During the dinner-hour Tressady met Fontenoy in the Lobby, and suddenly stopped to speak. The young man was deeply flushed and holding himself stiffly erect. "If you want me," he said--"you will find me in the Library. I don"t want to spring anything upon you. You shall know all I know."
"Thank you," said the other with slow bitterness--"but we can look after ourselves. I think you and I understood each other this morning."
The two men parted abruptly. Tressady walked on, stung and excited afresh by the memory of the hateful half hour he had spent that morning in Fontenoy"s library. For after all, when once he had come to his decision, he had tried to behave with frankness, with consideration.
Fontenoy hurried on to look for the young viscount with the curls and shoulders, and the two men stood about the inner lobby together, Fontenoy sombrely watching everybody who came out or in.
It was about ten o"clock when Tressady caught the Speaker"s eye. He rose in a crowded House, a House conscious not only that the division shortly to be taken would decide the fate of a Government, but vaguely aware, besides, that something else was involved--one of those personal incidents that may at any moment make the dullest piece of routine dramatic, or rise into history by the juxtaposition of some great occasion.
The House had not yet made up its opinion about him as a speaker. He had done well; then, not so well. And, moreover, it was so long since he had taken any part in debate that the House had had time to forget whatever qualities he might once have shown.
His bearing and voice won him a first point. For youth, well-bred and well-equipped, the English House of Commons has always shown a peculiar indulgence. Then members began to bend eagerly forward, to crane necks, to put hands to ears. The Treasury Bench was seen to be listening as one man.
Before the speech was over many of those present had already recognised in it a political event of the first order. The speaker had traced with great frankness his own relation to the Bill--from an opinion which was but a prejudice, to a submission which was still half repugnance. He drew attention to the remarkable and growing movement in support of the Maxwell policy which was now spreading throughout the country, after a period of coolness and suspended judgment; he pointed to the probable ease with which, as it was now seen, the "hara.s.sed trades" would adapt themselves to the new law; he showed that the House, in at least three critical divisions, and under circ.u.mstances of enormous difficulty, had still affirmed the Bill; that the country, during the progress of the measure, had rallied unmistakably to the Government, and that all that remained was a question of machinery. That being so, he--and, he believed, some others--had reconsidered their positions. Their electoral pledges, in their opinion, no longer held, though they would be ready at any moment to submit themselves to consequences, if consequences there were to be.
Then, taking up the special subject-matter of the clause, he threw himself upon his leader"s speech with a nervous energy, an information, and a resource which held the House amazed. He tore to pieces Fontenoy"s elaborate attack, showed what practical men thought of the clause, and with what careful reliance upon their opinion and their experience it had been framed; and, finally--with a reference not lacking in a veiled pa.s.sion that told upon the House, to those "dim toiling thousands" whose lot, "as it comes to work upon the mind, is daily perplexing if not transforming the thoughts and ideals of such men as I"--he, in the plainest terms, announced his intention of voting with the Government, and sat down, amid the usual mingled storm, in a shouting and excited House.
The next hour pa.s.sed in a tumult. One speaker after another got up from the Liberal benches--burly manufacturers and men of business, who had so far held a strong post in the army of resistance--to tender their submission, to admit that the fight had gone far enough, that the country was against them, and that the Bill must be borne. What use, too, in turning out a Government which would either be sent back with redoubled strength or replaced by combinations that had no attractions whatever from men of moderate minds? Sadness reigned in the speeches of this Liberal remnant; nor could the House from time to time forbear to jeer them. But they made their purpose plain, and the Government Whip, standing near the door, gleefully struck off name after name from his Opposition list.
Then followed the usual struggle between the division that all men wanted and the speakers that no man could endure. But at last the bell was rung, the House cleared. As Tressady turned against the stream of his party, Fontenoy, with a sarcastic smile, stood elaborately aside to let him pa.s.s.
"We shall soon know what you have cost us," he said hoa.r.s.ely in Tressady"s ear; then, advancing a little towards the centre of the floor, he looked up markedly and deliberately at the Ladies" Gallery.
Tressady made no reply. He held his fair head higher than usual as he pa.s.sed on his unaccustomed way to the Aye Lobby. Many an eager eye strained back to see how many recruits would join him as he reached the Front Opposition Bench; many a Parliamentary Nestor watched the young man"s progress with a keenness born of memory--memory that burnt anew with the battles of the past.
"Do you remember Chandos," said one old man to another--"young Chandos, that went for Peel in "46 against his party? It was my first year in Parliament. I can see him now. He was something like this young fellow."
