CHAPTER II.
"Well, Marcella, have you and Lady Winterbourne arranged your classes?"
Mrs. Boyce was stooping over a piece of needlework beside a window inthe Mellor drawing-room, trying to catch the rapidly failing light. Itwas one of the last days of December. Marcella had just come in from thevillage rather early, for they were expecting a visitor to arrive abouttea time, and had thrown herself, tired, into a chair near her mother.
"We have got about ten or eleven of the younger women to join; none ofthe old ones will come," said Marcella. "Lady Winterbourne has heard ofa capital teacher from Dunstable, and we hope to get started next week.There is money enough to pay wages for three months."
In spite of her fatigue, her eye was bright and restless. The energy ofthought and action from which she had just emerged still breathed fromevery limb and feature.
"Where have you got the money?"
"Mr. Raeburn has managed it," said Marcella, briefly.
Mrs. Boyce gave a slight shrug of the shoulders.
"And afterwards--what is to become of your product?"
"There is a London shop Lady Winterbourne knows will take what we makeif it turns out well. Of course, we don't expect to pay our way."
Marcella gave her explanations with a certain stiffness of self-defence.She and Lady Winterbourne had evolved a scheme for reviving andimproving the local industry of straw-plaiting, which after years ofdecay seemed now on the brink of final disappearance. The village womenwho could at present earn a few pence a week by the coarser kinds ofwork were to be instructed, not only in the finer and better paid sorts,but also in the making up of the plait when done, and the "blocking" ofhats and bonnets--processes hitherto carried on exclusively at one ortwo large local centres.
"You don't expect to pay your way?" repeated Mrs. Boyce. "What, never?"
"Well, we shall give twelve to fourteen shillings a week wages. We shallfind the materials, and the room--and prices are very low, the wholetrade depressed."
Mrs. Boyce laughed.
"I see. How many workers do you expect to get together?"
"Oh! eventually, about two hundred in the three villages. It willregenerate the whole life!" said Marcella, a sudden ray from the innerwarmth escaping her, against her will.
Mrs. Boyce smiled again, and turned her work so as to see it better.
"Does Aldous understand what you are letting him in for?"
Marcella flushed.
"Perfectly. It is 'ransom'--that's all."
"And he is ready to take your view of it?"
"Oh, he thinks us economically unsound, of course," said Marcella,impatiently. "So we are. All care for the human being under the presentstate of things is economically unsound. But he likes it no more than Ido."
"Well, lucky for you he has a long purse," said Mrs. Boyce, lightly."But I gather, Marcella, you don't insist upon his spending it _all_ onstraw-plaiting. He told me yesterday he had taken the Hertford Streethouse."
"We shall live quite simply," said Marcella, quickly.
"What, no carriage?"
Marcella hesitated.
"A carriage saves time. And if one goes about much, it does not cost somuch more than cabs."
"So you mean to go about much? Lady Winterbourne talks to me ofpresenting you in May."
"That's Miss Raeburn," cried Marcella. "She says I must, and all thefamily would be scandalised if I didn't go. But you can't imagine--"
She stopped and took off her hat, pushing the hair back from herforehead. A look of worry and excitement had replaced the radiant glowof her first resting moments.
"That you like it?" said Mrs. Boyce, bluntly. "Well, I don't know. Mostyoung women like pretty gowns, and great functions, and prominentpositions. I don't call you an ascetic, Marcella."
Marcella winced.
"One has to fit oneself to circumstances," she said proudly. "One mayhate the circumstances, but one can't escape them."
"Oh, I don't think you will hate your circumstances, my dear! You wouldbe very foolish if you did. Have you heard finally how much thesettlement is to be?"
"No," said Marcella, shortly. "I have not asked papa, nor anybody."
"It was only settled this morning. Your father told me hurriedly as hewent out. You are to have two thousand a year of your own."
The tone was dry, and the speaker's look as she turned towards herdaughter had in it a curious hostility; but Marcella did not notice hermother's manner.
"It is too much," she said in a low voice.
She had thrown back her head against the chair in which she sat, and herhalf-troubled eyes were wandering over the darkening expanse of lawn andavenue.
