. Louis +had got some odds and ends of designing and artistic work to do through +his brother's influence; and was writing where he could, here and there. +Marcella had introduced them to the Hallins, and Susie Hallin was taking +a motherly interest in the coming child. Anthony, in his gloomy way, was +doing all he could for them. But the struggle was likely to be a hard +one, and Marcella had recognised of late that in Louis as in Anthony +there were dangerous possibilities of melancholy and eccentricity. Her +heart was often sore over their trouble and her own impotence. + +Meantime for some wounds, at any rate, time had brought swift cautery! +Not three days after her final interview with Wharton, while the +catastrophe in the Labour party was still in every one's mouth, and the +air was full of bitter speeches and recriminations, Hallin one evening +laid down his newspaper with a sudden startled gesture, and then pushed +it over to Marcella. There, in the columns devoted to personal news of +various sorts, appeared the announcement: + +"A marriage has been arranged between Mr. H.S. Wharfon, M.P. for West +Brookshire, and Lady Selina Farrell, only surviving daughter of Lord +Alresford. The ceremony will probably take place somewhere about Easter +next. Meanwhile Mr. Wharton, whose health has suffered of late from his +exertions in and out of the House, has been ordered to the East for rest +by his medical advisers. He and his friend Sir William Ffolliot start +for French Cochin China in a few days. Their object is to explore the +famous ruined temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and if the season is +favourable they may attempt to ascend the Mekong. Mr. Wharton is paired +for the remainder of the session." + +"Did you know anything of this?" said Hallin, with that careful +carelessness in which people dress a dubious question. + +"Nothing," she said quietly. + +Then an impulse not to be stood against, springing from very mingled +depths of feeling, drove her on. She, too, put down the paper, and +laying her finger-tips together on her knee she said with an odd slight +laugh: + +"But I was the last person to know. About a fortnight ago Mr. Wharton +proposed to me." + +Hallin sprang from his chair, almost with a shout. "And you refused +him?" + +She nodded, and then was angrily aware that, totally against her will or +consent, and for the most foolish and remote reasons, those two eyes of +hers had grown moist. + +Hallin went straight over to her. + +"Do you mind letting me shake hands with you?" he said, half ashamed of +his outburst, a dancing light of pleasure transforming the thin face. +"There--I am an idiot! We won't say a word more--except about Lady +Selina. Have you seen her?" + +"Three or four times." + +"What is she like?" + +Marcella hesitated. + +"Is she fat--and forty?" said Hallin, fervently--she beat him?" + +"Not at all. She is very thin--thirty-five, elegant, terribly of her own +opinion--and makes a great parade of 'papa.'" + +She looked round at him, unsteadily, but gaily. + +"Oh! I see," said Hallin, with disappointment, "she will only take care +he doesn't beat her--which I gather from your manner doesn't matter. And +her politics?" + +"Lord Alresford was left out of the Ministry," said Marcella slily. "He +and Lady Selina thought it a pity." + +"Alresford--_Alresford_? Why, of course! He was Lord Privy Seal in their +last Cabinet--a narrow-minded old stick!--did a heap of mischief in the +Lords. _Well!_"--Hallin pondered a moment--"Wharton will go over!" + +Marcella was silent. The tremor of that wrestler's hour had not yet +passed away. The girl could find no words in which to discuss Wharton +himself, this last amazing act, or its future. + +As for Hallin, he sat lost in pleasant dreams of a whitewashed Wharton, +comfortably settled at last below the gangway on the Conservative side, +using all the old catch-words in slightly different connections, and +living gaily on his Lady Selina. Fragments from the talk of +Nehemiah--Nehemiah the happy and truculent, that new "scourge of God" +upon the parasites of Labour--of poor Bennett, of Molloy, and of various +others who had found time to drop in upon him since the Labour smash, +kept whirling in his mind. The same prediction he had just made to +Marcella was to be discerned in several of them. He vowed to himself +that he would write to Raeburn that night, congratulate him and the +party on the possibility of so eminent a recruit--and hint another item +of news by the way. She had trusted her confidence to him without any +pledge--an act for which he paid her well thenceforward, in the coin of +a friendship far more intimate, expansive, and delightful than anything +his sincerity had as yet allowed him to show her. + +But these London incidents and memories, near as they were in time, +looked many of them strangely remote to Marcella in this morning +silence. When she drew back from the window, after darkening the now +sun-flooded room in a very thorough business-like way, in order that she +might have four or five hours' sleep, there was something symbolic in +the act. She gave back her mind, her self, to the cares, the anxieties, +the remorses of the past three weeks. During the night she had been +sitting up with her father that her mother might rest. Now, as she lay +down, she thought with the sore tension which had lately become habitual +to her, of her father's state, her mother's strange personality, her own +short-comings. + + * * * * * + +By the middle of the morning she was downstairs again, vigorous and +fresh as ever. Mrs. Boyce's maid was for the moment in charge of the +patient, who was doing well. Mrs. Boyce was writing some household notes +in the drawing-room. Marcella went in search of her. + +The bare room, just as it ever was--with its faded antique charm--looked +bright and tempting in the sun. But the cheerfulness of it did but +sharpen the impression of that thin form writing in the window. Mrs. +Boyce looked years older. The figure had shrunk and flattened into that +of an old woman; the hair, which two years before had been still young +and abundant, was now easily concealed under the close white cap she had +adopted very soon after her daughter had left Mellor. The dress was +still exquisitely neat; but plainer and coarser. Only the beautiful +hands and the delicate stateliness of carriage remained--sole relics of +a loveliness which had cost its owner few pangs to part with. + +Marcella hovered near her--a little behind her--looking at her from time +to time with a yearning compunction--which Mrs. Boyce seemed to be aware +of, and to avoid. + +"Mamma, can't I do those letters for you? I am quite fresh." + +"No, thank you. They are just done." + +When they were all finished and stamped, Mrs. Boyce made some careful +entries in a very methodical account-book, and then got up, locking the +drawers of her little writing-table behind her. + +"We can keep the London nurse another week I think," she said. + +"There is no need," said Marcella, quickly. "Emma and I could divide the +nights now and spare you altogether. You see I can sleep at any time." + +"Your father seems to prefer Nurse Wenlock," said Mrs. Boyce. + +Marcella took the little blow in silence. No doubt it was her due. +During the past two years she had spent two separate months at Mellor; +she had gone away in opposition to her father's wish; and had found +herself on her return more of a stranger to her parents than ever. Mr. +Boyce's illness, involving a steady extension of paralytic weakness, +with occasional acute fits of pain and danger, had made steady though +very gradual progress all the time. But it was not till some days after +her return home that Marcella had realised a tenth part of what her +mother had undergone since the disastrous spring of the murder. + +She passed now from the subject of the nurse with a half-timid remark +about "expense." + +"Oh! the expense doesn't matter!" said Mrs. Boyce, as she stood absently +before the lately kindled fire, warming her chilled fingers at the +blaze. + +"Papa is more at ease in those ways?" Marcella ventured. And kneeling +down beside her mother she gently chafed one of the cold hands. + +"There seems to be enough for what is wanted," said Mrs. Boyce, bearing +the charing with patience. "Your father, I believe, has made great +progress this year in freeing the estate. Thank you, my dear. I am not +cold now." + +And she gently withdrew her hand. + +Marcella, indeed, had already noticed that there were now no weeds on +the garden-paths, that instead of one gardener there were three, that +the old library had been decently patched and restored, that there was +another servant, that William, grown into a very--tolerable footman, +wore a reputable coat, and that a plain but adequate carriage and horse +had met her at the station. Her pity even understood that part of her +father's bitter resentment of his ever-advancing disablement came from +his feeling that here at last--just as death was in sight--he, that +squalid failure, Dick Boyce, was making a success of something. + +Presently, as she knelt before the fire, a question escaped her, which, +when it was spoken, she half regretted. + +"Has papa been able to do anything for the cottages yet?" + +"I don't think so," said Mrs. Boyce, calmly. After a minute's pause she +added, "That will be for your reign, my dear." + +Marcella looked up with a sharp thrill of pain. + +"Papa is better, mamma, and--and I don't know what you mean. I shall +never reign here without you." + +Mrs. Boyce began to fidget with the rings on her thin left hand. + +"When Mellor ceases to be your father's it will be yours," she said, not +without a certain sharp decision; "that was settled long ago. I must be +free--and if you are to do anything with this place, you must give your +youth and strength to it. And your father is not better--except for the +moment. Dr. Clarke exactly foretold the course of his illness to me two +years ago, on my urgent request. He may live four months--six, if we can +get him to the South. More is impossible." + +There was something ghastly in her dry composure. Marcella caught her +hand again and leant her trembling young cheek against it. + +"I could not live here without you, mamma!" + +Mrs. Boyce could not for once repress the inner fever which in general +her will controlled so well. + +"I hardly think it would matter to you so much, my dear." + +Marcella shrank. + +"I don't wonder you say that!" she said in a low voice. "Do you think it +was all a mistake, mamma, my going away eighteen months ago--a wrong +act?" + +Mrs. Boyce grew restless. + +"I judge nobody, my dear!--unless I am obliged. As you know, I am for +liberty--above all"--she spoke with emphasis--"for letting the past +alone. But I imagine you must certainly have learnt to do without us. +Now I ought to go to your father." + +But Marcella held her. + +"Do you remember in the _Purgatorio_, mamma, the lines about the loser +in the game: 'When the game of dice breaks up, he who lost lingers +sorrowfully behind, going over the throws, and _learning by his grief_'? +Do you remember?" + +Mrs. Boyce looked down upon her, involuntarily a little curious, a +little nervous, but assenting. It was one of the inconsistencies of her +strange character that she had all her life been a persistent Dante +student. The taste for the most strenuous and passionate of poets had +developed in her happy youth; it had survived through the loneliness of +her middle life. Like everything else personal to herself she never +spoke of it; but the little worn books on her table had been familiar to +Marcella from a child. + +"_E tristo impara?_" repeated Marcella, her voice wavering. "Mamma +"--she laid her face against her mother's dress again--"I have lost more +throws than you think in the last two years. Won't you believe I may +have learnt a little?" + +She raised her eyes to her mother's pinched and mask-like face. Mrs. +Boyce's lips moved as though she would have asked a question. But she +did not ask it. She drew, instead, the stealthy breath Marcella knew +well--the breath of one who has measured precisely her own powers of +endurance, and will not risk them for a moment by any digression into +alien fields of emotion. + +"Well, but one expects persons like you to learn," she said, with a +light, cold manner, which made the words mere convention. There was +silence an instant; then, probably to release herself, her hand just +touched her daughter's hair. "Now, will you come up in half an hour? +That was twelve striking, and Emma is never quite punctual with his +food." + + * * * * * + +Marcella went to her father at the hour named. She found him in his +wheeled chair, beside a window opened to the sun, and overlooking the +Cedar Garden. The room in which he sat was the state bedroom of the old +house. It had a marvellous paper of branching trees and parrots and +red-robed Chinamen, in the taste of the morning room downstairs, a +carved four-post bed, a grate adorned with purplish Dutch tiles, an +array of family miniatures over the mantelpiece, and on a neighbouring +wall a rack of old swords and rapiers. The needlework hangings of the +bed were full of holes; the seats of the Chippendale chairs were frayed +or tattered. But, none the less, the inalienable character and dignity +of his sleeping-room were a bitter satisfaction to Richard Boyce, even +in his sickness. After all said and done, he was king here in his +father's and grandfather's place; ruling where they ruled, and--whether +they would or no--dying where they died, with the same family faces to +bear him witness from the walls, and the same vault awaiting him. + +When his daughter entered, he turned his head, and his eyes, deep and +black still as ever, but sunk in a yellow relic of a face, showed a +certain agitation. She was disagreeably aware that his thoughts were +much occupied with her; that he was full of grievance towards her, and +would probably before long bring the pathos of his situation as well as +the weight of his dying authority to bear upon her, for purposes she +already suspected with alarm. + +"Are you a little easier, papa?" she said, as she came up to him. + +"I should think as a nurse you ought to know better, my dear, than to +ask," he said testily. "When a person is in my condition, enquiries of +that sort are a mockery!" + +"But one may be in less or more pain," she said gently. "I hoped Dr. +Clarke's treatment yesterday might have given you some relief." + +He did not vouchsafe an answer. She took some work and sat down by him. +Mrs. Boyce, who had been tidying a table of food and medicine, came and +asked him if he would be wheeled into another room across the gallery, +which had been arranged as a sitting-room. He shook his head irritably. + +"I am not fit for it. Can't you see? And I want to speak to Marcella." + +Mrs. Boyce went away. Marcella waited, not without a tremor. She was +sitting in the sun, her head bent over the muslin strings she was +hemming for her nurse's bonnet. The window was wide open; outside, the +leaves under a warm breeze were gently drifting down into the Cedar +Garden, amid a tangled mass of flowers, mostly yellow or purple. To one +side rose the dark layers of the cedars; to the other, the grey front +of the library wing. + +Mr. Boyce looked at her with the frown which had now become habitual to +him, moved his lips once or twice without speaking; and at last made his +effort. + +"I should think, Marcella, you must often regret by now the step you +took eighteen months ago!" + +She grew pale. + +"How regret it, papa?" she said, without looking up. + +"Why, good God!" he said angrily; "I should think the reasons for regret +are plain enough. You threw over a man who was devoted to you, and could +have given you the finest position in the county, for the most +nonsensical reasons in the world--reasons that by now, I am certain, you +are ashamed of." + +He saw her wince, and enjoyed his prerogative of weakness. In his normal +health he would never have dared so to speak to her. But of late, during +long fits of feverish brooding--intensified by her return home--he had +vowed to himself to speak his mind. + +"Aren't you ashamed of them?" he repeated, as she was silent. + +She looked up. + +"I am not ashamed of anything I did to save Hurd, if that is what you +mean, papa." + +Mr. Boyce's anger grew. + +"Of course you know what everybody said?" + +She stooped over her work again, and did not reply. + +"It's no good being sullen over it," he said in exasperation; "I'm your +father, and I'm dying. I have a right to question you. It's my duty to +see something settled, if I can, before I go. Is it _true_ that all the +time you were attacking Raeburn about politics and the reprieve, and +what not, you were really behaving as you never ought to have behaved, +with Harry Wharton?" + +He gave out the words with sharp emphasis, and, bending towards her, he +laid an emaciated hand upon her arm. + +"What use is there, papa, in going back to these things?" she said, +driven to bay, her colour going and coming. "I may have been wrong in a +hundred ways, but you never understood that the real reason for it all +was that--that--I never was in love with Mr. Raeburn." + +"Then why did you accept him?" He fell back against his pillows with a +jerk. + +"As to that, I will confess my sins readily enough," she said, while her +lip trembled, and he saw the tears spring into her eyes. "I accepted him +for what you just now called his position in the county, though not +quite in that way either." + +He was silent a little, then he began again in a voice which gradually +became unsteady from self-pity. + +"Well, now look here! I have been thinking about this matter a great +deal--and God knows I've time to think and cause to think, considering +the state I'm in--and I see no reason whatever why I should not +try--before I die--to put this thing _straight_. That man was head over +ears in love with you, _madly_ in love with you. I used to watch him, +and I know. Of course you offended and distressed him greatly. He could +never have expected such conduct from you or any one else. But _he's_ +not the man to change round easily, or to take up with any one else. +Now, if you regret what you did or the way in which you did it, why +shouldn't I--a dying man may be allowed a little licence I should +think!--give him a hint?" + +"_Papa!_" cried Marcella, dropping her work, and looking at him with a +pale, indignant passion, which a year ago would have quelled him +utterly. But he held up his hand. + +"Now just let me finish. It would be no good my doing a thing of this +kind without saying something to you first, because you'd find it out, +and your pride would be the ruin of it. You always had a demoniacal +pride, Marcella, even when you were a tiny child; but if you make up +your mind now to let me tell him you regret what you did--just +that--you'll make him happy, and yourself, for you know very well he's a +man of the highest character--and your poor father, who never did _you_ +much harm anyway!" His voice faltered. "I'd manage it so that there +should be nothing humiliating to you in it whatever. As if there could +be anything humiliating in confessing such a mistake as that; besides, +what is there to be ashamed of? You're no pauper. I've pulled Mellor out +of the mud for you, though you and your mother do give me credit for so +precious little!" + +He lay back, trembling with fatigue, yet still staring at her with +glittering eyes, while his hand on the invalid table fixed to the side +of his chair shook piteously. Marcella dreaded the effect the whole +scene might have upon him; but, now they were in the midst of it, both +feeling for herself and prudence for him drove her into the strongest +speech she could devise. + +"Papa, if _anything_ of that sort were done, I should take care Mr. +Raeburn knew I had had nothing to do with it--in such a way that it +would be _impossible_ for him to carry it further. Dear papa, don't +think of such a thing any more. Because I treated Mr. Raeburn unjustly +last year, are we now to harass and persecute him? I would sooner +disappear from everybody I know--from you and mamma, from England--and +never be heard of again." + +She stopped a moment--struggling for composure--that she might not +excite him too much. + +"Besides, it would be absurd! You forget I have seen a good deal of Mr. +Raeburn lately--while I have been with the Winterbournes. He has +entirely given up all thought of me. Even my vanity could see that +plainly enough. His best friends expect him to marry a bright, +fascinating little creature of whom I saw a good deal in James Street--a +Miss Macdonald." + +"Miss how--much?" he asked roughly. + +She repeated the name, and then dwelt, with a certain amount of +confusion and repetition, upon the probabilities of the matter--half +conscious all the time that she was playing a part, persuading herself +and him of something she was not at all clear about in her own inner +mind--but miserably, passionately determined to go through with it all +the same. + +He bore with what she said to him, half disappointed and depressed, yet +also half incredulous. He had always been obstinate, and the approach of +death had emphasised his few salient qualities, as decay had emphasised +the bodily frame. He said to himself stubbornly that he would find some +way yet of testing the matter in spite of her. He would think it out. + +Meanwhile, step by step, she brought the conversation to less dangerous +things, and she was finally gliding into some chat about the +Winterbournes when he interrupted her abruptly-- + +"And that other