Marcella

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 G.o.dfather 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 circ.u.mstances--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 const.i.tutionally 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 att.i.tude, 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 n.o.ble 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 p.r.i.c.k 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! n.o.body 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 att.i.tude 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 n.i.g.g.ardliest 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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.