He was particularly glad that in this fresh day of growing intimacy she had as yet talked politics or "questions" of any sort so little! It made it all the more possible to escape from, to wholly overthrow in his mind, that first hostile image of her, impressed--strange unreason on his part!--by that first meeting with her in the crowd round the injured child, and in the hospital ward. Had she started any subject of mere controversy he would have held his own as stoutly as ever. But so long as she let them lie, _herself_, the woman, insensibly argued for her, and wore down his earlier mood.
So long, indeed, as he forgot Maxwell"s part in it all! But it was not possible to forget it long. For the wife"s pa.s.sion, in spite of a n.o.ble reticence, shone through her whole personality in a way that alternately touched and challenged her new friend. No; let him remember that Maxwell"s ways of looking at things were none the less pestilent because _she_ put them into words.
After luncheon Betty Leven found herself in a corner of the Green Drawing-room. On the other side of it Mrs. Allison and Lord Fontenoy were seated together, with Sir Philip Wentworth not far off. Lord Fontenoy was describing his week in Parliament. Betty, who knew and generally shunned him, raised her eyebrows occasionally, as she caught the animated voice, the queer laughs, and fluent expositions, which the presence of his muse was drawing from this most ungainly of worshippers. His talk, indeed, was one long invocation; and the little white-haired lady in the armchair was doing her best to play Melpomene. Her speech was very soft. But it made for battle; and Fontenoy was never so formidable as when he was fresh from Castle Luton.
Betty"s thoughts, however, had once more slipped away from her immediate neighbours, and were pursuing more exciting matters,--the state of Madeleine Penley"s heart and the wiles of that witch-woman in London, who must be somehow plucked like a burr from Ancoats"s skirts,--when Marcella entered the room, hat in hand.
"Whither away, fair lady?" cried Betty; "come and talk to me."
"Hallin will be in the river," said Marcella, irresolute.
"If he is, Sir George will fish him out. Besides, I believe Sir George and Ancoats have gone for a walk, and Hallin with them. I heard Maxwell tell Hallin he might go."
Marcella turned an uncertain look upon Lord Fontenoy and Mrs. Allison.
But directly Maxwell"s wife entered the room, Maxwell"s enemy had dropped his talk of political affairs, and he was now showing Sir Philip a portfolio of Mrs. Allison"s sketches, with a subdued ardour that brought a kindly smile to Marcella"s lip. In general, Fontenoy had neither eye nor ear for anything artistic; moreover, he spoke barbarous French, and no other European tongue; while of letters he had scarcely a tincture.
But when it became a question of Mrs. Allison"s accomplishments, her drawing, her embroidery, still more her admirable French and excellent Italian, the books she had read, and the poetry she knew by heart, he was all appreciation--one might almost say, all feeling. It was Cymon and Iphigenia in a modern and middle-aged key.
His mien he fashioned and his tongue he filed.
And did a blunder come, Iphigenia gently and deftly put it to rights.
"Where is Madeleine?" asked Betty, as Marcella approached her sofa.
"Walking with Lord Naseby, I think."
"What was the matter on the way from church?" asked Betty, in a low voice, raising her face to her friend.
Marcella, looked gravely down upon her.
"If you come into the garden I will tell you. Madeleine told me."
Betty, all curiosity, followed her friend through the open window to a seat in the Dutch garden outside.
"It was a terrible thing that happened," said Marcella, sitting erect, and speaking with a manner of suppressed energy that Betty knew well; "one of the things that make my blood boil when I come here. You know how she rules the village?"--She turned imperceptibly towards the distant drawing-room, where Mrs. Allison"s white head was still visible. "Not only must all the cottages be beautiful, but all the people must reach a certain standard of virtue. If a man drinks, he must go; if a girl loses her character, she and her child must go. It was such a girl that threw herself in the way of the party this morning. Her mother would not part with her; so the decree went forth--the whole family must go. They say the girl has never been right in her head since the baby"s birth; she raved and wept this morning, said her parents could find no work elsewhere--they must die, she and her child must die. Mrs. Allison tried to stop her, but couldn"t; then she hurriedly sent the others on, and stayed behind herself--only for a minute or two; she overtook Madeleine almost immediately. Madeleine is sure she was inexorable; so am I; she always is. I once argued with her about a case of the kind--a _cruel_ case! "Those are the sins that make me _shudder!_" she said, and one could make no impression on her whatever. You see how exhausted she looks this afternoon. She will wear herself out, probably, praying and weeping over the girl."
Betty threw up her hands.
"My dear!--when she knows--"
"It may perfectly well kill her," said Marcella, steadily. Then, after a pause, Betty saw her face flush from brow to chin, and she added, in a low and pa.s.sionate voice: "Nevertheless, from all tyrannies and cruelties in the name of Christ, good Lord, deliver us!"
The two lingered together for some time without speaking. Both were thinking of much the same things, but both were tired with the endless talking of a country-house Sunday, and the rest was welcome.