fellow--Wharton. Your mother tells me you have seen him +in London. Has he been making love to you?" + +"Suppose I won't be catechised!" she said gaily, determined to allow no +more tragedy of any kind. "Besides, papa, you can't read your gossip as +good people should. Mr. Wharton's engagement to a certain Lady Selina +Farrell--a distant cousin of the Winterbournes--was announced, in +several papers with great plainness three weeks ago." + +At that moment her mother came in, looking anxiously at them both, and +half resentfully at Marcella. Marcella, sore and bruised in every moral +fibre, got up to go. + +Something in the involuntary droop of her beautiful head as she left the +room drew her father's eyes after her, and for the time his feeling +towards her softened curiously. Well, _she_ had not made very much of +her life so far! That old strange jealousy of her ability, her beauty, +and her social place, he had once felt so hotly, died away. He wished +her, indeed, to be Lady Maxwell. Yet for the moment there was a certain +balm in the idea that she too--her mother's daughter--with her Merritt +blood--could be unlucky. + +Marcella went about all day under a vague sense of impending +trouble--the result, no doubt, of that intolerable threat of her +father's, against which she was, after all, so defenceless. + +But whatever it was, it made her all the more nervous and sensitive +about the Hallins; about her one true friend, to whom she was slowly +revealing herself, even without speech; whose spiritual strength had +been guiding and training her; whose physical weakness had drawn to him +the maternal, the _spending_ instincts which her nursing life had so +richly developed. + +She strolled down the drive to meet the post. But there were no letters +from London, and she came in, inclined to be angry indeed with Louis +Craven for deserting her, but saying to herself at the same time that +she must have heard if anything had gone wrong. + +An hour or so later, just as the October evening was closing in, she was +sitting dreaming over a dim wood-fire in the drawing-room. Her father, +as might have been expected, had been very tired and comatose all day. +Her mother was with him; the London nurse was to sit up, and Marcella +felt herself forlorn and superfluous. + +Suddenly, in the silence of the house, she heard the front-door bell +ring. There was a step in the hall--she sprang up--the door opened, and +William, with fluttered emphasis, announced-- + +"Lord Maxwell!" + +In the dusk she could just see his tall form--the short pause as he +perceived her--then her hand was in his, and the paralysing astonishment +of that first instant had disappeared under the grave emotion of his +look. + +"Will you excuse me," he said, "for coming at this hour? But I am +afraid you have heard nothing yet of our bad news--and Hallin himself +was anxious I should come and tell you. Miss Hallin could not write, and +Mr. Craven, I was to tell you, had been ill for a week with a chill. You +haven't then seen any account of the lecture in the papers?" + +"No; I have looked yesterday and to-day in our paper, but there was +nothing--" + +"Some of the Radical papers reported it. I hoped you might have seen it. +But when we got down here this afternoon, and there was nothing from +you, both Miss Hallin and Edward felt sure you had not heard--and I +walked over. It was a most painful, distressing scene, and he--is very +ill." + +"But you have brought him to the Court?" she said trembling, lost in the +thought of Hallin, her quick breath coming and going. "He was able to +bear the journey? Will you tell me?--will you sit down?" + +He thanked her hurriedly, and took a seat opposite to her, within the +circle of the firelight, so that she saw his deep mourning and the look +of repressed suffering. + +"The whole thing was extraordinary--I can hardly now describe it," he +said, holding his hat in his hands and staring into the fire. "It began +excellently. There was a very full room. Bennett was in the chair--and +Edward seemed much as usual. He had been looking desperately ill, but he +declared that he was sleeping better, and that his sister and I coddled +him. Then,--directly he was well started!--I felt somehow that the +audience was very hostile. And _he_ evidently felt it more and more. +There was a good deal of interruption and hardly any cheers--and I saw +after a little--I was sitting not far behind him--that he was +discouraged--that he had lost touch. It was presently clear, indeed, +that the real interest of the meeting lay not in the least in what he +had to say, but in the debate that was to follow. They meant to let him +have his hour--but not a minute more. I watched the men about me, and I +could see them following the clock--thirsting for their turn. Nothing +that he said seemed to penetrate them in the smallest degree. He was +there merely as a ninepin to be knocked over. I never saw a meeting so +_possessed_ with a madness of fanatical conviction--it was amazing!" + +He paused, looking sadly before him. She made a little movement, and he +roused himself instantly. + +"It was just a few minutes before he was to sit down--I was +thankful!--when suddenly--I heard his voice change. I do not know now +what happened--but I believe he completely lost consciousness of the +scene before him--the sense of strain, of exhaustion, of making no way, +must have snapped something. He began a sort of confession--a reverie in +public--about himself, his life, his thoughts, his prayers, his +hopes--mostly his religious hopes--for the working man, for England--I +_never_ heard anything of the kind from him before--you know his +reserve. It was so intimate--so painful--oh! so painful!"--he drew +himself together with an involuntary shudder--"before this crowd, this +eager hostile crowd which was only pining for him to sit down--to get +out of their way. The men near me began to look at each other and +titter. They wondered what he meant by maundering on like that--'damned +canting stuff'--I heard one man near me call it. I tore off a bit of +paper, and passed a line to Bennett asking him to get hold of Edward, to +stop it. But I think Bennett had rather lost his presence of mind, and I +saw him look back at me and shake his head. Then time was up, and they +began to shout him down." + +Marcella made an exclamation of horror. He turned to her. + +"I think it was the most tragic scene I ever saw," he said with a +feeling as simple as it was intense. "This crowd so angry and +excited--without a particle of understanding or sympathy--laughing, and +shouting at him--and he in the midst--white as death--talking this +strange nonsense--his voice floating in a high key, quite unlike itself. +At last just as I was getting up to go to him, I saw Bennett rise. But +we were both too late. He fell at our feet!" + +Marcella gave an involuntary sob! "What a horror!" she said, "what a +martyrdom!" + +"It was just that," he answered in a low voice--"It was a martyrdom. And +when one thinks of the way in which for years past he has held these big +meetings in the hollow of his hand, and now, because he crosses their +passion, their whim,--no kindness!--no patience--nothing but a blind +hostile fury! Yet _they_ thought him a traitor, no doubt. Oh! it was all +a tragedy!" + +There was silence an instant. Then he resumed: + +"We got him into the back room. Luckily there was a doctor on the +platform. It was heart failure, of course, with brain prostration. We +managed to get him home, and Susie Hallin and I sat up. He was delirious +all night; but yesterday he rallied, and last night he begged us to move +him out of London if we could. So we got two doctors and an invalid +carriage, and by three this afternoon we were all at the Court. My aunt +was ready for him--his sister is there--and a nurse. Clarke was there to +meet him. He thinks he cannot possibly live more than a few +weeks--possibly even a few days. The shock and strain have been +irreparable." + +Marcella lay back in her chair, struggling with her grief, her head and +face turned away from him, her eyes hidden by her handkerchief. Then in +some mysterious way she was suddenly conscious that Aldous was no longer +thinking of Hallin, but of her. + +"He wants very much to see you," he said, bending towards her; "but I +know that you have yourself serious illness to nurse. Forgive me for not +having enquired after Mr. Boyce. I trust he is better?" + +She sat up, red-eyed, but mistress of herself. The tone had been all +gentleness, but to her quivering sense some slight indefinable +change--coldness--had passed into it. + +"He _is_ better, thank you--for the present. And my mother does not let +me do very much. We have a nurse too. When shall I come?" + +He rose. + +"Could you--come to-morrow afternoon? There is to be a consultation of +doctors in the morning, which will tire him. About six?--that was what +he said. He is very weak, but in the day quite conscious and rational. +My aunt begged me to say how glad she would be--" + +He paused. An invincible awkwardness took possession of both of them. +She longed to speak to him of his grandfather but could not find the +courage. + +When he was gone, she, standing alone in the firelight, gave one +passionate thought to the fact that so--in this tragic way--they had met +again in this room where he had spoken to her his last words as a lover; +and then, steadily, she put everything out of her mind but her +friend--and death. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Mrs. Boyce received Marcella's news with more sympathy than her daughter +had dared to hope for, and she made no remark upon Aldous himself and +his visit, for which Marcella was grateful to her. + +As they left the dining-room, after their short evening meal, to go up +to Mr. Boyce, Marcella detained her mother an instant. + +"Mamma, will you please not tell papa that--that Lord Maxwell came here +this afternoon? And will you explain to him why I am going there +to-morrow?" + +Mrs. Boyce's fair cheek flushed. Marcella saw that she understood. + +"If I were you, I should not let your father talk to you any more about +those things," she said with a certain proud impatience. + +"If I can help it!" exclaimed Marcella. "Will you tell him, +mamma,--about Mr. Hallin?--and how good he has been to me?" + +Then her voice failed her, and, hurriedly leaving her mother at the top +of the stairs, she went away by herself to struggle with a grief and +smart almost unbearable. + +That night passed quietly at the Court. Hallin was at intervals slightly +delirious, but less so than the night before; and in the early morning +the young doctor, who had sat up with him, reported him to Aldous as +calmer and a little stronger. But the heart mischief was hopeless, and +might bring the bruised life to an end at any moment. + +He could not, however, be kept in bed, owing to restlessness and +difficulty of breathing, and by midday he was in Aldous's sitting-room, +drawn close to the window, that he might delight his eyes with the wide +range of wood and plain that it commanded. After a very wet September, +the October days were now following each other in a settled and sunny +peace. The great woods of the Chilterns, just yellowing towards that +full golden moment--short, like all perfection,--which only beeches +know, rolled down the hill-slopes to the plain, their curving lines cut +here and there by straight fir stems, drawn clear and dark on the pale +background of sky and lowland. In the park, immediately below the +window, groups of wild cherry and of a slender-leaved maple made spots +of "flame and amethyst" on the smooth falling lawns; the deer wandered +and fed, and the squirrels were playing and feasting among the beech +nuts. + +Since Aldous and his poor sister had brought him home from the Bethnal +Green hall in which the Land Reform Conference had been held, Hallin had +spoken little, except in delirium, and that little had been marked by +deep and painful depression. But this morning, when Aldous was summoned +by the nurse, and found him propped up by the window, in front of the +great view, he saw gracious signs of change. Death, indeed, already in +possession, looked from the blue eyes so plainly that Aldous, on his +first entrance, had need of all his own strength of will to keep his +composure. But with the certainty of that great release, and with the +abandonment of all physical and mental struggle--the struggle of a +lifetime--Hallin seemed to-day to have recovered something of his +characteristic serenity and blitheness--the temper which had made him +the leader of his Oxford contemporaries, and the dear comrade of his +friend's life. + +When Aldous came in, Hallin smiled and lifted a feeble hand towards the +park and the woods. + +"Could it have greeted me more kindly," he said, in his whispering +voice, "for the end?" + +Aldous sat down beside him, pressing his hand, and there was silence +till Hallin spoke again. + +"You will keep this sitting-room, Aldous?" + +"Always." + +"I am glad. I have known you in it so long. What good talks we have had +here in the old hot days! I was hot, at least, and you bore with me. +Land Reform--Church Reform--Wages Reform--we have threshed them all out +in this room. Do you remember that night I kept you up till it was too +late to go to bed, talking over my Church plans? How full I was of +it!--the Church that was to be the people--reflecting their life, their +differences--governed by them--growing with them. You wouldn't join it, +Aldous--our poor little Association!" + +Aldous's strong lip quivered. + +"Let me think of something I _did_ join in," he said. + +Hallin's look shone on him with a wonderful affection. + +"Was there anything else you didn't help in? I don't remember it. I've +dragged you into most things. You never minded failure. And I have not +had so much of it--not till this last. This has been failure--absolute +and complete." + +But there was no darkening of expression. He sat quietly smiling. + +"Do you suppose anybody who could look beyond the moment would dream of +calling it failure?" said Aldous, with difficulty. + +Hallin shook his head gently, and was silent for a little time, +gathering strength and breath again. + +"I ought to suffer"--he said, presently. "Last week I dreaded my own +feeling if I should fail or break down--more than the failure itself. +But since yesterday--last night--I have no more regrets. I see that my +power is gone--that if I were to live I could no longer carry on the +battle--or my old life. I am out of touch. Those whom I love and would +serve, put me aside. Those who invite me, I do not care to join. So I +drop--into the gulf--and the pageant rushes on. But the curious thing is +now--I have no suffering. And as to the future--do you remember Jowett +in the Introduction to the Phaedo--" + +He feebly pointed to a book beside him, which Aldous took up. Hallin +guided him and he read-- + +"_Most persons when the last hour comes are resigned to the order of +nature and the will of God. They are not thinking of Dante's 'Inferno' +or 'Paradiso,' or of the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Heaven and Hell are not +realities to them, but words or ideas_--_the outward symbols of some +great mystery, they hardly know what_." + +"It is so with me," said Hallin, smiling, as, at his gesture, Aldous +laid the book aside; "yet not quite. To my _mind_, that mystery indeed +is all unknown and dark--but to the heart it seems unveiled--with the +heart, I see." + +A little later Aldous was startled to hear him say, very clearly and +quickly: + +"Do you remember that this is the fifth of October?" + +Aldous drew his chair closer, that he might not raise his voice. + +"Yes, Ned." + +"Two years, wasn't it, to-day? Will you forgive me if I speak of her?" + +"You shall say anything you will." + +"Did you notice that piece of news I sent you, in my last letter to +Geneva? But of course you did. Did it please you?" + +"Yes, I was glad of it," said Aldous, after a pause, "extremely glad. I +thought she had escaped a great danger." + +Hallin studied his face closely. + +"She is free, Aldous--and she is a noble creature--she has learnt from +life--and from death--this last two years. And--you still love her. Is +it right to make no more effort?" + +Aldous saw the perspiration standing on the wasted brow--would have +given the world to be able to content or cheer him--yet would not, for +the world, at such a moment be false to his own feeling or deceive his +questioner. + +"I think it is right," he said deliberately, "--for a good many reasons, +Edward. In the first place I have not the smallest cause--not the +fraction of a cause--to suppose that I could occupy with her now any +other ground than that I occupied two years ago. She has been kind and +friendly to me--on the whole--since we met in London. She has even +expressed regret for last year--meaning, of course, as I understood, for +the pain and trouble that may be said to have come from her not knowing +her own mind. She wished that we should be friends. And"--he turned his +head away--"no doubt I could be, in time.... But, you see--in all that, +there is nothing whatever to bring me forward again. My fatal mistake +last year, I think now, lay in my accepting what she gave me--accepting +it so readily, so graspingly even. That was my fault, my blindness, +and--it was as unjust to her--as it was hopeless for myself. For hers is +a nature"--his eyes came back to his friend; his voice took a new force +and energy--"which, in love at any rate, will give all or nothing--and +will never be happy itself, or bring happiness, till it gives all. That +is what last year taught me. So that even if she--out of kindness or +remorse for giving pain--were willing to renew the old tie--I should be +her worst enemy and my own if I took a single step towards it. Marriage +on such terms as I was thankful for last year, would be humiliation to +me, and bring no gain to her. It will never serve a man with her"--his +voice broke into emotion--"that he should make no claims! Let him claim +the uttermost far-thing--her whole self. If she gives it, _then_ he may +know what love means!" + +Hallin had listened intently. At Aldous's last words his expression +showed pain and perplexity. His mind was full of vague impressions, +memories, which seemed to argue with and dispute one of the chief things +Aldous had been saying. But they were not definite enough to be put +forward. His sensitive chivalrous sense, even in this extreme weakness, +remembered the tragic weight that attaches inevitably to dying words. +Let him not do more harm than good. + +He rested a little. They brought him food; and Aldous sat beside him +making pretence to read, so that he might be encouraged to rest. His +sister came and went; so did the doctor. But when they were once more +alone, Hallin put out his hand and touched his companion. + +"What is it, dear Ned?" + +"Only one thing more, before we leave it. Is that _all_ that stands +between you now--the whole? You spoke to me once in the summer of +feeling _angry_, more angry than you could have believed. Of course, I +felt the same. But just now you spoke of its all being your fault. Is +there anything changed in your mind?" + +Aldous hesitated. It was extraordinarily painful to him to speak of the +past, and it troubled him that at such a moment it should trouble +Hallin. + +"There is nothing changed, Ned, except that perhaps time makes _some_ +difference always. I don't want now"--he tried to smile--"as I did then, +to make anybody else suffer for my suffering. But perhaps I marvel even +more than I did at first, that--that--she could have allowed some things +to happen as she did!" + +The tone was firm and vibrating; and, in speaking, the whole face had +developed a strong animation most passionate and human. + +Hallin sighed. + +"I often think," he said, "that she was extraordinarily immature--much +more immature than most girls of that age--as to feeling. It was really +the brain that was alive." + +Aldous silently assented; so much so that Hallin repented himself. + +"But not now," he said, in his eager dying whisper; "not now. The plant +is growing full and tall, into the richest life." + +Aldous took the wasted hand tenderly in his own. There was something +inexpressibly touching in this last wrestle of Hallin's affection with +another's grief. But it filled Aldous with a kind of remorse, and with +the longing to free him from that, as from every other burden, in these +last precious hours of life. And at last he succeeded, as he thought, in +drawing his mind away from it. They passed to other things. Hallin, +indeed, talked very little more during the day. He was very restless and +weak, but not in much positive suffering. Aldous read to him at +intervals, from Isaiah or Plato, the bright sleepless eyes following +every word. + +At last the light began to sink. The sunset flooded in from the +Berkshire uplands and the far Oxford plain, and lay in gold and purple +on the falling woods and the green stretches of the park. The distant +edges of hill were extraordinarily luminous and clear, and Aldous, +looking into the west with the eye of one to whom every spot and line +were familiar landmarks, could almost fancy he saw beyond the invisible +river, the hill, the "lovely tree against the western sky," which keep +for ever the memory of one with whose destiny it had often seemed to him +that Hallin's had something in common. To him, as to Thyrsis, the same +early joy, the same "happy quest," the same "fugitive and gracious +light" for guide and beacon, that-- + + does not come with houses or with gold, + With place, with honour and