"But _his_ ratting changed nothing," said his companion, with an uneasy laugh; and they both struggled forward among the Noes.
Twenty minutes later the tellers were at the table, and the moment that was to make or mar a great Ministry had come.
"Ayes, 306; Noes, 280. The Ayes have it!"
"By Jove, he"s done it!--the Judas!" cried a young fellow, crimson with excitement, who was standing beside Fontenoy!
"Yes--he"s done it!" said Fontenoy, with grim composure, though the hand that held his hat shook. "The curtain may now fall."
"Where is he?" shouted the hot bloods around him, hooting and groaning, as their eyes searched the House for the man who had thus, in an afternoon, pulled down and defeated all their hopes.
But Tressady was nowhere to be seen. He had left the House just as the great news, surging like a wave through Lobby and corridor, reached a group of people waiting in a Minister"s private room--and Marcella Maxwell knew that all was won.
CHAPTER XVIII
"I Shall go straight to Brook Street, and see if I can be a comfort to Letty," said Mrs. Watton, with a tone and air, however, that seemed to cla.s.s her rather with the Sons of Thunder than the Sons of Consolation.
She was standing on the steps of the Ladies" Gallery entrance to the House of Commons, and Harding, who had just called a cab for her, was beside her.
"Could you see from the Gallery whether George had left?"
"He was still there when I came down," said Mrs. Watton, ungraciously, as though she grudged to talk of such a monster. "I saw him near the door while they hooted him. But, anyway, I should go to Letty--I don"t forget that I am her only relative in town."
As a matter of fact, her eyes had played her false. But the wrath with which her large face and bonnet were shaking was cause enough for hallucinations.
"Then I"ll go, too," said Harding, who had been hesitating. "No doubt Tressady"ll stay for his thanks! But I daresay we sha"n"t find Letty at home yet. I know she was to go to the Lucys" to-night."
"Poor lamb!" said Mrs. Watton, throwing up her hands.
Harding laughed.
"Oh! Letty won"t take it like a lamb--you"ll see!"
"What can a woman do?" said his mother, scornfully. "A decent woman, I mean, whom one can still have in one"s house. All she can do is to cry, and take a district."
When they reached Upper Brook Street, the butler reported that his mistress had just come in. He made, of course, no difficulty about admitting Lady Tressady"s aunt, and Mrs. Watton sailed up to the drawing-room, followed by Harding, who carried his head poked forward, as was usual to him, an opera-hat under his arm, and an eyegla.s.s swinging from a limp wrist.
As they entered the drawing-room door, Letty, in full evening-dress, was standing with her back to them. She had the last edition of an evening paper open before her, so that her small head and shoulders seemed buried in the sheet. And so eager was her attention to what she was reading that she had not heard their approach.
"Letty!" said Mrs. Watton.
Her niece turned with a violent start.
"My dear Letty!" The aunt approached, quivering with majestic sympathy, both hands outstretched.
Letty looked at her a moment, frowning; then recoiled impatiently, without taking any notice of the hands.
"So I see George has spoken against his party. There has been a scene.
What has happened? What"s the end?"
"Only that the Government has won its clause," said Harding, interposing his smooth falsetto--"won by a substantial majority, too. No chance of the Lords playing the fool!"
"The Government has won?--the Maxwells have won, that is,--she has won!"
said Letty, still frowning, her voice sharp and tingling.
"If you like to put it so," said Harding, raising his shoulders. "Yes, I should think that set"s pretty jubilant to-night."
"And you mean to say that George did and said nothing to prepare you, my poor child?" cried Mrs. Watton, in her heaviest manner. She had picked up the newspaper, and was looking with disgust at the large head-lines with which the hastily printed sheet strove to eke out the brevity of the few words in which it announced the speech of the evening: "_Scene in the House of Commons--Break-down of the Resistance to the Bill--Sir George Tressady"s Speech--Unexampled Excitement_."
Letty breathed fast.
"He said something a day or two ago about a change, but of course I never believed--He has disgraced himself!"
She began to pace stormily up and down the room, her white skirts floating behind her, her small hands pulling at her gloves. Harding Watton stood looking on in an att.i.tude of concern, one pensive finger laid upon his lip.
"Well, my dear Letty," said Mrs. Watton, impressively, as she laid down the newspaper, "the only thing to be done is to take him away. Let people forget it--if they can. And let me tell you, for your comfort, that he is not the first man, by a long way, that woman has led astray--nor will he be the last."