"He said he wished you to feel perfectly free to live your own life, andto follow out your own projects. Oh, for a person of projects, my dear,it is not so much. You will do well to husband it. Keep it for yourself.Get what _you_ want out of it: not what other people want."
Again Marcella's attention missed the note of agitation in her mother'ssharp manner. A soft look--a look of compunction--passed across herface. Mrs. Boyce began to put her working things away, finding it toodark to do any more.
"By the way," said the mother, suddenly, "I suppose you will be goingover to help him in his canvassing this next few weeks? Your father saysthe election will be certainly in February."
Marcella moved uneasily.
"He knows," she said at last, "that I don't agree with him in so manythings. He is so full of this Peasant Proprietors Bill. And I hatepeasant properties. They are nothing but a step backwards."
Mrs. Boyce lifted her eyebrows.
"That's unlucky. He tells me it is likely to be his chief work in thenew Parliament. Isn't it, on the whole, probable that he knows moreabout the country than you do, Marcella?"
Marcella sat up with sudden energy and gathered her walking thingstogether.
"It isn't knowledge that's the question, mamma; it's the principle ofthe thing. I mayn't know anything, but the people whom I follow know.There are the two sides of thought--the two ways of looking at things. Iwarned Aldous when he asked me to marry him which I belonged to. And heaccepted it."
Mrs. Boyce's thin fine mouth curled a little.
"So you suppose that Aldous had his wits about him on that greatoccasion as much as you had?"
Marcella first started, then quivered with nervous indignation.
"Mother," she said, "I can't bear it. It's not the first time that youhave talked as though I had taken some unfair advantage--made anunworthy bargain. It is too hard too. Other people may think what theylike, but that you--"
Her voice failed her, and the tears came into her eyes. She was tiredand over-excited, and the contrast between the atmosphere of flatteryand consideration which surrounded her in Aldous's company, in thevillage, or at the Winterbournes, and this tone which her mother sooften took with her when they were alone, was at the moment hardly to beendured.
Mrs. Boyce looked up more gravely.
"You misunderstand me, my dear," she said quietly. "I allow myself towonder at you a little, but I think no hard things of you ever. Ibelieve you like Aldous."
"Really, mamma!" cried Marcella, half hysterically.
Mrs. Boyce had by now rolled up her work and shut her workbasket.
"If you are going to take off your things," she said, "please tellWilliam that there will be six or seven at tea. You said, I think, thatMr. Raeburn was going to bring Mr. Hallin?"
"Yes, and Frank Leven is coming. When will Mr. Wharton be here?"
"Oh, in ten minutes or so, if his train is punctual. I hear your fatherjust coming in."
Marcella went away, and Mrs. Boyce was left a few minutes alone. Herthin hands lay idle a moment on her lap, and leaning towards the windowbeside her, she looked out an instant into the snowy twilight. Her mindwas full of its usual calm scorn for those--her daughter included--whosupposed that the human lot was to be mended by a rise in weekly wages,or that suffering has any necessary dependence on the am
ount ofcommodities of which a man disposes. What hardship is there in starvingand scrubbing and toiling? Had she ever seen a labourer's wife scrubbingher cottage floor without envy, without moral thirst? Is it these thingsthat kill, or any of the great simple griefs and burdens? Doth man liveby bread alone? The whole language of social and charitable enthusiasmoften raised in her a kind of exasperation.
So Marcella would be rich, excessively rich, even now. Outside theamount settled upon her, the figures of Aldous Raeburn's present income,irrespective of the inheritance which would come to him on hisgrandfather's death, were a good deal beyond what even Mr. Boyce--uponwhom the daily spectacle of the Maxwell wealth exercised a certainangering effect--had supposed.
Mrs. Boyce had received the news of the engagement with astonishment,but her after-acceptance of the situation had been marked by all herusual philosophy. Probably behind the philosophy there was much secretrelief. Marcella was provided for. Not the fondest or most contrivingmother could have done more for her than she had at one stroke done forherself. During the early autumn Mrs. Boyce had experienced some momentsof sharp prevision as to what her future relations might be towards thisstrong and restless daughter, so determined to conquer a world hermother had renounced. Now all was clear, and a very shrewd observercould allow her mind to play freely with the ironies of the situation.