a flattering crew; + +and to him, too, the same tasked pipe and tired throat, the same +struggle with the "life of men unblest," the same impatient tryst with +death. + +The lovely lines ran dirge-like in his head, as he sat, sunk in grief, +beside his friend. Hallin did not speak; but his eye took note of every +change of light, of every darkening tone, as the quiet English scene +with its villages, churches, and woods, withdrew itself plane by plane +into the evening haze. His soul followed the quiet deer, the homing +birds, loosening itself gently the while from pain and from desire, +saying farewell to country, to the poor, to the work left undone, and +the hopes unrealised--to everything except to love. + +It had just struck six when he bent forward to the window beneath which +ran the wide front terrace. + +"That was her step!" he said, while his face lit up, "will you bring her +here?" + + * * * * * + +Marcella rang the bell at the Court with a fast beating heart. The old +butler who came gave what her shrinking sense thought a forbidding +answer to her shy greeting of him, and led her first into the +drawing-room. A small figure in deep black rose from a distant chair and +came forward stiffly. Marcella found herself shaking hands with Miss +Raeburn. + +"Will you sit and rest a little before you go upstairs?" said that lady +with careful politeness, "or shall I send word at once? He is hardly +worse--but as ill as he can be." + +"I am not the least tired," said Marcella, and Miss Raeburn rang. + +"Tell his lordship, please, that Miss Boyce is here." + +The title jarred and hurt Marcella's ear. But she had scarcely time to +catch it before Aldous entered, a little bent, as it seemed to her, from +his tall erectness, and speaking with an extreme quietness, even +monotony of manner. + +"He is waiting for you--will you come at once?" + +He led her up the central staircase and along the familiar passages, +walking silently a little in front of her. They passed the long line of +Caroline and Jacobean portraits in the upper gallery, till just outside +his own door Aldous paused. + +"He ought not to talk long," he said, hesitating, "but you will know--of +course--better than any of us." + +"I will watch him," she said, almost inaudibly, and he gently opened the +door and let her pass, shutting it behind her. + +The nurse, who was sitting beside her patient, got up as Marcella +entered, and pointed her to a low chair on his further side. Susie +Hallin rose too, and kissed the new-comer hurriedly, absently, without +a word, lest she should sob. Then she and the nurse disappeared through +an inner door. The evening light was still freely admitted; and there +were some candles. By the help of both she could only see him +indistinctly. But in her own mind, as she sat down, she determined that +he had not even days to live. + +Yet as she bent over him she saw a playful gleam on the cavernous face. + +"You won't scold me?" said the changed voice--"you did warn me--you and +Susie--but--I was obstinate. It was best so!" + +She pressed her lips to his hand and was answered by a faint pressure +from the cold fingers. + +"If I could have been there!" she murmured. + +"No--I am thankful you were not. And I must not think of it--or of any +trouble. Aldous is very bitter--but he will take comfort by and by--he +will see it--and them--more justly. They meant me no unkindness. They +were full of an idea, as I was. When I came back to myself--first--all +was despair. I was in a blank horror of myself and life. Now it has +gone--I don't know how. It is not of my own will--some hand has lifted a +weight. I seem to float--without pain." + +He closed his eyes, gathering strength again in the interval, by a +strong effort of will--calling up in the dimming brain what he had to +say. She meanwhile, spoke to him in a low voice, mainly to prevent his +talking, telling him of her father, of her mother's strain of +nursing--of herself--she hardly knew what. Hew grotesque to be giving +him these little bits of news about strangers--to him, this hovering, +consecrated soul, on the brink of the great secret! + +In the intervals, while he was still silent, she could not sometimes +prevent the pulse of her own life from stirring. Her eye wandered round +the room--Aldous's familiar room. There, on the writing-table with its +load of letters and books, stood the photograph of Hallin; another, her +own, used to stand beside it; it was solitary now. + +Otherwise, all was just as it had been--flowers, books, newspapers--the +signs of familiar occupation, the hundred small details of character and +personality which in estrangement take to themselves such a smarting +significance for the sad and craving heart. The date--the +anniversary--echoed in her mind. + +Then, with a rush of remorseful pain, her thoughts came back to the +present and to Hallin. At the same moment she saw that his eyes were +open, and fixed upon her with a certain anxiety and expectancy. He made +a movement as though to draw her towards him; and she stooped to him. + +"I feel," he said, "as though my strength were leaving me fast. Let me +ask you one question--because of my love for you--and _him_. I have +fancied--of late--things were changed. Can you tell me--will you?--or is +it unfair?"--the words had all their bright, natural intonation--"Is +your heart--still where it was?--or, could you ever--undo the past--" + +He held her fast, grasping the hand she had given him with unconscious +force. She had looked up startled, her lip trembling like a child's. +Then she dropped her head against the arm of her chair, as though she +could not speak. + +He moved restlessly, and sighed. + +"I should not," he said to himself; "I should not--it was wrong. The +dying are tyrannous." + +He even began a word of sweet apology. But she shook her head. + +"Don't!" she said, struggling with herself; "don't say that! It would do +me good to speak--to you--" + +An exquisite smile dawned on Hallin's face. + +"Then!"--he said--"confess!" + + * * * * * + +A few minutes later they were still sitting together. She strongly +wished to go; but he would not yet allow it. His face was full of a +mystical joy--a living faith, which must somehow communicate itself in +one last sacramental effort. + +"How strange that you--and I--and he--should have been so mixed together +in this queer life. Now I seem to regret nothing--I _hope_ everything. +One more little testimony let me bear!--the last. We disappear one by +one--into the dark--but each may throw his comrades--a token--before he +goes. You have been in much trouble of mind and spirit--I have seen it. +Take my poor witness. There is one clue, one only--_goodness_--_the +surrendered will_. Everything is there--all faith--all religion--all +hope for rich or poor.--Whether we feel our way through consciously to +the Will--that asks our will--matters little. Aldous and I have differed +much on this--in words--never at heart! I could use words, symbols he +cannot--and they have given me peace. But half my best life I owe to +him." + +At this he made a long pause--but, still, through that weak grasp, +refusing to let her go--till all was said. Day was almost gone; the +stars had come out over the purple dusk of the park. + +"That Will--we reach--through duty and pain," he whispered at last, so +faintly she could hardly hear him, "is the root, the source. It leads us +in living--it--carries us in death. But our weakness and vagueness--want +help--want the human life and voice--to lean on--to drink from. We +Christians--are orphans--without Christ! There again--what does it +matter what we think--_about_ him--if only we think--_of_ him. In _one_ +such life are all mysteries, and all knowledge--and our fathers have +chosen for us--" + +The insistent voice sank lower and lower into final silence--though the +lips still moved. The eyelids too fell. Miss Hallin and the nurse came +in. Marcella rose and stood for one passionate instant looking down upon +him. Then, with a pressure of the hand to the sister beside her, she +stole out. Her one prayer was that she might see and meet no one. So +soft was her step that even the watching Aldous did not hear her. She +lifted the heavy latch of the outer door without the smallest noise, and +found herself alone in the starlight. + + * * * * * + +After Marcella left him, Hallin remained for some hours in what seemed +to those about him a feverish trance. He did not sleep, but he showed no +sign of responsive consciousness. In reality his mind all through was +full of the most vivid though incoherent images and sensations. But he +could no longer distinguish between them and the figures and movements +of the real people in his room. Each passed into and intermingled with +the other. In some vague, eager way he seemed all the time to be waiting +or seeking for Aldous. There was the haunting impression of some word to +say--some final thing to do--which would not let him rest. But something +seemed always to imprison him, to hold him back, and the veil between +him and the real Aldous watching beside him grew ever denser. + +At night they made no effort to move him from the couch and the +half-sitting posture in which he had passed the day. Death had come too +near. His sister and Aldous and the young doctor who had brought him +from London watched with him. The curtains were drawn back from both the +windows, and in the clearness of the first autumnal frost a crescent +moon hung above the woods, the silvery lawns, the plain. + +Not long after midnight Hallin seemed to himself to wake, full of +purpose and of strength. He spoke, as he thought, to Aldous, asking to +be alone with him. But Aldous did not move; that sad watching gaze of +his showed no change. Then Hallin suffered a sudden sharp spasm of +anguish and of struggle. Three words to say--only three words; but those +he _must_ say! He tried again, but Aldous's dumb grief still sat +motionless. Then the thought leapt in the ebbing sense, "Speech is gone; +I shall speak no more!" + +It brought with it a stab, a quick revolt. But something checked both, +and in a final offering of the soul, Hallin gave up his last desire. + +What Aldous saw was only that the dying man opened his hand as though it +asked for that of his friend. He placed his own within those seeking +fingers, and Hallin's latest movement--which death stopped half-way--was +to raise it to his lips. + + * * * * * + +So Marcella's confession--made in the abandonment, the blind passionate +trust, of a supreme moment--bore no fruit. It went with Hallin to the +grave. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I think I saw the letters arrive," said Mrs. Boyce to her daughter. +"And Donna Margherita seems to be signalling to us." + +"Let me go for them, mamma." + +"No, thank you, I must go in." + +And Mrs. Boyce rose from her seat, and went slowly towards the hotel. +Marcella watched her widow's cap and black dress as they passed along +the _pergola_ of the hotel garden, between bright masses of geraniums +and roses on either side. + +They had been sitting in the famous garden of the Cappucini Hotel at +Amalfi. To Marcella's left, far below the high terrace of the hotel, the +green and azure of the Salernian gulf shone and danced in the sun, to +her right a wood of oak and arbutus stretched up into a purple cliff--a +wood starred above with gold and scarlet berries, and below with +cyclamen and narcissus. From the earth under the leafy oaks--for the +oaks at Amalfi lose and regain their foliage in winter and spring by +imperceptible gradations--came a moist English smell. The air was damp +and warm. A convent bell tolled from invisible heights above the garden; +while the olives and vines close at hand were full of the chattering +voices of gardeners and children, and broken here and there by clouds of +pink almond-blossom. March had just begun, and the afternoons were fast +lengthening. It was little more than a fortnight since Mr. Boyce's +death. In the November of the preceding year Mrs. Boyce and Marcella had +brought him to Naples by sea, and there, at a little villa on Posilippo, +he had drawn sadly to his end. It had been a dreary time, from which +Marcella could hardly hope that her mother would ever fully recover. She +herself had found in the long months of nursing--nursing of which, with +quiet tenacity, she had gradually claimed and obtained her full share--a +deep moral consolation. They had paid certain debts to conscience, and +they had for ever enshrined her father's memory in the silence of an +unmeasured and loving pity. + +But the wife? Marcella sorely recognised that to her mother these last +days had brought none of the soothing, reconciling influences they had +involved for herself. Between the husband and wife there had been dumb +friction and misery--surely also a passionate affection!--to the end. +The invalid's dependence on her had been abject, her devotion wonderful. +Yet, in her close contact with them, the daughter had never been able to +ignore the existence between them of a wretched though tacit +debate--reproach on his side, self-defence or spasmodic effort on +hers--which seemed to have its origin deep in the past, yet to be +stimulated afresh by a hundred passing incidents of the present. Under +the blight of it, as under the physical strain of nursing, Mrs. Boyce +had worn and dwindled to a white-haired shadow; while he had both clung +to life and feared death more than would normally have been the case. +At the end he had died in her arms, his head on her breast; she had +closed his eyes and performed every last office without a tear; nor had +Marcella ever seen her weep from then till now. The letters she had +received, mostly, Marcella believed, from her own family, remained +unopened in her travelling-bag. She spoke very little, and was +constantly restless, nor could Marcella as yet form any idea of the +future. + +After the funeral at Naples Mrs. Boyce had written immediately to her +husband's solicitor for a copy of his will and a statement of affairs. +She had then allowed herself to be carried off to Amalfi, and had there, +while entirely declining to admit that she was ill, been clearly doing +her best to recover health and nerve sufficient to come to some +decision, to grapple with some crisis which Marcella also felt to be +impending--though as to why it should be impending, or what the nature +of it might be, she could only dread and guess. + +There was much bitter yearning in the girl's heart as she sat, breathed +on by the soft Italian wind blowing from this enchanted sea. The inner +cry was that her mother did not love her, had never loved her, and might +even now--weird, incredible thought!--be planning to desert her. Hallin +was dead--who else was there that cared for her or thought of her? Betty +Macdonald wrote often, wild, "_schwaermerisch_" letters. Marcella looked +for them with eagerness, and answered them affectionately. But Betty +must soon marry, and then all that would be at an end. Meanwhile +Marcella knew well it was Betty's news that made Betty's adoration +doubly welcome. Aldous Raeburn--she never did or could think of him +under his new name--was apparently in London, much occupied in politics, +and constantly, as it seemed, in Betty's society. What likelihood was +there that her life and his would ever touch again? She thought often of +her confession to Hallin, but in great perplexity of feeling. She had, +of course, said no word of secrecy to him at the time. Such a demand in +a man's last hour would have been impossible. She had simply followed a +certain mystical love and obedience in telling him what he asked to +know, and in the strong spontaneous impulse had thought of nothing +beyond. Afterwards her pride had suffered fresh martyrdom. Could he, +with his loving instinct, have failed to give his friend some sign? If +so, it had been unwelcome, for since the day of Hallin's funeral she and +Aldous had been more complete strangers than before. Lady Winterbourne, +Betty, Frank Leven, had written since her father's death; but from him, +nothing. + +By the way, Frank Leven had succeeded at Christmas, by old Sir Charles +Leven's unexpected death, to the baronetcy and estates. How would that +affect his chances with Betty?--if indeed there were any such chances +left. + +As to her own immediate future, Marcella knew from many indications that +Mellor would be hers at once. But in her general tiredness of mind and +body she was far more conscious of the burden of her inheritance than of +its opportunities. All that vivid castle-building gift which was +specially hers, and would revive, was at present in abeyance. She had +pined once for power and freedom, that she might make a Kingdom of +Heaven of her own, quickly. Now power and freedom, up to a certain +point, were about to be put into her hands; and instead of plans for +acting largely and bountifully on a plastic outer world, she was saying +to herself, hungrily, that unless she had something close to her to love +and live for, she could do nothing. If her mother would end these +unnatural doubts, if she would begin to make friends with her own +daughter, and only yield herself to be loved and comforted, why _then_ +it might be possible to think of the village and the straw-plaiting! +Otherwise--the girl's attitude as she sat dreaming in the sun showed her +despondency. + +She was roused by her mother's voice calling her from the other end of +the _pergola_. + +"Yes, mamma." + +"Will you come in? There are some letters." + +"It is the will," thought Marcella, as Mrs. Boyce turned back to the +hotel, and she followed. + +Mrs. Boyce shut the door of their sitting-room, and then went up to her +daughter with a manner which suddenly struck and startled Marcella. +There was natural agitation and trouble in it. + +"There is something in the will, Marcella, which will, I fear, annoy and +distress you. Your father inserted it without consulting me. I want to +know what you think ought to be done. You will find that Lord Maxwell +and I have been appointed joint executors." + +Marcella turned pale. + +"Lord Maxwell!" she said, bewildered. "_Lord Maxwell--Aldous_! What do +you mean, mamma?" + +Mrs. Boyce put the will into her hands, and, pointing the way among the +technicalities she had been perusing while Marcella was still lingering +in the garden, showed her the paragraph in question. The words of the +will were merely formal: "I hereby appoint," &c., and no more; but in a +communication from the family solicitor, Mr. French, which Mrs. Boyce +silently handed to her daughter after she had read the legal +disposition, the ladies were informed that Mr. Boyce had, before +quitting England, written a letter to Lord Maxwell, duly sealed and +addressed, with instructions that it should be forwarded to its +destination immediately after the writer's burial. "Those instructions," +said Mr. French, "I have carried out. I understand that Lord Maxwell was +not consulted as to his appointment as executor prior to the drawing up +of the will. But you will no doubt hear from him at once, and as soon as +we know that he consents to act, we can proceed immediately to probate." + +"Mamma, how _could_ he?" said Marcella, in a low, suffocated voice, +letting will and letter fall upon her knee. + +"Did he give you no warning in that talk you had with him at Mellor?" +said Mrs. Boyce, after a minute's silence. + +"Not the least," said Marcella, rising restlessly and beginning to walk +up and down. "He spoke to me about wishing to bring it on again--asked +me to let him write. I told him it was all done with--for ever! As to my +own feelings, I felt it was no use to speak of them; but I thought--I +_believed_, I had proved to him that Lord Maxwell had absolutely given +up all idea of such a thing; and that it was already probable he would +marry some one else. I told him I would rather disappear from every one +I knew than consent to it--he could only humiliate us all by saying a +word. And _now_, after that!