They descended the bridge, and turned again into the river-path. George told the story of Mary Batchelor in his half-ironic way, yet so that here and there Marcella shivered. Then gradually, as though it were a relief to him to talk, he slipped into a half-humorous, half-serious discussion of his mine-owner"s position and its difficulties. Incidentally and unconsciously a good deal of his history betrayed itself in his talk: his bringing-up, his mother; the various problems started in his mind since his return from India; even his relations to his wife. Once or twice it flashed across him that he was confessing himself with an extraordinary frankness to a woman he had made up his mind to dislike. But the reflection did not stop him. The balmy night, the solitude, this loveliness that walked beside him so willingly and kindly--with every step they struck his defences from him; they drew; they penetrated.
With her, too, everything was simple and natural. She had felt his attraction at their first meeting; she had determined to make a friend of him; and she was succeeding. As he disclosed himself she felt a strange compa.s.sion for him. It was plain to her woman"s instinct that he was at heart lonely and uncompanioned. Well, what wonder with that hard, mean little being for a wife! Had she captured him, or had he thrown himself away upon her in mere wantonness, out of that defiance of sentiment which appeared to be his favourite _parti-pris?_ In any case, it seemed to this happy wife that he had done the one fatal and irreparable thing; and she was genuinely sorry for him. She felt him very young, too. As far as she could gather, he was about two years her junior; but her feeling made the gap much greater.
Yet, of course, the situation,--Maxwell, Fontenoy,--all that those names implied to him and her, made a thrilling under-note in both their minds.
She never forgot her husband and his straits; and in George"s mind Fontenoy"s rugged figure stood sentinel. Given the circ.u.mstances, both her temperament and her affections drove her inevitably into trying, first to attract, then to move and influence her companion. And given the circ.u.mstances, he could but yield himself bit by bit to her woman"s charm; while full all the time of a confident scorn for her politics.
Insensibly, the stress upon them drew them back to London and to current affairs, and at last she said to him, with vehemence:
"You _must_ see these people in the flesh--and not in your house, but in theirs. Or, first come and meet them in mine?"
"Why, please, should you think St. James"s Square a palace of truth compared to Carlton House Terrace?" he asked her, with amus.e.m.e.nt.
Fontenoy lived in Carlton House Terrace.
"I am not inviting you to St. James"s Square," she said quietly. "That house is only my home for one set of purposes. Just now my true home is not there at all. It is in the Mile End Road."
George asked to be informed, and opened his eyes at her account of the way in which she still divided her time between the West End and the East, spending always one or two nights a week among the trades and the work-people she had come to know so intimately, whose cause she was fighting with such persistence.
"Maxwell doesn"t come now," she said. "He is too busy, and his work there is done. But I go because I love the people, and to talk with them and live with them part of every week keeps one"s mind clear as to what one wants, and why. Well,"--her voice showed that she smiled,--"will you come? My old maid shall give you coffee, and you shall meet a roomful of tailors and shirtmakers. You shall see what people look like in the flesh--not on paper--after working fourteen hours at a stretch, in a room where you and I could not breathe!"
"Charming!"--he bowed ironically. "Of course I will come."
They had paused under the shadow of a grove of beech-trees, and were looking back towards the moonlit garden and the house. Suddenly George said, in an odd voice:
"Do you mind my saying it? You know, n.o.body is ever converted--politically--nowadays."
In the darkness her flush could not be seen. But he felt the mingled pride and soreness in her voice, under its forced brightness.
"I know. How long is it since a speech turned a vote in the House of Commons! One wonders why people take the trouble to speak. Shall we go back? Ah! there is someone pursuing us--my husband and Ancoats!"
And two figures, dark for an instant against the brightness of the lawns, plunged into the shadow of the wood.
"You wanderers!" said Maxwell, as he distinguished his wife"s white dress. "Is this path quite safe in this darkness? Suppose we get out of it."
The river, indeed, beneath a steep bank, ran close beside them, and the trees meeting overhead all but shut out the moon. Maxwell, in some anxiety, caught his wife"s arm, and made her pause till his eye should be once more certain of the path. Meanwhile Ancoats and Tressady walked quickly back to the lawn, Ancoats talking and laughing with unusual vigour.
The Maxwells did not hurry themselves. As they emerged from the wood Marcella slipped her hand into her husband"s. It was her characteristic caress. The slim, strong hand loved to feel itself in the shelter of his; while to him that seeking touch was the symbol of all that she brought him--the inventive, inexhaustible arts of a pa.s.sion which was a kind of genius.
"Don"t go in!" she pleaded. "Why should we?"
"No!--why should we?" he repeated, sighing. "Why are we here at all?--that is what I have been asking myself all the evening. And now more than ever since my walk with that boy Ancoats."
