"And the party?" resumed Darrell.
"Not particularly thrilling. Lord Grosville--"
"Also, I presume, _en garcon_."
Mrs. Alcot smiled.
"--the Manleys, Lady Tranmore, Miss French, the Dean of Milford and his wife, Eddie Helston--"
"That, I understand, is Lady Kitty"s undergraduate adorer?"
"It"s no use talking to you--you know all the gossip. And some county big-wigs, whose names I can"t remember--come to dinner to-night." Mrs.
Alcot stifled a yawn.
"I am very curious to see how Ashe takes his triumph," said Darrell, as they paused half-way.
"He is just the same. No!" said Madeleine Alcot, correcting herself--"no--not quite. He _meant_ to triumph, and he _knows_ that he has done so."
"My dear lady!" cried Darrell--"a quite _enormous_ difference! Ashe never took stock of himself or his prospects in his life before."
"Well, now--you will find he takes stock of a good many things."
"Including Lady Kitty?"
His companion smiled.
"He won"t let her interfere again."
"_L"homme propose_," said Darrell. "You mean he has grown ambitious?"
Mrs. Alcot seemed to find it difficult to cope with these high things.
Fanning herself, she languidly supposed that the English political pa.s.sion, so strong and unspent still in the aristocratic families, had laid serious hold at last on William Ashe. He had great schemes of reform, and, do what he might to conceal it, his heart was in them. His wife, therefore, was no longer his occupation, but--
Mrs. Alcot hesitated for a word.
"Scarcely his repose?" laughed Darrell.
"I really won"t discuss Kitty any more," said Mrs. Alcot, impatiently.
"Here they are! Hullo! What has Kitty got hold of now?"
Three carriages were driving up the long approach, one behind the other.
In the first sat Kitty, a figure beside her in the dress of a nurse, and opposite to them both an indistinguishable bundle, which presently revealed a head. The carriage drew up at the steps. Kitty jumped down, and she and the nurse lifted the bundle out. Footmen appeared; some guests from the next carriage went to help; there was a general movement and agitation, in the midst of which Kitty and her companions disappeared into the house.
Lady Edith Manley and Lord Grosville began to cross the lawn.
"What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Alcot, as they converged.
"Kitty ran over a boy," said Lord Grosville, in evident annoyance. "The rascal hadn"t a scratch, but Kitty must needs pick him up and drive him home with a nurse. "I ain"t hurt, mum," says the boy. "Oh! but you must be," said Kitty. I offered to take him to his mother and give him half a crown. "It"s my duty to look after him," says Kitty. And she lifted him up herself--dirty little vagabond!--and put him in the carriage. There were some laborers and grooms standing near, and one of them sang out, "Three cheers for Lady Kitty Ashe!" Such a ridiculous scene as you never saw!"
The old man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
"Lady Kitty is always so kind," said the amicable Lady Edith. "But her pretty dress--I _was_ sorry!"
"Oh no--only an excuse for a new one," said Mrs. Alcot.
The Dean and Lady Tranmore approached--behind them again Ashe and Mrs.
Winston.
"Well, old fellow!" said Ashe, clapping a hand on Darrell"s shoulder.
"Uncommonly glad to see you. You look as though that d.a.m.ned London had been squeezing the life out of you. Come for a stroll before dinner?"
The two men accordingly left the talkers on the lawn, and struck into the park. Ashe, in a straw hat and light suit, made his usual impression of strength and good-humor. He was gay, friendly, amusing as ever. But Darrell was not long in discovering or imagining signs of change. Any one else would have thought Ashe"s talk frankness--nay, indiscretion--itself. Darrell at once divined or imagined in it shades of official reserve, tracts of reticence, such as an old friend had a right to resent.
"One can see what a personage he feels himself!"
Yet Darrell would have been the first to own that Ashe had some right to feel himself a personage. The sudden revelation of his full intellectual power, and of his influence in the country, for which the general election of the preceding winter had provided the opportunity, was still an exciting memory among journalists and politicians. He had gone into the election a man slightly discredited, on whose future n.o.body took much trouble to speculate. He had emerged from it--after a series of speeches laying down the principles and vindicating the action of his party--one of the most important men in England, with whom Lord Parham himself must henceforth treat on quasi-equal terms. Ashe was now Home Secretary, and, if Lord Parham"s gout should take an evil turn, there was no saying to what height fortune might not soon conduct him.