--" + +She stopped in her restless walk, pressing her hands miserably together. + +"What _does_ he want with us and our affairs?" she broke out. "He +wishes, of course, to have no more to do with me. And now we force +him--_force_ him into these intimate relations. What can papa have said +in that letter to him? What _can_ he have said? Oh! it is unbearable! +Can't we write at once?" + +She pressed her hands over her eyes in a passion of humiliation and +disgust. Mrs. Boyce watched her closely. + +"We must wait, anyway, for his letter," she said. "It ought to be here +by to-morrow morning." + +Marcella sank on a chair by an open glass door, her eyes wandering, +through the straggling roses growing against the wall of the stone +balcony outside, to the laughing purples and greens of the sea. + +"Of course," she said unhappily, "it is most probable he will consent. +It would not be like him to refuse. But, mamma, you must write. _I_ must +write and beg him not to do it. It is quite simple. We can manage +everything for ourselves. Oh! how _could_ papa?" she broke out again in +a low wail, "how could he?" + +Mrs. Boyce's lips tightened sharply. It seemed to her a foolish +question. _She_, at least, had had the experience of twenty years out of +which to answer it. Death had made no difference. She saw her husband's +character and her own seared and broken life with the same tragical +clearness; she felt the same gnawing of an affection not to be plucked +out while the heart still beat. This act of indelicacy and injustice was +like many that had gone before it; and there was in it the same evasion +and concealment towards herself. No matter. She had made her account +with it all twenty years before. What astonished her was, that the force +of her strong coercing will had been able to keep him for so long within +the limits of the smaller and meaner immoralities of this world. + +"Have you read the rest of the will?" she asked, after a long pause. + +Marcella lifted it again, and began listlessly to go through it. + +"Mamma!" she said presently, looking up, the colour flushing back into +her face, "I find no mention of you in it throughout. There seems to be +no provision for you." + +"There is none," said Mrs. Boyce, quietly. "There was no need. I have my +own income. We lived upon it for years before your father succeeded to +Mellor. It is therefore amply sufficient for me now." + +"You cannot imagine," cried Marcella, trembling in every limb, "that I +am going to take the whole of my father's estate, and leave +nothing--_nothing_ for his wife. It would be impossible--unseemly. It +would be to do _me_ an injustice, mamma, as well as yourself," she added +proudly. + +"No, I think not," said Mrs. Boyce, with her usual cold absence of +emotion. "You do not yet understand the situation. Your father's +misfortunes nearly ruined the estate for a time. Your grandfather went +through great trouble, and raised large sums to--" she paused for the +right phrase--"to free us from the consequences of your father's +actions. I benefited, of course, as much as he did. Those sums crippled +all your grandfather's old age. He was a man to whom I was +attached--whom I respected. Mellor, I believe, had never been +embarrassed before. Well, your uncle did a little towards recovery--but +on the whole he was a fool. Your father has done much more, and you, no +doubt, will complete it. As for me, I have no claim to anything more +from Mellor. The place itself is"--again she stopped for a word of which +the energy, when it came, seemed to escape her--"hateful to me. I shall +feel freer if I have no tie to it. And at last I persuaded your father +to let me have my way." + +Marcella rose from her seat impetuously, walked quickly across the room, +and threw herself on her knees beside her mother. + +"Mamma, are you still determined--now that we two are alone in the +world--to act towards me, to treat me as though I were not your +daughter--not your child at all, but a stranger?" + +It was a cry of anguish. A sudden slight tremor swept over Mrs. Boyce's +thin and withered face. She braced herself to the inevitable. + +"Don't let us make a tragedy of it, my dear," she said, with a light +touch on Marcella's hands. "Let us discuss it reasonably. Won't you sit +down? I am not proposing anything very dreadful. But, like you, I have +some interests of my own, and I should be glad to follow them--now--a +little. I wish to spend some of the year in London; to make that, +perhaps, my headquarters, so as to see something of some old friends +whom I have had no intercourse with for years--perhaps also of my +relations." She spoke of them with a particular dryness. "And I should +be glad--after this long time--to be somewhat taken out of oneself, to +read, to hear what is going on, to feed one's mind a little." + +Marcella, looking at her, saw a kind of feverish light, a sparkling +intensity in the pale blue eyes, that filled her with amazement. What, +after all, did she know of this strange individuality from which her own +being had taken its rise? The same flesh and blood--what an irony of +nature! + +"Of course," continued Mrs. Boyce, "I should go to you, and you would +come to me. It would only be for part of the year. Probably we should +get more from each other's lives so. As you know, I long to see things +as they are, not conventionally. Anyway, whether I were there or no, you +would probably want some companion to help you in your work and plans. I +am not fit for them. And it would be easy to find some one who could act +as chaperon in my absence." + +The hot tears sprang to Marcella's eyes. "Why did you send me away from +you, mamma, all my childhood," she cried. "It was wrong--cruel. I have +no brother or sister. And you put me out of your life when I had no +choice, when I was too young to understand." + +Mrs. Boyce winced, but made no reply. She sat with her delicate hand +across her brow. She was the white shadow of her former self; but her +fragility had always seemed to Marcella more indomitable than anybody +else's strength. + +Sobs began to rise in Marcella's throat. + +"And now," she said, in half-coherent despair, "do you know what you are +doing? You are cutting yourself off from me--refusing to have any real +bond to me just when I want it most. I suppose you think that I shall be +satisfied with the property and the power, and the chance of doing what +I like. But"--she tried her best to gulp back her pain, her outraged +feeling, to speak quietly--"I am not like that really any more. I can +take it all up, with courage and heart, if you will stay with me, and +let me--let me--love you and care for you. But, by myself, I feel as if +I could not face it! I am not likely to be happy--for a long +time--except in doing what work I can. It is very improbable that I +shall marry. I dare say you don't believe me, but it is true. We are +both sad and lonely. We have no one but each other. And then you talk in +this ghastly way of separating from me--casting me off." + +Her voice trembled and broke, she looked at her mother with a frowning +passion. + +Mrs. Boyce still sat silent, studying her daughter with a strange, +brooding eye. Under her unnatural composure there was in reality a +half-mad impatience, the result of physical and moral reaction. This +beauty, this youth, talk of sadness, of finality! What folly! Still, she +was stirred, undermined in spite of herself. + +"There!" she said, with a restless gesture, "let us, please, talk of it +no more. I will come back with you--I will do my best. We will let the +matter of my future settlement alone for some months, at any rate, if +that will satisfy you or be any help to you." + +She made a movement as though to rise from her low chair. But the great +waters swelled in Marcella--swelled and broke. She fell on her knees +again by her mother, and before Mrs. Boyce could stop her she had thrown +her young arms close round the thin, shrunken form. + +"Mother!" she said. "Mother, be good to me--love me--you are all I +have!" + +And she kissed the pale brow and cheek with a hungry, almost a violent +tenderness that would not be gainsaid, murmuring wild incoherent things. + +Mrs. Boyce first tried to put her away, then submitted, being physically +unable to resist, and at last escaped from her with a sudden sob that +went to the girl's heart. She rose, went to the window, struggled hard +for composure, and finally left the room. + +But that evening, for the first time, she let Marcella put her on the +sofa, tend her, and read to her. More wonderful still, she went to sleep +while Marcella was reading. In the lamplight her face looked piteously +old and worn. The girl sat for long with her hands clasped round her +knees, gazing down upon it, in a trance of pain and longing. + + * * * * * + +Marcella was awake early next morning, listening to the full voice of +the sea as it broke three hundred feet below, against the beach and +rocky walls of the little town. She was lying in a tiny white room, one +of the cells of the old monastery, and the sun as it rose above the +Salernian mountains--the mountains that hold Paestum in their blue and +purple shadows--danced in gold on the white wall. The bell of the +cathedral far below tolled the hour. She supposed it must be six +o'clock. Two hours more or so, and Lord Maxwell's letter might be looked +for. + +She lay and thought of it--longed for it, and for the time of answering +it, with the same soreness that had marked all the dreams of a restless +night. If she could only see her father's letter! It was inconceivable +that he should have mentioned _her_ name in his plea. He might have +appealed to the old friendship between the families. That was possible, +and would have, at any rate, an _appearance_ of decency. But who could +answer for it--or for him? She clasped her hands rigidly behind her +head, her brows frowning, bending her mind with an intensity of will to +the best means of assuring Aldous Raeburn that she and her mother would +not encroach upon him. She had a perpetual morbid vision of herself as +the pursuer, attacking him now through his friend, now through her +father. Oh! when would that letter come, and let her write her own! + +She tried to read, but in reality listened for every sound of awakening +life in the hotel. When at last her mother's maid came in to call her, +she sprang up with a start. + +"Deacon, are the letters come?" + +"There are two for your mother, miss; none for you." + +Marcella threw on her dressing-gown, watched her opportunity, and +slipped in to her mother, who occupied a similar cell next door. + +Mrs. Boyce was sitting up in bed, with a letter before her, her pale +blue eyes fixed absently on the far stretch of sea. + +She looked round with a start as Marcella entered. "The letter is to me, +of course," she said. + +Marcella read it breathlessly. + +"Dear Mrs. Boyce,--I have this morning received from your solicitor, Mr. +French, a letter written by Mr. Boyce to myself in November of last +year. In it he asks me to undertake the office of executor, to which, I +hear from Mr. French, he has named me in his will. Mr. French also +enquires whether I shall be willing to act, and asks me to communicate +with you. + +"May I, then, venture to intrude upon you with these few words? Mr. +Boyce refers in his touching letter to the old friendship between our +families, and to the fact that similar offices have often been performed +by his relations for mine, or _vice versa_. But no reminder of the kind +was in the least needed. If I can be of any service to yourself and to +Miss Boyce, neither your poor husband nor you could do me any greater +kindness than to command me. + +"I feel naturally some diffidence in the matter. I gather from Mr. +French that Miss Boyce is her father's heiress, and comes at once into +the possession of Mellor. She may not, of course, wish me to act, in +which case I should withdraw immediately; but I sincerely trust that she +will not forbid me the very small service I could so easily and gladly +render. + +"I cannot close my letter without venturing to express the deep +sympathy I have felt for you and yours during the past six months. I +have been far from forgetful of all that you have been going through, +though I may have seemed so. I trust that you and your daughter will not +hurry home for any business cause, if it is still best for your health +to stay in Italy. With your instructions Mr. French and I could arrange +everything. + + "Believe me, + + "Yours most sincerely, + + "MAXWELL." + +"You will find it difficult, my dear, to write a snub in answer to that +letter," said Mrs. Boyce, drily, as Marcella laid it down. + +Marcella's face was, indeed, crimson with perplexity and feeling. + +"Well, we can think it over," she said as she went away. + +Mrs. Boyce pondered the matter a good deal when she was left alone. The +signs of reaction and change in Marcella were plain enough. What they +precisely meant, and how much, was another matter. As to him, Marcella's +idea of another attachment might be true, or might be merely the +creation of her own irritable pride. Anyway, he was in the mood to write +a charming letter. Mrs. Boyce's blanched lip had all its natural irony +as she thought it over. To her mind Aldous Raeburn's manners had always +been a trifle too good, whether for his own interests or for this wicked +world. And if he had any idea now of trying again, let him, for +Heaven's sake, not be too yielding or too eager! "It was always the +way," thought Mrs. Boyce, remembering a child in white frock and baby +shoes--"if you wished to make her want anything, you had to take it away +from her." + +Meanwhile the mere thought that matters might even yet so settle +themselves drew from the mother a long breath of relief. She had spent +an all but sleepless night, tormented by Marcella's claim upon her. +After twenty years of self-suppression this woman of forty-five, +naturally able, original, and independent, had seen a glimpse of +liberty. In her first youth she had been betrayed as a wife, degraded as +a member of society. A passion she could not kill, combined with some +stoical sense of inalienable obligation, had combined to make her both +the slave and guardian of her husband up to middle life; and her family +and personal pride, so strong in her as a girl, had found its only +outlet in this singular estrangement she had achieved between herself +and every other living being, including her own daughter. Now her +husband was dead, and all sorts of crushed powers and desires, mostly of +the intellectual sort, had been strangely reviving within her. Just +emerged, as she was, from the long gloom of nursing, she already wished +to throw it all behind her--to travel, to read, to make +acquaintances--she who had lived as a recluse for twenty years! There +was in it a last clutch at youth, at life. And she had no desire to +enter upon this new existence--in comradeship with Marcella. They were +independent and very different human beings. That they were mother and +daughter was a mere physical accident. + +Moreover, though she was amply conscious of the fine development in +Marcella during the past two years, it is probable that she felt her +daughter even less congenial to her now than of old. For the rich, +emotional nature had, as we have seen, "suffered conviction," had turned +in the broad sense to "religion," was more and more sensitive, +especially since Hallin's death, to the spiritual things and symbols in +the world. At Naples she had haunted churches; had read, as her mother +knew, many religious books. + +Now Mrs. Boyce in these matters had a curious history. She had begun +life as an ardent Christian, under evangelical influences. Her husband, +on the other hand, at the time she married him was a man of purely +sceptical opinions, a superficial disciple of Mill and Comte, and fond +of an easy profanity which seemed to place him indisputably with the +superior persons of this world. To the amazement and scandal of her +friends, Evelyn Merritt had not been three months his wife before she +had adopted his opinions _en bloc_, and was carrying them out to their +logical ends with a sincerity and devotion quite unknown to her teacher. +Thenceforward her conception of things--of which, however, she seldom +spoke--had been actively and even vehemently rationalist; and it had +been one of the chief sorenesses and shames of her life at Mellor that, +in order to suit his position as country squire, Richard Boyce had sunk +to what, in her eyes, were a hundred mean compliances with things +orthodox and established. + +Then, in his last illness, he had finally broken away from her, and his +own past. "Evelyn, I should like to see a clergyman," he had said to +her in his piteous voice, "and I shall ask him to give me the +Sacrament." She had made every arrangement accordingly; but her bitter +soul could see nothing in the step but fear and hypocrisy; and he knew +it. And as he lay talking alone with the man whom they had summoned, two +or three nights before the end, she, sitting in the next room, had been +conscious of a deep and smarting jealousy. Had not the hard devotion of +twenty years made him at least her own? And here was this black-coated +reciter of incredible things stepping into her place. Only in death she +recovered him wholly. No priest interfered while he drew his last breath +upon her bosom. + +And now Marcella! Yet the girl's voice and plea tugged at her withered +heart. She felt a dread of unknown softnesses--of being invaded and +weakened by things in her akin to her daughter, and so captured afresh. +Her mind fell upon the bare idea of a revival of the Maxwell engagement, +and caressed it. + +Meanwhile Marcella stood dressing by the open window in the sunlight, +which filled the room with wavy reflections caught from the sea. +Fishing-boats were putting off from the beach, three hundred feet below +her; she could hear the grating of the keels, the songs of the boatmen. +On the little breakwater to the right an artist's white umbrella shone +in the sun; and a half-naked boy, poised on the bows of a boat moored +beside the painter, stood bent in the eager attitude of one about to +drop the bait into the blue wave below. His brown back burnt against the +water. Cliff, houses, sea, glowed in warmth and light; the air was full +of roses and orange-blossom; and to an English sense had already the +magic of summer. + +And Marcella's hands, as she coiled and plaited her black hair, moved +with a new lightness; for the first time since her father's death her +look had its normal fire, crossed every now and then by something that +made her all softness and all woman. No! as her mother said, one could +not snub that letter or its writer. But how to answer it! In imagination +she had already penned twenty different replies. How not to be grasping +or effusive, and yet to show that you could feel and repay +kindness--there was the problem! + +Meanwhile, from that letter, or rather in subtle connection with it, her +thoughts at last went wandering off with a natural zest to her new realm +of Mellor, and to all that she would and could do for the dwellers +therein. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It was a bleak east-wind day towards the end of March. Aldous was at +work in the library at the Court, writing at his grandfather's table, +where in general he got through his estate and county affairs, keeping +his old sitting-room upstairs for the pursuits that were more +particularly his own. + +All the morning he had been occupied with a tedious piece of local +business, wading through endless documents concerning a dispute between +the head-master of a neighbouring grammar-school and his governing body, +of which Aldous was one. The affair was difficult, personal, odious. To +have wasted nearly three hours upon it was, to a man of Aldous's type, +to have lost a day. Besides he had not his grandfather's knack in such +things, and was abundantly conscious of it. + +However, there it was, a duty which none but he apparently could or +would do, and he had been wrestling with it. With more philosophy than +usual, too, since every tick of the clock behind him bore him nearer to +an appointment which, whatever it might be, would not be tedious. + +At last he got up and went to the window to look at the weather. A +cutting wind, clearly, but no rain. Then he walked into the +drawing-room, calling for his aunt. No one was to be seen, either there +or in the conservatory, and he came back to the library and rang. + +"Roberts, has Miss Raeburn gone out?" + +"Yes, my lord," said the old butler addressed. "She and Miss Macdonald +have gone out driving, and I was to tell your lordship that Miss Raeburn +would drop Miss Macdonald at Mellor on her way home." + +"Is Sir Frank anywhere about?" + +"He was in the smoking-room a little while ago, my lord." + +"Will you please try and find him?" + +"Yes, my lord." + +Aldous's mouth twitched with impatience as the old servant shut the +door. + +"How many times did Roberts manage to be-lord me in a minute?" he asked +himself; "yet if I were to remonstrate, I suppose I should only make him +unhappy." + +And walking again to the window, he thrust his hands into his pockets +and stood looking out with a far from cheerful countenance. + +One of the things that most tormented him indeed in this recent +existence was a perpetual pricking sense of the contrast between this +small world of his ancestral possessions and traditions, with all its +ceremonial and feudal usage, and the great rushing world outside it of +action and of thought. Do what he would, he could not un-king himself +within the limits of the Maxwell estate. To the people living upon it he +was the man of most importance within their ken, was inevitably their +potentate and earthly providence. He confessed that there was a real +need of him, if he did his duty. But on this need the class-practice of +generations had built up a deference, a sharpness of class-distinction, +which any modern must find more and more irksome in proportion to his +modernness. What was in Aldous's mind, as he stood with drawn brows +looking out over the view which showed him most of his domain, was a +sort of hot impatience of being made day by day, in a hundred foolish +ways, to play at greatness. + +Yet, as we know, he was no democrat by conviction, had no comforting +faith in what seemed to him the rule of a multitudinous ignorance. Still +every sane man of to-day knows, at any rate, that the world has taken +the road of democracy, and that the key to the future, for good or ill, +lies not in the revolts and speculations of the cultivated few, but in +the men and movements that can seize the many. Aldous's temper was +despondently critical towards the majority of these, perhaps; he had, +constitutionally, little of that poet's sympathy with the crowd, as +such, which had given Hallin his power. But, at any rate, they filled +the human stage--these men and movements--and his mind as a beholder. +Beside the great world-spectacle perpetually in his eye and thought, the +small old-world pomps and feudalisms of his own existence had a way of +looking ridiculous to him. He constantly felt himself absurd. It was +ludicrously clear to him, for instance, that in this kingdom he had +inherited it would be thought a huge condescension on