And presently Marcella rambled away from her friend, and spent an hour pacing by herself in a glade beside the river.
And there her mind instantly shook itself from every care but one--the yearning over her husband and his work.
Two years of labour--she caught her breath with a little sob--labour which had aged and marked the labourer; and now, was it really to be believed, that after all the toil, after so much hope and promise of success, everything was to be wrecked at last?
She gave herself once more to eager forecasts and combinations. As to individuals--she recalled Tressady"s blunt warning with a smile and a wince. But it did not prevent her from falling into a reverie of which he, or someone like him, was the centre. Types, incidents, scenes, rose before her--if they could only be pressed upon, _burnt into_ such a mind, as they had been burnt into her mind and Maxwell"s! That was the whole difficulty--lack of vision, lack of realisation. Men were to have the deciding voice in this thing, who had no clear conception of how poverty and misery live, no true knowledge of this vast tragedy of labour perpetually acted, in our midst, no rebellion of heart against conditions of life for other men they themselves would die a thousand times rather than accept. She saw herself, in a kind of despair, driving such persons through streets, and into houses she knew, forcing them to look, and _feel_. Even now, at the last moment--
How much better she had come to know this interesting, limited being, George Tressady, during these twenty-four hours! She liked his youth, his sincerity--even the stubbornness with which he disclaimed inconvenient enthusiasms; and she was inevitably flattered by the way in which his evident prejudice against herself had broken down.
His marriage was a misfortune, a calamity! She thought of it with the instinctive repulsion of one who has never known any temptation to the small vulgarities of life. One could have nothing to say to a little being like that. But all the more reason for befriending the man!
An hour or two later Tressady found himself strolling home along the flowery bank of the river. It was not long since he had parted from Lady Maxwell and Hallin, and on leaving them he had turned back for a while towards the woods on the hill, on the pretext that he wanted more of a walk. Now, however, he was hurrying towards the house, that there might be time for a chat with Letty before dressing. She would think he had been away too long. But he had proposed to take her on the river after tea, and she had preferred a walk with Lord Cathedine.
Since then--He looked round him at the river and the hills. There was a flush of sunset through the air, and the blue of the river was interlaced with rosy or golden reflections from a sky piled with stormy cloud and aglow with every "visionary majesty" of light and colour. The great cloud-ma.s.ses were driving in a tragic splendour through the west; and hue and form alike, throughout the wide heaven, seemed to him to breathe a marvellous harmony and poetry, to make one vibrating "word" of beauty.
Had some G.o.d suddenly gifted him with new senses and new eyes? Never had he felt so much joy in Nature, such a lifting up to things awful and divine. Why? Because a beautiful woman had been walking beside him?--because he had been talking with her of things that he, at least, rarely talked of--realities of feeling, or thought, or memory, that no woman had ever shared with him before?
How had she drawn him to such openness, such indiscretions? He was half ashamed, and then forgot his discomfort in the sudden, eager glancing of the mind to the future, to the opportunities of the day just coming--for Mrs. Allison"s party was to last till Whit Tuesday--to the hours and places in London where he was to meet her on those social errands of hers. What a warm, true heart! What a woman, through all her dreams and mistakes, and therefore how adorable!
He quickened his pace as the light failed. Presently he saw a figure coming towards him, emerging from the trees that skirted the main lawn.
It was Fontenoy, and Fontenoy"s supporter must needs recollect himself as quickly as possible. He had not seen much of his leader during the day.
But he knew well that Fontenoy never forgot his _role_, and there were several points, newly arisen within the last forty-eight hours, on which he might have expected before this to be called to counsel.
But Fontenoy, when he came up with the wanderer, seemed to have no great mind for talk. He had evidently been pacing and thinking by himself, and when he was fullest of thought he was as a rule most silent and inarticulate.
"You are late; so am I," he said, as he turned back with Tressady.
George a.s.sented.
"I have been thinking out one or two points of tactics."
But instead of discussing them he sank into silence again. George let him alone, knowing his ways.
Presently he said, raising his powerful head with a jerk, "But tactics are not of such importance as they were. I think the thing is done--_done!_" he repeated with emphasis.
George shrugged his shoulders.
"I don"t know. We may be too sanguine. It is not possible that Maxwell should be easily beaten."
Fontenoy laughed--a strange, high laugh, like a jay"s, that seemed to have no relation to his ma.s.sive frame, and died suddenly away.
"But we shall beat him," he said quietly; "and her, too. A well-meaning woman--but what a foolish one!"
George made no reply.
"Though I am bound to say," Fontenoy went on quickly, "that in private matters no man could be kinder and show a sounder judgment than Maxwell.
And I believe Mrs. Allison feels the same with regard to her."
His look first softened, then frowned; and as he turned his eyes towards the house, George guessed what subject it was that he and Maxwell had discussed under the limes in the morning.