The will--the iron purpose--with which it had all been done--that was the amazing part of it. The complete independence, moreover. Darrell imagined that Lord Parham must often have regretted the small intrigue by which Ashe"s promotion had been barred in the crisis of the summer.
It had roused an indolent man to action, and freed him from any particular obligation towards the leader who had ill-treated him. Ashe"s campaign had not been in all respects convenient; but Lord Parham had had to put up with it.
The summer evening broadened as the two men sauntered on through the park, beside a small stream fringed with yellow flags. Even the dingy Midland landscape, with its smoke-blackened woods and lifeless gra.s.s, a.s.sumed a glory of great light; the soft, interlacing clouds parted before the dying sun; the water received the golden flood, and each coot and water-hen shone jet and glossy in the blaze. A few cries of birds, the distant shouts of harvesters, the rustling of the water-flags along the stream, these were the only sounds--traditional sounds of English peace.
"Jolly, isn"t it?" said Ashe, looking round him--"even this spoiled country! Why did we go and stifle in that beastly show!"
The sensuous pleasure and relaxation of his mood communicated itself to Darrell. They talked more intimately, more freely than they had done for months. Darrell"s gnawing consciousness of his own meaner fortunes, as contrasted with the brilliant and expanding career of his school-friend, softened and relaxed. He almost forgave Ashe the successes of the winter, and that subtly heightened tone of authority and self-confidence which here and there bore witness to them in the manner or talk of the minister. They scarcely touched on politics, however. Both were tired, and their talk drifted into the characteristic male gossip--"What"s ---- doing now?" "Do you ever see So-and-so?" "You remember that fellow at Univ.?"--and the like, to the agreeable accompaniment of Ashe"s best cigars.
So pleasant was the half-hour, so strongly had the old college intimacy rea.s.serted itself, that suddenly a thought struck upward in Darrell"s mind. He had not come to Haggart bent merely on idle holiday--far from it. At the moment he was weary of literature as a profession, and sharply conscious that the time for vague ambitions had gone by. A post had presented itself, a post of importance, in the gift of the Home Office. It meant, no doubt, the abandonment of more brilliant things; Darrell was content to abandon them. His determination to apply for it seemed, indeed, to himself an act of modesty--almost of sacrifice. As to the technical qualifications required, he was well aware there might be other men better equipped than himself. But, after all, to what may not general ability aspire--general ability properly stiffened with interest?
And as to interest, when was it ever to serve him if not now--through his old friendship with Ashe? Chivalry towards a much-solicited mortal, also your friend--even the subtler self-love--might have counselled silence--or at least approaches more gradual. It had been far from his purpose, indeed, to speak so promptly. But here were the hour and the man! And there, in a distant country town, a woman--whereof the mere existence was unsuspected by Darrell"s country-house acquaintance--sat waiting, in whose eyes the post in question loomed as a condition--perhaps indispensable. Darrell"s secret eagerness could not withstand the temptation.
So, with a nervous beginning--"By-the-way, I wished to consult you about a personal matter. Of course, answer or not, as you like. Naturally, I understand the difficulties!"--the plunge was taken, and the pet.i.tioner soon in full career.
After a first start--a lifted brow of astonishment--Ashe was uncomfortably silent--till suddenly, in a pause of Darrell"s eloquence, his face changed, and with a burst of his old, careless freedom and affection, he flung an arm along Darrell"s shoulder, with an impetuous--
"I say, old fellow--don"t--don"t be a d.a.m.ned fool!"
An ashen white overspread the countenance of the man thus addressed. His lips twitched. He walked on in silence. Ashe looked at him--stammered:
"Why, my dear Philip, it would be the extinguishing of you!"
Darrell said nothing. Ashe, still holding his friend captive, descanted hurriedly on the disadvantages of the post "for a man of your gifts,"
then--more cautiously--on its special requirements, not one of which did Darrell possess--hinted at the men applying for it, at the scientific and professional influences then playing upon himself, at his strong sense of responsibility--"Too bad, isn"t it, that a duffer like me should have to decide these things"--and so on.
In vain. Darrell laughed, recovered himself, changed the subject; but as they walked quickly back to the house, Ashe knew, perchance, that he had lost a friend; and Darrell"s smarting soul had scored another reckoning against a day to come.
As they neared the house they found a large group still lingering on the lawn, and Kitty just emerging from a garden door. She came out accompanied by the handsome Cambridge lad who had been her partner at Lady Crashaw"s dance. He was evidently absorbed in her society, and they approached in high spirits, laughing and teasing each other.