his part if he +were to ask the secretary of a trades union to dine with him at the +Court. Whereas, in his own honest opinion, the secretary had a far more +important and interesting post in the universe than he. + +So that, in spite of a strong love of family, rigidly kept to himself, +he had very few of the illusions which make rank and wealth delightful. +On the other hand, he had a tyrannous sense of obligation, which kept +him tied to his place and his work--to such work as he had been spending +the morning on. This sense of obligation had for the present withdrawn +him from any very active share in politics. He had come to the +conclusion early in the year, just about the time when, owing to some +rearrangements in the _personnel_ of the Government, the Premier had +made him some extremely flattering overtures, that he must for the +present devote himself to the Court. There were extensive changes and +reforms going on in different parts of the estate: some of the schools +which he owned and mainly supported were being rebuilt and enlarged; and +he had a somewhat original scheme for the extension of adult education +throughout the property very much on his mind--a scheme which must be +organised and carried through by himself apparently, if it was to thrive +at all. + +Much of this business was very dreary to him, some of it altogether +distasteful. Since the day of his parting with Marcella Boyce his only +real _pleasures_ had lain in politics or books. Politics, just as they +were growing absorbing to him, must, for a while at any rate, be put +aside; and even books had not fared as well as they might have been +expected to do in the country quiet. Day after day he walked or rode +about the muddy lanes of the estate, doing the work that seemed to him +to be his, as best he could, yet never very certain of its value; +rather, spending his thoughts more and more, with regard to his own +place and function in the world, on a sort of mental apologetic which +was far from stimulating; sorely conscious the while of the unmatched +charm and effectiveness with which his grandfather had gone about the +same business; and as lonely at heart as a man can well be--the wound of +love unhealed, the wound of friendship still deep and unconsoled. To +bring social peace and progress, as he understood them, to this bit of +Midland England a man of first-rate capacities was perhaps sacrificing +what ambition would have called his opportunities. Yet neither was he a +hero to himself nor to the Buckinghamshire farmers and yokels who +depended on him. They had liked the grandfather better, and had become +stolidly accustomed to the grandson's virtues. + +The only gleam in the grey of his life since he had determined about +Christmas-time to settle down at the Court had come from Mr. French's +letter. That letter, together with Mr. Boyce's posthumous note, which +contained nothing, indeed, but a skilful appeal to neighbourliness and +old family friendship, written in the best style of the ex-Balkan +Commissioner, had naturally astonished him greatly. He saw at once what +_she_ would perceive in it, and turned impatiently from speculation as +to what Mr. Boyce might actually have meant, to the infinitely more +important matter, how she would take her father's act. Never had he +written anything with greater anxiety than he devoted to his letter to +Mrs. Boyce. There was in him now a craving he could not stay, to be +brought near to her again, to know how her life was going. It had first +raised its head in him since he knew that her existence and Wharton's +were finally parted, and had but gathered strength from the +self-critical loneliness and tedium of these later months. + +Mrs. Boyce's reply couched in terms at once stately and grateful, which +accepted his offer of service on her own and her daughter's behalf, had +given him extraordinary pleasure. He turned it over again and again, +wondering what part or lot Marcella might have had in it, attributing to +her this cordiality or that reticence; picturing the two women together +in their black dresses--the hotel, the _pergola_, the cliff--all of +which he himself knew well. Finally, he went up to town, saw Mr. French, +and acquainted himself with the position and prospects of the Mellor +estate, feeling himself a sort of intruder, yet curiously happy in the +business. It was wonderful what that poor sickly fellow had been able to +do in the last two years; yet his thoughts fell rather into amused +surmise as to what _she_ would find it in her restless mind to do in the +_next_ two years. + +Nevertheless, all the time, the resolution of which he had spoken to +Hallin seemed to himself unshaken. He recognised and adored the womanly +growth and deepening which had taken place in her; he saw that she +wished to show him kindness. But he thought he could trust himself now +and henceforward not to force upon her a renewed suit for which there +was in his eyes no real or abiding promise of happiness. + +Marcella and her mother had now been at home some three or four days, +and he was just about to walk over to Mellor for his first interview +with them. A great deal of the merely formal business consequent on Mr. +Boyce's death had been already arranged by himself and Mr. French. Yet +he had to consult Marcella as to certain investments, and in a pleasant +though quite formal little note he had that morning received from her +she had spoken of asking his advice as to some new plans for the estate. +It was the first letter she herself had as yet written to him; hitherto +all his correspondence had been carried on with Mrs. Boyce. It had +struck him, by the way, as remarkable that there was no mention of the +wife in the will. He could only suppose that she was otherwise provided +for. But there had been some curious expressions in her letters. + +Where was Frank? Aldous looked impatiently at the clock, as Roberts did +not reappear. He had invited Leven to walk with him to Mellor, and the +tiresome boy was apparently not to be found. Aldous vowed he would not +wait a minute, and going into the hall, put on coat and hat with most +business-like rapidity. + +He was just equipped when Roberts, somewhat breathless with long +searching, arrived in time to say that Sir Frank was on the front +terrace. + +And there Aldous caught sight of the straight though somewhat heavily +built figure, in its grey suit with the broad band of black across the +arm. + +"Hullo, Frank! I thought you were to look me up in the library. Roberts +has been searching the house for you." + +"You said nothing about the library," said the boy, rather sulkily, "and +Roberts hadn't far to search. I have been in the smoking-room till this +minute." + +Aldous did not argue the point, and they set out. It was presently +clear to the elder man that his companion was not in the best of +tempers. The widowed Lady Leven had sent her firstborn over to the Court +for a few days that Aldous might have some discussion as to his +immediate future with the young man. She was a silly, frivolous woman; +but it was clear, even to her, that Frank was not doing very well for +himself in the world; and advice she would not have taken from her son's +Oxford tutor seemed cogent to her when it came from a Raeburn. "Do at +least, for goodness' sake, get him to give up his absurd plan of going +to America!" she wrote to Aldous; "if he can't take his degree at +Oxford, I suppose he must get on without it, and certainly his dons seem +very unpleasant. But at least he might stay at home and do his duty to +me and his sisters till he marries, instead of going off to the +'Rockies' or some other ridiculous place. He really never seems to think +of Fanny and Rachel, or what he might do to help me to get them settled +now that his poor father is gone." + +No; certainly the young man was not much occupied with "Fanny and +Rachel!" He spoke with ill-concealed impatience, indeed, of both his +sisters and his mother. If his people would get in the way of everything +he wanted to do, they needn't wonder if he cut up rough at home. For the +present it was settled that he should at any rate go back to Oxford till +the end of the summer term--Aldous heartily pitying the unfortunate dons +who might have to do with him--but after that he entirely declined to be +bound. He swore he would not be tied at home like a girl; he must and +would see the world. This in itself, from a lad who had been accustomed +to regard his home as the centre of all delights, and had on two +occasions stoutly refused to go with his family to Rome, lest he should +miss the best month for his father's trout-stream, was sufficiently +surprising. + +However, of late some tardy light had been dawning upon Aldous! The +night after Frank's arrival at the Court Betty Macdonald came down to +spend a few weeks with Miss Raeburn, being for the moment that lady's +particular pet and _protegee_. Frank, whose sulkiness during the +twenty-four hours before she appeared had been the despair of both his +host and hostess, brightened up spasmodically when he heard she was +expected, and went fishing with one of the keepers, on the morning +before her arrival, with a fair imitation of his usual spirits. But +somehow, since that first evening, though Betty had chattered, and +danced, and frolicked her best, though her little figure running up and +down the big house gave a new zest to life in it, Frank's manners had +gone from bad to worse. And at last Aldous, who had not as yet seen the +two much together, and was never an observant man in such matters, had +begun to have an inkling. Was it _possible_ that the boy was in love, +and with Betty? He sounded Miss Raeburn; found that she did not rise to +his suggestion at all--was, in fact, annoyed by it--and with the usual +stupidity of the clever man failed to draw any reasonable inference from +the queerness of his aunt's looks and sighs. + +As to the little minx herself, she was inscrutable. She teased them all +in turns, Frank, perhaps, less than the others. Aldous, as usual, found +her a delightful companion. She would walk all over the estate with him +in the most mannish garments and boots conceivable, which only made her +childish grace more feminine and more provocative than ever. She took an +interest in all his tenants; she dived into all his affairs; she +insisted on copying his letters. And meanwhile, on either side were Miss +Raeburn, visibly recovering day by day her old cheeriness and bustle, +and Frank--Frank, who ate nothing, or nothing commensurate to his bulk, +and, if possible, said less. + +Aldous had begun to feel that the situation must be probed somehow, and +had devised this walk, indeed, with some vague intention of plying +remonstrances and enquiries. He had an old affection for the boy, which +Lady Leven had reckoned upon. + +The first difficulty, of course, was to make him talk at all. Aldous +tried various sporting "gambits" with very small success. At last, by +good-luck, the boy rose to something like animation in describing an +encounter he had had the week before with a piebald weasel in the course +of a morning's ferreting. + +"All at once we saw the creature's head poke out of the hole--_pure +white_, with a brown patch on it. When it saw us, back it scooted!--and +we sent in another ferret after the one that was there already. My +goodness! there _was_ a shindy down in the earth--you could hear them +rolling and kicking like anything. We had our guns ready,--but all of a +sudden everything stopped--not a sound or a sign of anything! We threw +down our guns and dug away like blazes. Presently we came on the two +ferrets gorging away at a dead rabbit,--nasty little beasts!--that +accounted for _them_; but where on earth was the weasel? I really began +to think we had imagined the creature, when, whish! came a flash of +white lightning, and out the thing bolted--pure white with a splash of +brown--its winter coat, of course. I shot at it, but it was no go. If +I'd only put a bag over the hole, and not been an idiot, I should have +caught it." + +The boy swung along, busily ruminating for a minute or two, and +forgetting his trouble. + +"I've seen one something like it before," he went on--"ages ago, when I +was a little chap, and Harry Wharton and I were out rabbiting. By the +way--" he stopped short--"do you see that that fellow's come back?" + +"I saw the paragraph in the _Times_ this morning," said Aldous, drily. + +"And I've got a letter from Fanny this morning, to say that he and Lady +Selina are to be married in July, and that she's going about making a +martyr and a saint of him, talking of the 'persecution' he's had to put +up with, and the vulgar fellows who couldn't appreciate him, and +generally making an ass of herself. Oh! he won't ask any of us to his +wedding--trust him. It is a rum business. You know Willie Ffolliot--that +queer dark fellow--that used to be in the 10th Hussars--did all those +wild things in the Soudan?" + +"Yes--slightly." + +"I heard all about it from him. He was one of that gambling set at +Harry's club there's been all that talk about you know, since Harry came +to grief. Well!--he was going along Piccadilly one night last summer, +quite late, between eleven and twelve, when Harry caught hold of him +from behind. Willie thought he was out of his mind, or drunk. He told me +he never saw anybody in such a queer state in his life. 'You come along +with me,' said Harry, 'come and talk to me, or I shall shoot myself!' So +Willie asked him what was up. 'I'm engaged to be married,' said Harry. +Whereupon Willie remarked that, considering his manner and his +appearance, he was sorry for the young lady. '_Young_!' said Harry as +though he would have knocked him down. And then it came out that he had +just--that moment!--engaged himself to Lady Selina. And it was the very +same day that he got into that precious mess in the House--the _very +same night_! I suppose he went to her to be comforted, and thought he'd +pull something off, anyway! Why she took him! But of course she's no +chicken, and old Alresford may die any day. And about the bribery +business--I suppose he made her think him an injured innocent. Anyway, +he talked to Willie, when they got to his rooms, like a raving lunatic, +and you know he was always such a cool hand. 'Ffolliot,' he said, 'can +you come with me to Siam next week?' 'How much?' said Will. 'I thought +you were engaged to Lady Selina.' Then he swore little oaths, and vowed +he had told her he must have a year. 'We'll go and explore those temples +in Siam,' he said, and then he muttered something about 'Why should I +ever come back?' Presently he began to talk of the strike--and the +paper--and the bribe, and all the rest of it, making out a long +rigmarole story. Oh! of course he'd done everything for the best--trust +him!--and everybody else was a cur and a slanderer. And Ffolliot +declared he felt quite pulpy--the man was such a wreck; and he said he'd +go with him to Siam, or anywhere else, if he'd only cheer up. And they +got out the maps, and Harry began to quiet down, and at last Will got +him to bed. Fanny says Ffolliot reports he had great difficulty in +dragging him home. However, Lady Selina has no luck!--there he is." + +"Oh! he will be one of the shining lights of our side before long," said +Aldous, with resignation. "Since he gave up his seat here, there has +been some talk of finding him one in the Alresfords' neighbourhood, I +believe. But I don't suppose anybody's very anxious for him. He is to +address a meeting, I see, on the Tory Labour Programme next week. The +_Clarion_, I suppose, will go round with him." + +"Beastly rag!" said Frank, fervently. "It's rather a queer thing, isn't +it, that such a clever chap as that should have made such a mess of his +chances. It almost makes one not mind being a fool." + +He laughed, but bitterly, and at the same moment the cloud that for some +twenty minutes or so seemed to have completely rolled away descended +again on eye and expression. + +"Well, there are worse things than being a fool," said Aldous, with +insidious emphasis--"sulking, and shutting up with your best friends, +for instance." + +Frank flushed deeply, and turned upon him with a sort of uncertain fury. + +"I don't know what you mean." + +Whereupon Aldous slipped his arm inside the boy's, and prepared himself +with resignation for the scene that had to be got through somehow, when +Frank suddenly exclaimed: + +"I say, there's Miss Boyce!" + +Never was a man more quickly and completely recalled from altruism to +his own affairs. Aldous dropped his companion's arm, straightened +himself with a thrill of the whole being, and saw Marcella some distance +ahead of them in the Mellor drive, which they had just entered. She was +stooping over something on the ground, and was not apparently aware of +their approach. A ray of cold sun came out at the moment, touched the +bending figure and the grass at her feet--grass starred with primroses, +which she was gathering. + +"I didn't know you were going to call," said Frank, bewildered. "Isn't +it too soon?" + +And he looked at his companion in astonishment. + +"I came to speak to Miss Boyce and her mother on business," said Aldous, +with all his habitual reserve. "I thought you wouldn't mind the walk +back by yourself." + +"Business?" the boy echoed involuntarily. + +Aldous hesitated, then said quietly: + +"Mr. Boyce appointed me executor under his will." + +Frank lifted his eyebrows, and allowed himself at least an inward "By +Jove!" + +By this time Marcella had caught sight of them, and was advancing. She +was in deep mourning, but her hands were full of primroses, which shone +against the black; and the sun, penetrating the thin green of some +larches to her left, danced in her eyes and on a face full of sensitive +and beautiful expression. + +They had not met since they stood together beside Hallin's grave. This +fact was in both their minds. Aldous felt it, as it were, in the touch +of her hand. What he could not know was, that she was thinking quite as +much of his letter to her mother and its phrases. + +They stood talking a little in the sunshine. Then, as Frank was taking +his leave, Marcella said: + +"Won't you wait for--for Lord Maxwell, in the old library? We can get at +it from the garden, and I have made it quite habitable. My mother, of +course, does not wish to see anybody." + +Frank hesitated, then, pushed by a certain boyish curiosity, and by the +angry belief that Betty had been carried off by Miss Raeburn, and was +out of his reach till luncheon-time, said he would wait. Marcella led +the way, opened the garden-door of the lower corridor, close to the spot +where she had seen Wharton standing in the moonlight on a +never-to-be-forgotten night, and then ushered them into the library. The +beautiful old place had been decently repaired, though in no sense +modernised. The roof had no holes, and its delicate stucco-work, +formerly stained and defaced by damp, had been whitened, so that the +brown and golden tones of the books in the latticed cases told against +it with delightful effect. The floor was covered with a cheap matting, +and there were a few simple chairs and tables. A wood fire burnt on the +old hearth. Marcella's books and work lay about, and some shallow +earthenware pans filled with home-grown hyacinths scented the air. What +with the lovely architecture of the room itself, its size, its books +and old portraits, and the signs it bore of simple yet refined use, it +would have been difficult to find a gentler, mellower place. Aldous +looked round him with delight. + +"I hope to make a village drawing-room of it in time," she said casually +to Frank as she stooped to put a log on the fire. "I think we shall get +them to come, as it has a separate door, and scraper, and mat all to +itself." + +"Goodness!" said Frank, "they won't come. It's too far from the +village." + +"Don't you be so sure," said Marcella, laughing. "Mr. Craven has all +sorts of ideas." + +"Who's Mr. Craven?" + +"Didn't you meet him at my rooms?" + +"Oh! I remember," ejaculated the boy--"a frightful Socialist!" + +"And his wife's worse," said Marcella, merrily. "They've come down to +settle here. They're going to help me." + +"Then for mercy's sake keep them to yourself," cried Frank, "and don't +let them go loose over the county. We don't want them at our place." + +"Oh! your turn will come. Lord Maxwell"--her tone changed--became shy +and a little grave. "Shall we go into the Stone Parlour? My mother will +come down if you wish to see her, but she thought that--that--perhaps we +could settle things." + +Aldous had been standing by, hat in hand, watching her as she chattered +to Frank. As she addressed him he gave a little start. + +"Oh! I think we can settle everything," he said. + +"Well, this is rum!" said Frank to himself, as the door closed behind +them, and instead of betaking himself to the chair and the newspaper +with which Marcella had provided him, he began to walk excitedly up and +down. "Her father makes him executor--he manages her property for +her--and they behave nicely to each other, as though nothing had ever +happened at all. What the deuce does it mean? And all the time +Betty--why, Betty's devoted to him!--and it's as plain as a pikestaff +what that old cat, Miss Raeburn, is thinking of from morning till night! +Well, I'm beat!" + +And throwing himself down on a stool by the fire, his chin between his +hands, he stared dejectedly at the burning logs. