The others followed suit, and they all took leave in character;--Molloy, with an eager business reference to the order of the day for Sat.u.r.day,--"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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sion 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 grat.i.tude. 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 pa.s.sing 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 eyegla.s.s 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 graat 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 n.o.body 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 att.i.tude 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.