"Tell me about it," she said eagerly. "Could you get nothing out of him?"
Maxwell shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing. He vows that everything is all right; that he knows a pack of slanderers have been "yelping at him," and he wishes both they and his mother would let him alone."
"His mother!" cried Marcella, outraged.
"Well, I suppose I said to him the kind of thing you would evidently like to say. But with no result. He merely laughed, and chattered about everything under the sun--his race-horses, new plays, politics--Heaven knows what! He is in an excited state--feverish, restless, and, I should think, unhappy. But he would tell nothing--to me."
"How much do you think she knows?"
"His mother? Nothing, I should say. Every now and then I detect a note of extra anxiety when she talks to him; and there is evidently something in her mind, some impression from his manner, perhaps, which is driving her more keenly than ever towards this marriage. But I don"t believe a single one of the stories that have reached us has reached her. And now--here is this poor girl--and even my dull eyes have noticed that to-night he has purposely, markedly, avoided her."
Marcella felt her cheek flame.
"And when one thinks of his behaviour in the winter!" she cried.
They wandered on along a path that skirted the wood, talking anxiously about the matter which had in truth brought them to Castle Luton. In spite of the comparative gentleness of English political relations, neither Maxwell nor Marcella, perhaps, would willingly have become Charlotte Allison"s guests at a moment when her house was actually the headquarters of a violent and effective opposition to Maxwell"s policy, when moreover the leader of that opposition was likely to be of the party. But about a fortnight before Whitsuntide some tales of young Ancoats had suddenly reached Maxwell"s ears, with such effect that on his next meeting with Ancoats"s mother he practically invited himself and Marcella--greatly to Mrs. Allison"s surprise--to Castle Luton for Whitsuntide.
For the boy had been Maxwell"s ward, and Henry Allison had been the intimate friend and comrade of Maxwell"s father. And Maxwell"s feeling for his father, and for his father"s friends, was of such a kind that his guardian"s duties had gone deep with him. He had done his best for the boy, and since Ancoats had reached his majority his ex-guardian had still kept him anxiously in mind.
Of late indeed Ancoats had troubled himself very little about his guardian, or his guardian"s anxieties. He seemed to have been devoting a large share of his mind to the avoidance of his mother"s old friends; and the Maxwells, for months, in spite of many efforts on their part, had seen little or nothing of him. Maxwell for various reasons had begun to suspect a number of uncomfortable things with regard to the young fellow"s friends and pleasures. Yet nothing could be taken hold of till this sudden emergence of a particular group of stories, coupling Ancoats"s name with that of a notorious little actress whose adventures had already provided a certain cla.s.s of newspaper with abundant copy.
Then Maxwell, who cared personally very little for the red-haired youth himself, took alarm for the mother"s sake. For in the case of Mrs.
Allison a scandal of the kind suggested meant a tragedy. Her pa.s.sion for her son was almost a tragedy already, so closely mingled in it were the feelings of the mother and those of the Christian, to whom "vice" is not an amus.e.m.e.nt, but an agony.
Yet, as Marcella said and felt, it was a hard fate that had forced Maxwell to concern himself with Ancoats"s love-affairs at this particular moment.
"Don"t think of it," she said at last, urgently, as they walked along.
"It is too bad; as if there were not enough!"
Maxwell stood still, with a little smile, and put his arm round her shoulders.
"Dear, I shall soon have time enough, probably, to think about Ancoats"s affairs or anything else. Do you know that I was planning this morning what we would do when we go out? Shall we slip over to the Australian colonies in the autumn? I would give a good deal to see them for myself."
She gave a low cry of pain.
"Why are you so depressed to-night? Is there any fresh news?"
"Yes. And, altogether, things look increasingly bad for us, and increasingly well for them. It will be extraordinarily close anyway--probably a matter of a vote or two." And he gave her a summary of his after-dinner conversation with Lord Cathedine, a keen ally of Fontenoy"s in the Lords, and none the less a shrewd fellow because he happened to be also a detestable person.
Marcella heard the news of one or two fresh defections from the Government with amazement and indignation. She stood there in the darkness, leaning against the man she loved, her heart beating fast and stormily. How could the world thus misconceive and thwart him? And what could she do? Her mind ran pa.s.sionately through a hundred schemes, refusing to submit--to see him baffled and defeated.
CHAPTER XII
To Lord Ancoats himself this party of his mother"s was an oppression and a nuisance. He had only been induced to preside over it with difficulty; and his mother had been both hurt and puzzled by his reluctance to play the host.
If you had asked Maxwell"s opinion on the point, he would have told you that Ancoats"s bringing up had a good deal to do with the present anxieties of Ancoats"s mother. He--Maxwell--had done his best, but he had been overmatched.