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Meanwhile Marcella and her companion were sitting in the Stone Parlour +side by side, save for a small table between them, which held the +various papers Aldous had brought with him. At first, there had been on +her side--as soon as they were alone--a feeling of stifling +embarrassment. All the painful, proud sensations with which she had +received the news of her father's action returned upon her; she would +have liked to escape; she shrank from what once more seemed an +encroachment, a situation as strange as it was embarrassing. + +But his manner very soon made it impossible, indeed ridiculous, to +maintain such an attitude of mind. He ran through his business with his +usual clearness and rapidity. It was not complicated; her views proved +to be the same as his; and she was empowered to decide for her mother. +Aldous took notes of one or two of her wishes, left some papers with her +for her mother's signature, and then his work was practically done. +Nothing, throughout, could have been more reassuring or more everyday +than his demeanour. + +Then, indeed, when the end of their business interview approached, and +with it the opportunity for conversation of a different kind, both were +conscious of a certain tremor. To him this old parlour was torturingly +full of memories. In this very place where they sat he had given her +his mother's pearls, and taken a kiss in return from the cheek that was +once more so near to him. With what free and exquisite curves the hair +set about the white brow! How beautiful was the neck--the hand! What +ripened, softened charm in every movement! The touching and rebuking +thought rose in his mind that from her nursing experience, and its frank +contact with the ugliest realities of the physical life--a contact he +had often shrunk from realising--there had come to her, not so much +added strength, as a new subtlety and sweetness, some delicate, +vibrating quality, that had been entirely lacking to her first splendid +youth. + +Suddenly she said to him, with a certain hesitation: + +"There was one more point I wanted to speak to you about. Can you advise +me about selling some of those railway shares?" + +She pointed to an item in a short list of investments that lay beside +them. + +"But why?" said Aldous, surprised. "They are excellent property already, +and are going up in value." + +"Yes, I know. But I want some ready money immediately--more than we +have--to spend on cottage-building in the village. I saw a builder +yesterday and came to a first understanding with him. We are altering +the water-supply too. They have begun upon it already, and it will cost +a good deal." + +Aldous was still puzzled. + +"I see," he said. "But--don't you suppose that the income of the estate, +now that your father has done so much to free it, will be enough to meet +expenses of that kind, without trenching on investments? A certain +amount, of course, should be systematically laid aside every year for +rebuilding, and estate improvements generally." + +"Yes; but you see I only regard half of the income as mine." + +She looked up with a little smile. + +He was now standing in front of her, against the fire, his grey eyes, +which could be, as she well knew, so cold and inexpressive, bent upon +her with eager interest. + +"Only half the income?" he repeated. "Ah!"--he smiled kindly--"is that +an arrangement between you and your mother?" + +Marcella let her hand fall with a little despairing gesture. + +"Oh no!" she said--"oh no! Mamma--mamma will take nothing from me or +from the estate. She has her own money, and she will live with me part +of the year." + +The intonation in the words touched Aldous profoundly. + +"Part of the year?" he said, astonished, yet not knowing how to question +her. "Mrs. Boyce will not make Mellor her home?" + +"She would be thankful if she had never seen it," said Marcella, +quickly--"and she would never see it again if it weren't for me. It's +dreadful what she went through last year, when--when I was in London." + +Her voice fell. Glancing up at him involuntarily, her eye looked with +dread for some chill, some stiffening in him. Probably he condemned her, +had always condemned her for deserting her home and her parents. But +instead she saw nothing but sympathy. + +"Mrs. Boyce has had a hard life," he said, with grave feeling. + +Marcella felt a tear leap, and furtively raised her handkerchief to +brush it away. Then, with a natural selfishness, her quick thought took +another turn. A wild yearning rose in her mind to tell him much more +than she had ever done in old days of the miserable home-circumstances +of her early youth; to lay stress on the mean unhappiness which had +depressed her own child-nature whenever she was with her parents, and +had withered her mother's character. Secretly, passionately, she often +made the past an excuse. Excuse for what? For the lack of delicacy and +loyalty, of the best sort of breeding, which had marked the days of her +engagement? + +Never--_never_ to speak of it with him!--to pour out everything--to ask +him to judge, to understand, to forgive!-- + +She pulled herself together by a strong effort, reminding herself in a +flash of all that divided them:--of womanly pride--of Betty Macdonald's +presence at the Court--of that vain confidence to Hallin, of which her +inmost being must have been ashamed, but that something calming and +sacred stole upon her whenever she thought of Hallin, lifting everything +concerned with him into a category of its own. + +No; let her selfish weakness make no fettering claim upon the man before +her. Let her be content with the friendship she had, after all, +achieved, that was now doing its kindly best for her. + +All these images, like a tumultuous procession, ran through the mind in +a moment. He thought, as she sat there with her bent head, the hands +clasped round the knee in the way he knew so well, that she was full of +her mother, and found it difficult to put what she felt into words. + +"But tell me about your plan," he said gently, "if you will." + +"Oh! it is nothing," she said hurriedly. "I am afraid you will think it +impracticable--perhaps wrong. It's only this: you see, as there is no +one depending on me--as I am practically alone--it seemed to me I might +make an experiment. Four thousand a year is a great deal more than I +need ever spend--than I _ought_, of course, to spend on myself. I don't +think altogether what I used to think. I mean to keep up this house--to +make it beautiful, to hand it on, perhaps _more_ beautiful than I found +it, to those that come after. And I mean to maintain enough service in +it both to keep it in order and to make it a social centre for all the +people about--for everybody of all classes, so far as I can. I want it +to be a place of amusement and delight and talk to us all--especially to +the very poor. After all"--her cheek flushed under the quickening of her +thought--"_everybody_ on the estate, in their different degree, has +contributed to this house, in some sense, for generations. I want it to +come into their lives--to make it _their_ possession, _their_ pride,--as +well as mine. But then that isn't all. The people here can enjoy +nothing, use nothing, till they have a worthier life of their own. Wages +here, you know, are terribly low, much lower"--she added timidly--"than +with you. They are, as a rule, eleven or twelve shillings a week. Now +there seem to be about one hundred and sixty labourers on the estate +altogether, in the farmers' employment and in our own. Some, of course, +are boys, and some old men earning a half-wage. Mr. Craven and I have +worked it out, and we find that an average weekly increase of five +shillings per head--which would give the men of full age and in full +work about a pound a week--would work out at about two thousand a year." + +She paused a moment, trying to put her further statement into its best +order. + +"Your farmers, you know," he said, smiling, after a pause, "will be your +chief difficulty." + +"Of course! But I thought of calling a meeting of them. I have discussed +it with Mr. French--of course he thinks me mad!--but he gave me some +advice. I should propose to them all fresh leases, with certain small +advantages that Louis Craven thinks would tempt them, at a reduced +rental exactly answering to the rise in wages. Then, in return they must +accept a sort of fair-wage clause, binding them to pay henceforward the +standard wage of the estate." + +She looked up, her face expressing urgent though silent interrogation. + +"You must remember," he said quickly, "that though the estate is +recovering, and rents have been fairly paid about here during the last +eighteen months, you may be called upon at any moment to make the +reductions which hampered your uncle. These reductions will, of course, +fall upon you as before, seeing that the farmers, in a different way, +will be paying as much as before. Have you left margin enough?" + +"I think so," she said eagerly. "I shall live here very simply, and +accumulate all the reserve fund I can. I have set all my heart upon it. +I know there are not many people _could_ do such a thing--other +obligations would, must, come first. And it may turn out a mistake. +But--whatever happens--whatever any of us, Socialists or not, may hope +for in the future--here one _is_ with one's conscience, and one's money, +and these people, who like oneself have but the one life? In all labour, +it is the modern question, isn't it?--_how much_ of the product of +labour the workman can extract from the employer? About here there is no +union to act for the labourers--they have practically no power. But _in +the future_, we must surely _hope_ they will combine, that they will be +stronger--strong enough to _force_ a decent wage. What ought to prevent +my free will anticipating a moment--since I _can_ do it--that we all +want to see?" + +She spoke with a strong feeling; but his ear detected a new +note--something deeper and wistfuller than of old. + +"Well--as you say, you are for experiments!" he replied, not finding it +easy to produce his own judgment quickly. Then, in another tone--"it was +always Hallin's cry." + +She glanced up at him, her lips trembling. + +"I know. Do you remember how he used to say--'the big changes may +come--the big Collectivist changes. But neither you nor I will see them. +I pray _not_ to see them. Meanwhile--all still hangs upon, comes back +to, the individual, Here are you with your money and power; there are +those men and women whom you can share with--in new and honourable +ways--_to-day_.'" + +Then she checked herself suddenly. + +"But now I want you to tell me--will you tell me?--all the objections +you see. You must often have thought such things over." + +She was looking nervously straight before her. She did not see the flash +of half-bitter, half-tender irony that crossed his face. Her tone of +humility, of appeal, was so strange to him, remembering the past. + +"Yes, very often," he answered. "Well, I think these are the kind of +arguments you will have to meet." + +He went through the objections that any economist would be sure to weigh +against a proposal of the kind, as clearly as he could, and at some +length--but without zest. What affected Marcella all through was not so +much the matter of what he said, as the manner of it. It was so +characteristic of the two voices in him--the voice of the idealist +checked and mocked always by the voice of the observer and the student. +A year before, the little harangue would have set her aflame with +impatience and wrath. Now, beneath the speaker, she felt and yearned +towards the man. + +Yet, as to the scheme, when all demurs were made, she was "of the same +opinion still"! His arguments were not new to her; the inward eagerness +over-rode them. + +"In my own case"--he said at last, the tone passing instantly into +reserve and shyness, as always happened when he spoke of himself--"my +own wages are two or three shillings higher than those paid generally by +the farmers on the estate; and we have a pension fund. But so far, I +have felt the risks of any wholesale disturbance of labour on the +estate, depending, as it must entirely in my case, on the individual +life and will, to be too great to let me go further. I sometimes believe +that it is the farmers who would really benefit most by experiments of +the kind!" + +She protested vehemently, being at the moment, of course, not at all in +love with mankind in general, but only with those members of mankind who +came within the eye of imagination. He was enchanted to see the old self +come out again--positive, obstinate, generous; to see the old confident +pose of the head, the dramatic ease of gesture. + +Meanwhile something that had to be said, that must, indeed, be said, if +he were to give her serious and official advice, pressed uncomfortably +on his tongue. + +"You know," he said, not looking at her, when at last she had for the +moment exhausted argument and prophecy, "you have to think of those who +will succeed you here; still more you have to think--of marriage--before +you pledge yourself to the halving of your income." + +Now he must needs look at her intently, out of sheer nervousness. The +difficulty he had had in compelling himself to make the speech at all +had given a certain hardness and stiffness to his voice. She felt a +sudden shock and chill--resented what he had dismally felt to be an +imperative duty. + +"I do not think I have any need to think of it--in this connection," she +said proudly. And getting up, she began to gather her papers together. + +The spell was broken, the charm gone. He felt that he was dismissed. + +With a new formality and silence, she led the way into the hall, he +following. As they neared the library there was a sound of voices. + +Marcella opened the door in surprise, and there, on either side of the +fire, sat Betty Macdonald and Frank Leven. + +"_That's_ a mercy!" cried Betty, running forward to Marcella and kissing +her. "I really don't know what would have happened if Mr. Leven and I +had been left alone any longer. As for the Kilkenny cats, my dear, don't +mention them!" + +The child was flushed and agitated, and there was an angry light in her +blue eyes. Frank looked simply lumpish and miserable. + +"Yes, here I am," said Betty, holding Marcella, and chattering as fast +as possible. "I made Miss Raeburn bring me over, that I might _just_ +catch a sight of you. She would walk home, and leave the carriage for +me. Isn't it like all the topsy-turvy things nowadays? When _I'm_ her +age I suppose I shall have gone back to dolls. Please to look at those +ponies!--they're pawing your gravel to bits. And as for my watch, just +inspect it!"--She thrust it reproachfully under Marcella's eyes. "You've +been such a time in there talking, that Sir Frank and I have had time to +quarrel for life, and there isn't a minute left for anything rational. +Oh! good-bye, my dear, good-bye. I never kept Miss Raeburn waiting for +lunch yet, did I, Mr. Aldous? and I mustn't begin now. Come along, Mr. +Aldous! You'll have to come home with me. I'm frightened to death of +those ponies. You shan't drive, but if they bolt, I'll give them to you +to pull in. Dear, _dear_ Marcella, let me come again--soon--directly!" + +A few more sallies and kisses, a few more angry looks at Frank and +appeals to Aldous, who was much less responsive than usual, and the +child was seated, very erect and rosy, on the driving seat of the little +pony-carriage, with Aldous beside her. + +"Are you coming, Frank?" said Aldous; "there's plenty of room." + +His strong brow had a pucker of annoyance. As he spoke he looked, not at +Frank, but at Marcella. She was standing a trifle back, among the +shadows of the doorway, and her attitude conveyed to him an impression +of proud aloofness. A sigh that was half pain, half resignation, passed +his lips unconsciously. + +"Thank you, I'll walk," said Frank, fiercely. + + * * * * * + +"Now, will you please explain to me why you look like that, and talk +like that?" said Marcella, with cutting composure, when she was once +more in the library, and Frank, crimson to the roots of his hair, and +saying incoherent things, had followed her there. + +"I should think you might guess," said Frank, in reproachful misery, as +he hung over the fire. + +"Not at all!" said Marcella; "you are rude to Betty, and disagreeable to +me, by which I suppose that you are unhappy. But why should _you_ be +allowed to show your feelings, when other people don't?" + +Frank fairly groaned. + +"Well," he said, making efforts at a tragic calm, and looking for his +hat, "you will, none of you, be troubled with me long. I shall go home +to-morrow, and take my ticket for California the day after." + +_"You,"_ said Marcella, "go to California! What right have you to go to +California?" + +"What right?" Frank stared, then he went on impetuously. "If a girl +torments a man, as Betty has been tormenting me, there is nothing for +it, I should think, but to clear out of the way. I am going to clear out +of the way, whatever anybody says." + +"And shoot big game, I suppose--amuse yourself somehow?" + +Frank hesitated. + +"Well, a fellow can't do nothing," he said helplessly. "I suppose I +shall shoot." + +"And what right have you to do it? Have you any more right than a public +official would have to spend public money in neglecting his duties?" + +Frank stared at her. + +"Well, I don't know what you mean," he said at last, angrily; "give it +up." + +"It's quite simple what I mean. You have inherited your father's +property. Your tenants pay you rent, that comes from their labour. Are +you going to make no return for your income, and your house, and your +leisure?" + +"Ah! that's your Socialism!" cried the young fellow, roused by her tone. +"No return? Why, they have the land." + +"If I were a thorough-going Socialist," said Marcella, steadily, "I +should say to you, Go! The sooner you throw off all ties to your +property, the sooner you prove to the world that you and your class are +mere useless parasites, the sooner we shall be rid of you. But +unfortunately _I_ am not such a good Socialist as that. I waver--I am +not sure of what I wish. But one thing I _am_ sure of, that unless +people like you are going to treat their lives as a profession, to take +their calling seriously, there are no more superfluous drones, no more +idle plunderers than you, in all civilised society!" + +Was she pelting him in this way that she might so get rid of some of her +own inner smart and restlessness? If so, the unlucky Frank could not +guess it. He could only feel himself intolerably ill-used. He had meant +to pour himself out to her on the subject of Betty and his woes, and +here she was rating him as to his _duties_, of which he had hardly as +yet troubled himself to think, being entirely taken up either with his +grievances or his enjoyments. + +"I'm sure you know you're talking nonsense," he said sulkily, though he +shrank from meeting her fiery look. "And if I _am_ idle, there are +plenty of people idler than me--people who live on their money, with no +land to bother about, and nothing to do for it at all." + +"On the contrary, it is they who have an excuse. They have no natural +opening, perhaps--no plain call. You have both, and, as I said before, +you have no _right_ to take holidays before you have earned them. You +have got to learn your business first, and then do it. Give your eight +hours' day like other people! Who are you that you should have all the +cake of the world, and other people the crusts?" + +Frank walked to the window, and stood staring out, with his back turned +to her. Her words stung and tingled; and he was too miserable to fight. + +"I shouldn't care whether it were cake or crusts," he said at last, in a +low voice, turning round to her, "if only Betty would have me." + +"Do you think she is any the more likely to have you," said Marcella, +unrelenting, "if you behave as a loafer and a runaway? Don't you suppose +that Betty has good reasons for hesitating when she sees the difference +between you--and--and other people?" + +Frank looked at her sombrely--a queer mixture of expressions on the +face, in which the maturer man was already to be discerned at war with +the powerful young animal. + +"I suppose you mean Lord Maxwell?" + +There was a pause. + +"You may take what I said," she said at last, looking into the fire, "as +meaning anybody who pays honestly with work and brains for what society +has given him--as far as he can pay, at any rate." + +"Now look here," said Frank, coming dolefully to sit down beside her; +"don't slate me any more. I'm a bad lot, I know--well, an idle lot--I +don't think I am a _bad_ lot--But it's no good your preaching to me +while Betty's sticking pins into me like this. Now just let me tell you +how she's been behaving." + +Marcella succumbed, and heard him. He glanced at her surreptitiously +from time to time, but he could make nothing of her. She sat very quiet +while he described the constant companionship between Aldous and Betty, +and the evident designs of Miss Raeburn. Just as when he made his first +confidences to her in London, he was vaguely conscious that he was doing +a not very gentlemanly thing. But again, he was too unhappy to restrain +himself, and he longed somehow to make an ally of her. + +"Well, I have only one thing to say," she said at last, with an odd +nervous impatience--"go and ask her, and have done with it! She might +have some respect for you then. No, I won't help you; but if you don't +succeed, I'll pity you--I promise you that. And now you must go away." + +He went, feeling himself hardly treated, yet conscious nevertheless of a +certain stirring of the moral waters which had both stimulus and balm in +it. + +She, left behind, sat quiet in the old library for a few lonely minutes. +The boy's plight made her alternately scornful and repentant of her +sharpness to him. As to his report, one moment it plunged her in an +anguish she dared not fathom; the next she was incredulous--could not +simply make herself take the thing as real. + +But one thing had been real--that word from Aldous to her of +"_marriage_"! The nostril dilated, the breast heaved, as she lost all +thought of Frank in a resentful passion that could neither justify nor +calm itself. It seemed still as though he had struck her. Yet she knew +well that she had nothing to forgive. + + * * * * * + +Next morning she went down to the village meaning to satisfy herself on +two or three points connected with the new cottages. On the way she +knocked at the Rectory garden-door, in the hope of finding Mary Harden +and persuading her to come with her. + +She had not seen much of Mary since their return. Still, she had had +time to be painfully struck once or twice with the white and bloodless +look of the Rector's sister, and with a certain patient silence about +her which seemed to Marcella new. Was it the monotony of the life? or +had both of them been overworking and underfeeding as usual? The Rector +had received Marcella with his old gentle but rather distant kindness. +Two years before he had felt strongly about many of her proceedings, and +had expressed himself frankly enough, at least to Mary. Now he had put +his former disapprovals out of his mind, and was only anxious to work +smoothly with the owner of Mellor. He had a great respect for +"dignities," and she, as far as the village was concerned, was to be his +"dignity" henceforward. Moreover, he humbly and truly hoped that she +might be able to enlighten him as to a good many modern conceptions and +ideas about the poor, for which, absorbed as he was, either in +almsgiving of the traditional type, or spiritual ministration, or +sacramental theory, he had little time, and, if the truth were known, +little affinity. + +In answer to her knock Marcella heard a faint "Come in" from the +interior of the house. She walked into the dining-room, and found Mary +sitting by the little table in tears. There were some letters before +her, which she pushed away as Marcella entered, but she did not attempt +to disguise her agitation. + +"What is it, dear? Tell me," said Marcella, sitting down beside her, and +kissing one of the hands she held. + +And Mary told her. It was the story of her life--a simple tale of +ordinary things, such as wring the quiet hearts and train the unnoticed +saints of this world. In her first youth, when Charles Harden was for a +time doing some divinity lecturing in his Oxford college, Mary had gone +up to spend a year with him in lodgings. Their Sunday teas and other +small festivities were frequented by her brother's friends, men of like +type with himself, and most of them either clergymen or about to be +ordained. Between one of them, a young fellow looking out for his first +curacy, and Mary an attachment had sprung up, which Mary could not even +now speak of. She hurried over it, with a trembling voice, to the +tragedy beyond. Mr. Shelton got his curacy, went off to a parish in the +Lincolnshire Fens, and there was talk of their being married in a year +or so. But the exposure of a bitter winter's night, risked in the +struggle across one of the bleakest flats of the district to carry the +Sacrament to a dying parishioner, had brought on a peculiar and +agonising form of neuralgia. And from this pain, so nobly earned, had +sprung--oh! mystery of human fate!--a morphia-habit, with all that such +a habit means for mind and body. It was discovered by the poor fellow's +brother, who brought him up to London and tried to cure him. Meanwhile +he himself had written to Mary to give her up. "I have no will left, and +am no longer a man," he wrote to her. "It would be an outrage on my +part, and a sin on yours, if we did not cancel our promise." Charles, +who took a hard, ascetic view, held much the same language, and Mary +submitted, heart-broken. + +Then came a gleam of hope. The brother's care and affection prevailed; +there were rumours of great improvement, of a resumption of work. "Just +two years ago, when you first came here, I was beginning to +believe"--she turned away her head to hide the rise of tears--"that it +might still come right." But after some six or eight months of clerical +work in London fresh trouble developed, lung mischief showed itself, and +the system, undermined by long and deep depression, seemed to capitulate +at once. + +"He died last December, at Madeira," said Mary, quietly. "I saw him +before he left England. We wrote to each other almost to the end. He was +quite at peace. This letter here was from the chaplain at Madeira, who +was kind to him, to tell me about his grave." + +That was all. It was the sort of story that somehow might have been +expected to belong to Mary Harden--to her round, plaintive face, to her +narrow, refined experience; and she told it in a way eminently +characteristic of her modes of thinking, religious or social, with +old-fashioned or conventional phrases which, whatever might be the case +with other people, had lost none of their bloom or meaning for her. + +Marcella's face showed her sympathy. They talked for half an hour, and +at the end of it Mary flung her arms round her companion's neck. + +"There!" she said, "now we must not talk any more about it. I am glad I +told you. It was a comfort. And somehow--I don't mean to be unkind; but +I couldn't have told you in the old days--it's wonderful how much better +I like you now than I used to do, though perhaps we don't agree much +better." + +Both laughed, though the eyes of both were full of tears. + + * * * * * + +Presently they were in the village together. As they neared the Hurds' +old cottage, which was now empty and to be pulled down, a sudden look of +disgust crossed Marcella's face. + +"Did I tell you my news of Minta Hurd?" she said. + +No; Mary had heard nothing. So Marcella told the grotesque and ugly +news, as it seemed to her, which had reached her at Amalfi. Jim Hurd's +widow was to be married again, to the queer lanky "professor of +elocution," with the Italian name and shifty eye, who lodged on the +floor beneath her in Brown's Buildings, and had been wont to come in of +an evening and play comic songs to her and the children. Marcella was +vehemently sure that he was a charlatan--that he got his living by a +number of small dishonesties, that he had scented Minta's pension. But +apart from the question whether he would make Minta a decent husband, or +live upon her and beat her, was the fact itself of her re-marriage, in +itself hideous to the girl. + +"_Marry_ him!" she said. "Marry any one! Isn't it incredible?" + +They were in front of the cottage. Marcella paused a moment and looked +at it. She saw again in sharp vision the miserable woman fainting on the +settle, the dwarf sitting, handcuffed, under the eye of his captors; +she felt again the rush of that whirlwind of agony through which she had +borne the wife's helpless soul in that awful dawn. + +And after that--exit!--with her "professor of elocution." It made the +girl sick to think of. And Mary, out of a Puseyite dislike of second +marriage, felt and expressed much the same repulsion. + +Well--Minta Hurd was far away, and if she had been there to defend +herself her powers of expression would have been no match for theirs. +Nor does youth understand such pleas as she might have urged. + +"Will Lord Maxwell continue the pension?" said Mary. + +Marcella stopped again, involuntarily. + +"So that was his doing?" she said. "I supposed as much." + +"You did not know?" cried Mary, in distress. "Oh! I believe I ought not +to have said anything about it." + +"I always guessed it," said Marcella, shortly, and they walked on in +silence. + +Presently they found themselves in front of Mrs. Jellison's very trim +and pleasant cottage, which lay farther along the common, to the left of +the road to the Court. There was an early pear-tree in blossom over the +porch, and a swelling greenery of buds in the little garden. + +"Will you come in?" said Mary. "I should like to see Isabella Westall." + +Marcella started at the name. + +"How is she?" she asked. + +"Just the same. She has never been in her right mind since. But she is +quite harmless and quiet." + +They found Mrs. Jellison on one side of the fire, with her daughter on +the other, and the little six-year-old Johnnie playing between them. +Mrs. Jellison was straw-plaiting, twisting the straws with amazing +rapidity, her fingers stained with red from the dye of them. Isabella +was, as usual, doing nothing. She stared when Marcella and Mary came in, +but she took no other notice of them. Her powerful and tragic face had +the look of something originally full of intention, from which spirit +and meaning had long departed, leaving a fine but lifeless outline. +Marcella had seen it last on the night of the execution, in ghastly +apparition at Minta Hurd's window, when it might have been caught by +some sculptor in quest of the secrets of violent expression, fixed in +clay or marble, and labelled "Revenge," or "Passion." + +Its passionless emptiness now filled her with pity and horror. She sat +down beside the widow and took her hand. Mrs. Westall allowed it for a +moment, then drew her own away suddenly, and Marcella saw a curious and +sinister contraction of the eyes. + +"Ah! yo never know how much Isabella unnerstan's, an' how much she +don't," Mrs. Jellison was saying to Mary. "I can't allus make her out, +but she don't give no trouble. An' as for that boy, he's a chirruper, he +is. He gives 'em fine times at school, he do. Miss Barton, she ast him +in class, Thursday, 'bout Ananias and Sappira. 'Johnnie,' says she, +'whatever made 'em do sich a wicked thing?' 'Well, _I_ do'n' know,' says +he; 'it was jus' their nassty good-for-nothink,' says he; 'but they was +great sillies,' says he. Oh! he don't mean no harm!--lor' bless yer, +the men is all born contrary, and they can't help themselves. Oh! thank +yer, miss, my 'ealth is pretty tidy, though I 'ave been plagued this +winter with a something they call the 'flenzy. I wor very bad! 'Yo go to +bed, Mrs. Jellison,' says Dr. Sharpe, 'or yo'll know of it.' But I +worn't goin' to be talked to by 'im. Why, I knowed 'im when he wor no +'igher nor Johnnie. An' I kep' puddlin' along, an' one mornin' I wor +fairly choked, an' I just crawled into that parlour, an' I took a sup o' +brandy out o' the bottle"--she looked complacently at Mary, quite +conscious that the Rector's sister must be listening to her with +disapproving ears--"an', lor' bless yer, it cut the phlegm, it did, that +very moment. My! I did cough. I drawed it up by the yard, I did--and I +crep' back along the wall, and yo cud ha' knocked me down wi' one o' my +own straws. But I've been better iver since, an' beginnin' to eat my +vittles, too, though I'm never no great pecker--I ain't--not at no +time." + +Mary managed to smother her emotions on the subject of the brandy, and +the old woman chattered on, throwing out the news of the village in a +series of humorous fragments, tinged in general with the lowest opinion +of human nature. + +When the girls took leave of her, she said slily to Marcella: + +"An' 'ow about your plaitin', miss?--though I dessay I'm a bold 'un for +astin'." + +Marcella coloured. + +"Well, I've got it to think about, Mrs. Jellison. We must have a meeting +in the village and talk it over one of these days." + +The old woman nodded in a shrewd silence, and watched them depart. + +"Wull, I reckon Jimmy Gedge ull lasst my time," she said to herself with +a chuckle. + + * * * * * + +If Mrs. Jellison had this small belief in the powers of the new mistress +of Mellor over matters which, according to her, had been settled +generations ago by "the Lord and natur'," Marcella certainly was in no +mood to contradict her. She walked through the village on her return +scanning everything about her--the slatternly girls plaiting on the +doorsteps, the children in the lane, the loungers round the various +"publics," the labourers, old and young, who touched their caps to +her--with a moody and passionate eye. + +"Mary!" she broke out as they neared the Rectory, "I shall be +twenty-four directly. How much harm do you think I shall have done here +by the time I am sixty-four?" + +Mary laughed at her, and tried to cheer her. But Marcella was in the +depths of self-disgust. + +"What is wanted, really wanted," she said with intensity, "is not _my_ +help, but _their_ growth. How can I make them _take for +themselves_--take, roughly and selfishly even, if they will only take! +As for my giving, what relation has it to anything real or lasting?" + +Mary was scandalised. + +"I declare you are as bad as Mr. Craven," she said. "He told Charles +yesterday that the curtseys of the old women in the village to him and +Charles--women old enough to be their grandmothers--sickened him of the +whole place, and that he should regard it as the chief object of his +work here to make such things impossible in the future. Or perhaps +you're still of Mr.--Mr. Wharton's opinion--you'll be expecting Charles +and me to give up charity. But it's no good, my dear. We're not +'advanced,' and we never shall be." + +At the mention of Wharton Marcella threw her proud head back; wave after +wave of changing expression passed over the face. + +"I often remember the things Mr. Wharton said in this village," she said +at last. "There was life and salt and power in many of them. It's not +what he said, but what he was, that one wants to forget." + +They parted presently, and Marcella went heavily home. The rising of the +spring, the breath of the April air, had never yet been sad and +oppressive to her as they were to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +"Oh! Miss Boyce, may I come in?" + +The voice was Frank Leven's. Marcella was sitting in the old library +alone late on the following afternoon. Louis Craven, who was now her +paid agent and adviser, had been with her, and she had accounts and +estimates before her. + +"Come in," she said, startled a little by Frank's tone and manner, and +looking at him interrogatively. + +Frank shut the heavy old door carefully behind him. Then, as he advanced +to her she saw that his flushed face wore an expression unlike anything +she had yet seen there--of mingled joy and fear. + +She drew back involuntarily. + +"Is there anything--anything wrong?" + +"No," he said impetuously, "no! But I have something to tell you, and I +don't know how. I don't know whether I ought. I have run almost all the +way from the Court." + +And, indeed, he could hardly get his breath. He took a stool she pushed +to him, and tried to collect himself. She heard her heart beat as she +waited for him to speak. + +"It's about Lord Maxwell," he said at last, huskily, turning his head +away from her to the fire. "I've just had a long walk with him. Then he +left me; he had no idea I came on here. But something drove me; I felt +I must come, I must tell. Will you promise not to be angry with me--to +believe that I've thought about it--that I'm doing it for the best?" + +He looked at her nervously. + +"If you wouldn't keep me waiting so long," she said faintly, while her +cheeks and lips grew white. + +"Well,--I was mad this morning! Betty hasn't spoken to me since +yesterday. She's been always about with him, and Miss Raeburn let me see +once or twice last night that she thought I was in the way. I never +slept a wink last night, and I kept out of their sight all the morning. +Then, after lunch, I went up to him, and I asked him to come for a walk +with me. He looked at me rather queerly--I suppose I was pretty savage. +Then he said he'd come. And off we went, ever so far across the park. +And I let out. I don't know what I said; I suppose I made a beast of +myself. But anyway, I asked him to tell me what he meant, and to tell +me, if he could, what Betty meant. I said I knew I was a cool hand, and +he might turn me out of the house, and refuse to have anything more to +do with me if he liked. But I was going to rack and ruin, and should +never be any good till I knew where I stood--and Betty would never be +serious--and, in short, was he in love with her himself? for any one +could see what Miss Raeburn was thinking of." + +The boy gulped down something like a sob, and tried to give himself time +to be coherent again. Marcella sat like a stone. + +"When he heard me say that--'in love with her yourself,' he stopped +dead. I saw that I had made him angry. 'What right have you or any one +else,' he said, very short, 'to ask me such a question?' Then I just +lost my head, and said anything that came handy. I told him everybody +talked about it--which, of course, was rubbish--and at last I said, 'Ask +anybody; ask the Winterbournes, ask Miss Boyce--they all think it as +much as I do.' '_Miss Boyce_!' he said--'Miss Boyce thinks I want to +marry Betty Macdonald?' Then I didn't know what to say--for, of course, +I knew I'd taken your name in vain; and he sat down on the grass beside +a little stream there is in the park, and he didn't speak to me for a +long time--I could see him throwing little stones into the water. And at +last he called me. 'Frank!' he said; and I went up to him. And then--" + +The lad seemed to tremble all over. He bent forward and laid his hand on +Marcella's knee, touching her cold ones. + +"And then he said, 'I can't understand yet, Frank, how you or anybody +else can have mistaken my friendship for Betty Macdonald. At any rate, I +know there's been no mistake on her part. And if you take my advice, +you'll go and speak to her like a man, with all your heart, and see what +she says. You don't deserve her yet, that I can tell you. As for me'--I +can't describe the look of his face; I only know I wanted to go +away--'you and I will be friends for many years, I hope, so perhaps you +may just understand this, once for all. For me there never has been, and +there never will be, but one woman in the world--to love. And you know,' +he said after a bit, 'or you ought to know, very well, who that woman +is.' And then he got up and walked away. He did not ask me to come, and +I felt I dared not go after him. And then I lay and thought. I +remembered being here; I thought of what I had said to you--of what I +had fancied now and then about--about you. I felt myself a brute all +round; for what right had I to come and tell you what he told me? And +yet, there it was--I had to come. And if it was no good my coming, why, +we needn't say anything about it ever, need we? But--but--just look +here, Miss Boyce; if you--if you could begin over again, and make Aldous +happy, then there'd be a good many other people happy too--I can tell +you that." + +He could hardly speak plainly. Evidently there was on him an +overmastering impulse of personal devotion, gratitude, remorse, which +for the moment even eclipsed his young passion. It was but vaguely +explained by anything he had said; it rested clearly on the whole of his +afternoon's experience. + +But neither could Marcella speak, and her pallor began to alarm him. + +"I say!" he cried; "you're not angry with me?" + +She moved away from him, and with her shaking finger began to cut the +pages of a book that lay open on the mantelpiece. The little mechanical +action seemed gradually to restore her to self-control. + +"I don't think I can talk about it," she said at last, with an effort; +"not now." + +"Oh! I know," said Frank, in penitence, looking at her black dress; +"you've been upset, and had such a lot of trouble. But I--" + +She laid her hand on his shoulder. He thought he had never seen her so +beautiful, pale as she was. + +"I'm not the least angry. I'll tell you so--another day. Now, are you +going to Betty?" + +The young fellow sprang up, all his expression changing, answering to +the stimulus of the word. + +"They'll be home directly, Miss Raeburn and Betty," he said steadily, +buttoning his coat; "they'd gone out calling somewhere. Oh! she'll lead +me a wretched life, will Betty, before she's done!" + +A charming little ghost of a smile crossed Marcella's white lips. + +"Probably Betty knows her business," she said; "if she's quite +unmanageable, send her to me." + +In his general turmoil of spirits the boy caught her hand and kissed +it--would have liked, indeed, to kiss her and all the world. But she +laughed, and sent him away, and with a sly, lingering look at her he +departed. + +She sank into her chair and never moved for long. The April sun was just +sinking behind the cedars, and through the open south window of the +library came little spring airs and scents of spring flowers. There was +an endless twitter of birds, and beside her the soft chatter of the wood +fire. An hour before, her mood had been at open war with the spring, and +with all those impulses and yearnings in herself which answered to it. +Now it seemed to her that a wonderful and buoyant life, akin to all the +vast stir, the sweet revivals of Nature, was flooding her whole being. + +She gave herself up to it, in a trance interwoven with all the loveliest +and deepest things she had ever felt--with her memory of Hallin, with +her new gropings after God. Just as the light was going she got up +hurriedly and went to her writing-table. She wrote a little note, sat +over it a while, with her face hidden in her hands, then sealed, +addressed, and stamped it. She went out herself to the hall to put it in +the letter-box. For the rest of the evening she went about in a state of +dream, overcome sometimes by rushes of joy, which yet had in them +exquisite elements of pain; hungering for the passage of the hours, for +sleep that might cancel some of them; picturing the road to the Court +and Widrington, along which the old postman had by now carried her +letter--the bands of moonlight and shade lying across it, the quiet of +the budding woods, and the spot on the hillside where he had spoken to +her in that glowing October. It must lie all night in a dull office--her +letter; she was impatient and sorry for it. And when he got it, it would +tell him nothing, though she thought it would rather surprise him. It +was the merest formal request that he would, if he could, come and see +her again the following morning on business. + +During the evening Mrs. Boyce lay on the sofa and read. It always still +gave the daughter a certain shock of surprise when she saw the slight +form resting in this way. In words Mrs. Boyce would allow nothing, and +her calm composure had been unbroken from the moment of their return +home, though it was not yet two months since her husband's death. In +these days she read enormously, which again was a new trait--especially +novels. She read each through rapidly, laid it down without a word of +comment, and took up another. Once or twice, but very rarely, Marcella +surprised her in absent meditation, her hand covering the page. From the +hard, satiric brightness of her look on these occasions it seemed +probable that she was speculating on the discrepancies between fiction +and real life, and on the falsity of most literary sentiment. + +To-night Marcella sat almost silent--she was making a frock for a +village child she had carried off from its mother, who was very ill--and +Mrs. Boyce read. But as the clock approached ten, the time when they +generally went upstairs, Marcella made a few uncertain movements, and +finally got up, took a stool, and sat down beside the sofa. + + * * * * * + +An hour later Marcella entered her own room. As she closed the door +behind her she gave an involuntary sob, put down her light, and hurrying +up to the bed, fell on her knees beside it and wept long. Yet her mother +had not been unkind to her. Far from it. Mrs. Boyce had praised her--in +few words, but with evident sincerity--for the courage that could, if +necessary, put convention aside; had spoken of her own relief; had said +pleasant things of Lord Maxwell; had bantered Marcella a little on her +social schemes, and wished her the independence to stick to them. +Finally, as they got up to go to bed, she kissed Marcella twice instead +of once, and said: + +"Well, my dear, I shall not be in your way to-morrow morning; I promise +you that." + +The speaker's satisfaction was plain; yet nothing could have been less +maternal. The girl's heart, when she found herself alone, was very sore, +and the depression of a past which had been so much of a failure, so +lacking in any satisfied emotion and the sweet preludes of family +affection, darkened for a while even the present and the future. + +After a time she got up, and leaving her room, went to sit in a passage +outside it. It was the piece of wide upper corridor leading to the +winding stairs she had descended on the night of the ball. It was one of +the loneliest and oddest places in the house, for it communicated only +with her room and the little staircase, which was hardly ever used. It +was, indeed, a small room in itself, and was furnished with a few huge +old chairs with moth-eaten frames and tattered seats. A flowery paper of +last-century date sprawled over the walls, the carpet had many holes in +it, and the shallow, traceried windows, set almost flush in the outer +surface of the wall, were curtainless now, as they had been two years +before. + +She drew one of the old chairs to a window, and softly opened it. There +was a young moon, and many stars, seen uncertainly through the rush of +April cloud. Every now and then a splash of rain moved the creepers and +swept across the lawn, to be followed by a spell of growing and +breathing silence. The scent of hyacinths and tulips mounted through the +wet air. She could see a long ghostly line of primroses, from which rose +the grey base of the Tudor front, checkered with a dim light and shade. +Beyond the garden, with its vague forms of fountain and sun-dial, the +cedars stood watching; the little church slept to her left. + +So, face to face with Nature, the old house, and the night, she took +passionate counsel with herself. After to-night surely, she would be no +more lonely! She was going for ever from her own keeping to that of +another. For she never, from the moment she wrote her letter, had the +smallest doubt as to what his answer to her would be; never the smallest +dread that he would, even in the lightest passing impression, connect +what she was going to do with any thought of blame or wonder. Her pride +and fear were gone out of her; only, she dared not think of how he would +look and speak when the moment came, because it made her sick and faint +with feeling. + +How strange to imagine what, no doubt, would be said and thought about +her return to him by the outside world! His great place in society, his +wealth, would be the obvious solution of it for many--too obvious even +to be debated. Looking back upon her thoughts of this night in after +years, she could not remember that the practical certainty of such an +interpretation had even given her a moment's pain. It was too remote +from all her now familiar ways of thinking--and his. In her early Mellor +days the enormous importance that her feverish youth attached to wealth +and birth might have been seen in her very attacks upon them. Now all +her standards were spiritualised. She had come to know what happiness +and affection are possible in three rooms, or two, on twenty-eight +shillings a week; and, on the other hand, her knowledge of Aldous--a man +of stoical and simple habit, thrust, with a student's tastes, into the +position of a great landowner--had shown her, in the case at least of +one member of the rich class, how wealth may be a true moral burden and +test, the source of half the difficulties and pains--of half the +nobleness also--of a man's life. Not in mere wealth and poverty, she +thought, but in things of quite another order--things of social sympathy +and relation--alterable at every turn, even under existing conditions, +by the human will, lie the real barriers that divide us man from man. + +Had they ever really formed a part of historical time, those eight +months of their engagement? Looking back upon them, she saw herself +moving about in them like a creature without eyes, worked, blindfold, by +a crude inner mechanism that took no account really of impressions from +without. Yet that passionate sympathy with the poor--that hatred of +oppression? Even these seemed to her to-night the blind, spasmodic +efforts of a mind that all through _saw_ nothing--mistook its own +violences and self-wills for eternal right, and was but traitor to what +should have been its own first loyalties, in seeking to save and reform. + +Was _true_ love now to deliver her from that sympathy, to deaden in her +that hatred? Her whole soul cried out in denial. By daily life in +natural relations with the poor, by a fruitful contact with fact, by the +clash of opinion in London, by the influence of a noble friendship, by +the education of awakening passion--what had once been mere tawdry and +violent hearsay had passed into a true devotion, a true thirst for +social good. She had ceased to take a system cut and dried from the +Venturists, or any one else; she had ceased to think of whole classes +of civilised society with abhorrence and contempt; and there had dawned +in her that temper which is in truth implied in all the more majestic +conceptions of the State--the temper that regards the main institutions +of every great civilisation, whether it be property, or law, or +religious custom, as necessarily, in some degree, divine and sacred. For +man has not been their sole artificer! Throughout there has been working +with him "the spark that fires our clay." + +Yes!--but modification, progress, change, there must be, for us as for +our fathers! Would marriage fetter her? It was not the least probable +that he and she, with their differing temperaments, would think alike in +the future, any more than in the past. She would always be for +experiments, for risks, which his critical temper, his larger brain, +would of themselves be slow to enter upon. Yet she knew well enough that +in her hands they would become bearable and even welcome to him. And for +himself, she thought with a craving, remorseful tenderness of that +pessimist temper of his towards his own work and function that she knew +so well. In old days it had merely seemed to her inadequate, if not +hypocritical. She would have liked to drive the dart deeper, to make him +still unhappier! Now, would not a wife's chief function be to reconcile +him with himself and life, to cheer him forward on the lines of his own +nature, to believe, understand, help? + +Yet always in the full liberty to make her own sacrifices, to realise +her own dreamlands! She thought with mingled smiles and tears of her +plans for this bit of earth that fate had brought under her hand; she +pledged herself to every man, woman, and child on it so to live her life +that each one of theirs should be the richer for it; she set out, so far +as in her lay, to "choose equality." And beyond Mellor, in the great +changing world of social speculation and endeavour, she prayed always +for the open mind, the listening heart. + +"There is one conclusion, one cry, I always come back to at last," she +remembered hearing Hallin say to a young Conservative with whom he had +been having a long economic and social argument. "_Never resign +yourself_!--that seems to be the main note of it. Say, if you +will--believe, if you will, that human nature, being what it is, and +what, so far as we can see, it always must be, the motives which work +the present social and industrial system can never be largely +superseded; that property and saving--luck, too!--struggle, success, and +failure, must go on. That is one's intellectual conclusion; and one has +a right to it--you and I are at one in it. But then--on the heels of it +comes the moral imperative! 'Hold what you please about systems and +movements, and fight for what you hold; only, as an individual--_never +say--never think!_--that it is in the order of things, in the purpose of +God, that one of these little ones--this Board-School child, this man +honestly out of work, this woman "sweated" out of her life--should +perish!' A contradiction, or a commonplace, you say? Well and good. The +only truths that burn themselves into the conscience, that work +themselves out through the slow and manifold processes of the personal +will into a pattern of social improvement, are the contradictions and +the commonplaces!" + +So here, in the dark, alone with the haunting, uplifting presences of +"admiration, hope, and love," Marcella vowed, within the limits of her +personal scope and power, never to give up the struggle for a nobler +human fellowship, the lifelong toil to understand, the passionate effort +to bring honour and independence and joy to those who had them not. But +not alone; only, not alone! She had learnt something of the dark +aspects, the crushing complexity of the world. She turned from them +to-night, at last, with a natural human terror, to hide herself in her +own passion, to make of love her guide and shelter. Her whole rich being +was wrought to an intoxication of self-giving. Oh! let the night go +faster! faster! and bring his step upon the road, her cry of repentance +to his ear. + + * * * * * + +"I trust I am not late. Your clocks, I think, are ahead of ours. You +said eleven?" + +Aldous advanced into the room with hand outstretched. He had been +ushered into the drawing-room, somewhat to his surprise. + +Marcella came forward. She was in black as before, and pale, but there +was a knot of pink anemones fastened at her throat, which, in the play +they made with her face and hair, gave him a start of pleasure. + +"I wanted," she said, "to ask you again about those shares--how to +manage the sale of them. Could you--could you give me the name of some +one in the City you trust?" + +He was conscious of some astonishment. + +"Certainly," he said. "If you would rather not entrust it to Mr. French, +I can give you the name of the firm my grandfather and I have always +employed; or I could manage it for you if you would allow me. You have +quite decided?" + +"Yes," she said mechanically,--"quite. And--and I think I could do it +myself. Would you mind writing the address for me, and will you read +what I have written there?" + +She pointed to the little writing-table and the writing materials upon +it, then turned away to the window. He looked at her an instant with +uneasy amazement. + +He walked up to the table, put down his hat and gloves beside it, and +stooped to read what was written. + +_"It was in this room you told me I had done you a great wrong. But +wrongdoers may be pardoned sometimes, if they ask it. Let me know by a +sign, a look, if I may ask it. If not it would be kind to go away +without a word."_ + +She heard a cry. But she did not look up. She only knew that he had +crossed the room, that his arms were round her, her head upon his +breast. + +"Marcella!--wife!" was all he said, and that in a voice so low, so +choked, that she could hardly hear it. + +He held her so for a minute or more, she weeping, his own eyes dim with +tears, her cheek laid against the stormy beating of his heart. + +At last he raised her face, so that he could see it. + +"So this--this was what you had in your mind towards me, while I have +been despairing--fighting with myself, walking in darkness. Oh, my +darling! explain it. How can it be? Am I real? Is this face--these lips +real?"--he kissed both, trembling. "Oh! when a man is raised thus--in a +moment--from torture and hunger to full joy, there are no words--" + +His head sank on hers, and there was silence again, while he wrestled +with himself. + +At last she looked up, smiling. + +"You are to please come over here," she said, and leading him by the +hand, she took him to the other side of the room. "That is the chair you +sat in that morning. Sit down!" + +He sat down, wondering, and before he could guess what she was going to +do she had sunk on her knees beside him. + +"I am going to tell you," she said, "a hundred things I never told you +before. You are to hear me confess; you are to give me penance; you are +to say the hardest things possible to me. If you don't I shall distrust +you." + +She smiled at him again through her tears. "Marcella," he cried in +distress, trying to lift her, to rise himself, "you can't imagine that I +should let _you_ kneel to _me_!" + +"You must," she said steadily; "well, if it will make you happier, I +will take a stool and sit by you. But you are there above me--I am at +your feet--it is the same chair, and you shall not move"--she stooped in +a hasty passion, as though atoning for her "shall," and kissed his +hand--"till I have said it all--every word!" + +So she began it--her long confession, from the earliest days. He winced +often--she never wavered. She carried through the sharpest analysis of +her whole mind with regard to him; of her relations to him and Wharton +in the old days; of the disloyalty and lightness with which she had +treated the bond, that yet she had never, till quite the end, thought +seriously of breaking; of her selfish indifference to, even contempt +for, his life, his interests, his ideals; of her calm forecasts of a +married state in which she was always to take the lead and always to be +in the right--then of the real misery and struggle of the Hurd trial. + +"That was my first true _experience_," she said; "it made me wild and +hard, but it burnt, it purified. I began to live. Then came the day +when--when we parted--the time in hospital--the nursing--the evening on +the terrace. I had been thinking of you--because remorse made me think +of you--solitude--Mr. Hallin--everything. I wanted you to be kind to me, +to behave as though you had forgotten everything, because it would have +made me comfortable and happy; or I thought it would. And then, that +night you wouldn't be kind, you wouldn't forget--instead, you made me +pay my penalty." + +She stared at him an instant, her dark brows drawn together, struggling +to keep her tears back, yet lightening from moment to moment into a +divine look of happiness. He tried to take possession of her, to stop +her, to silence all this self-condemnation on his breast. But she would +not have it; she held him away from her. + +"That night, though I walked up and down the terrace with Mr. Wharton +afterwards, and tried to fancy myself in love with him--that night, for +the first time, I began to love you! It was mean and miserable, wasn't +it, not to be able to appreciate the gift, only to feel when it was +taken away? It was like being good when one is punished, because one +must--" + +She laid down her head against his chair with a long sigh. He could bear +it no longer. He lifted her in his arms, talking to her passionately of +the feelings which had been the counterpart to hers, the longings, +jealousies, renunciations--above all, the agony of that moment at the +Mastertons' party. + +"Hallin was the only person who understood," he said; "he knew all the +time that I should love you to my grave. I could talk to him." + +She gave a little sob of joy, and pushing herself away from him an +instant, she laid a hand on his shoulder. + +"I told him," she said--"I told him, that night he was dying." + +He looked at her with an emotion too deep even for caresses. + +"He never spoke--coherently--after you left him. At the end he motioned +to me, but there were no words. If I could possibly love you more, it +would be because you gave him that joy." + +He held her hand, and there was silence. Hallin stood beside them, +living and present again in the life of their hearts. + +Then, little by little, delight and youth and love stole again upon +their senses. + +"Do you suppose," he exclaimed, "that I yet understand in the least how +it is that I am here, in this chair, with you beside me? You have told +me much ancient history!--but all that truly concerns me this morning +lies in the dark. The last time I saw you, you were standing at the +garden-door, with a look which made me say to myself that I was the same +blunderer I had always been, and had far best keep away. Bridge me the +gap, please, between that hell and this heaven!" + +She held her head high, and changed her look of softness for a frown. + +"You had spoken of '_marriage!_'" she said. "Marriage in the abstract, +with a big _M_. You did it in the tone of my guardian giving me away. +Could I be expected to stand that?" + +He laughed. The joy in the sound almost hurt her. + +"So one's few virtues smite one," he said as he captured her hand again. +"Will you acknowledge that I played my part well? I thought to myself, +in the worst of tempers, as I drove away, that I could hardly have been +more official. But all this is evasion. What I desire to know, +categorically, is, what made you write that letter to me last night, +after--after the day before?" + +She sat with her chin on her hand, a smile dancing. + +"Whom did you walk with yesterday afternoon?" she said slowly. + +He looked bewildered. + +"There!" she cried, with a sudden wild gesture; "when I have told you it +will undo it all. Oh! if Frank had never said a word to me; if I had had +no excuse, no assurance, nothing to go upon, had just called to you in +the dark, as it were, there would be some generosity, some atonement in +that! Now you will think I waited to be meanly sure, instead of--" + +She dropped her dark head upon his hand again with an abandonment which +unnerved him, which he had almost to brace himself against. + +"So it was Frank," he said--"_Frank!_ Two hours ago, from my window, I +saw him and Betty down by the river in the park. They were supposed to +be fishing. As far as I could see they were sifting or walking hand in +hand, in the face of day and the keepers. I prepared wise things to say +to them. None of them will be said now, or listened to. As Frank's +mentor I am undone." + +He held her, looking at her intently. + +"Shall I tell you," he asked, in a lower voice--"shall I show you +something--something that I had on my heart as I was walking here?" + +He slipped his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out a +little plain black leather case. When he opened it she saw that it +contained a pen-and-ink sketch of herself that had been done one evening +by a young artist staying at the Court, and--a bunch of traveller's joy. + +She gazed at it with a mixture of happiness and pain. It reminded her of +cold and selfish thoughts, and set them in relief against his constancy. +But she had given away all rights--even the right to hate herself. +Piteously, childishly, with seeking eyes, she held out her hand to him, +as though mutely asking him for the answer to her outpouring--the last +word of it all. He caught her whisper. + +"Forgive?" he said to her, scorning her for the first and only time in +their history. "Does a man _forgive_ the hand that sets him free, the +voice that recreates him? Choose some better word--my wife!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCELLA*** + + +******* This file should be named 13728.txt or 13728.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/7/2/13728 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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