As to Aldous Raeburn, she had barely spoken to him before the day whenMarcella announced the engagement, and the lover a few hours later hadclaimed her daughter at the mother's hands with an emotion to which Mrs.Boyce found her usual difficulty in responding. She had done her best,however, to be gracious and to mask her surprise that he should haveproposed, that Lord Maxwell should have consented, and that Marcellashould have so lightly fallen a victim. One surprise, however, had to beconfessed, at least to herself. After her interview with her futureson-in-law, Mrs. Boyce realised that for the first time for fifteenyears she was likely to admit a new friend. The impression made upon himby her own singular personality had translated itself in feelings andlanguage which, against her will as it were, established anunderstanding, an affinity. That she had involuntarily aroused in himthe profoundest and most chivalrous pity was plain to her. Yet for thefirst time in her life she did not resent it; and Marcella watched hermother's attitude with a mixture of curiosity and relief.
Then followed talk of an early wedding, communications from Lord Maxwellto Mr. Boyce of a civil and formal kind, a good deal more notice fromthe "county," and finally this definite statement from Aldous Raeburn asto the settlement he proposed to make upon his wife, and the jointincome which he and she would have immediately at their disposal.
Under all these growing and palpable evidences of Marcella's futurewealth and position, Mrs. Boyce had shown her usual restless and ironicspirit. But of late, and especially to-day, restlessness had becomeoppression. While Marcella was so speedily to become the rich andindependent woman, they themselves, Marcella's mother and father, werevery poor, in difficulties even, and likely to remain so. She gatheredfrom her husband's grumbling that the provision of a suitable trousseaufor Marcella would tax his resources to their utmost. How long would itbe before they were dipping in Marcella's purse? Mrs. Boyce'sself-tormenting soul was possessed by one of those nightmares her pridehad brought upon her in grim succession during these fifteen years. Andthis pride, strong towards all the world, was nowhere so strong or soindomitable, at this moment, as towards her own daughter. They werepractically strangers to each other; and they jarred. To inquire wherethe fault lay would have seemed to Mrs. Boyce futile.
* * * * *
Darkness had come on fast, and Mrs. Boyce was in the act of ringing forlights when her husband entered.
"Where's Marcella?" he asked as he threw himself into a chair with theair of irritable fatigue which was now habitual to him.
"Only gone to take off her things and tell William about tea. She willbe down directly."
"Does she know about that settlement?"
"Yes, I told her. She thought it generous, but not--I think--unsuitable.The world cannot be reformed on nothing."
"Reformed!--fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Boyce, angrily. "I never saw a girlwith a head so full of nonsense in my life. Where does she get it from?Why did you let her go about in London with those people? She may bespoilt for good. Ten to one she'll make a laughing stock of herself andeverybody belonging to her, before she's done."
"Well, that is Mr. Raeburn's affair. I think I should take him intoaccount more than Marcella does, if I were she. But probably she knowsbest."
"Of course she does. He has lost his head; any one can see that. Whileshe is in the room, he is like a man possessed. It doesn't sit well onthat kind of fellow. It makes him ridiculous. I told him half thesettlement would be ample. She would only spend the rest on nonsense."
"You told him that?"
"Yes, I did. Oh!"--with an angry look at her--"I suppose you thought Ishould want to sponge upon her? I am as much obliged to you as usual!"
A red spot rose in his wife's thin cheek. But she turned and answeredhim gently, so gently that he had the rare sensation of having triumphedover her. He allowed himself to be mollified, and she stood there overthe fire, chatting with him for some time, a friendly natural note inher voice which was rare and, insensibly, soothed him like an opiate.She chatted about Marcella's trousseau gowns, detailing her owncontrivances for economy; about the probable day of the wedding, thelatest gossip of the election, and so on. He sat shading his eyes fromthe firelight, and now and then throwing in a word or two. The inmostsoul of him was very piteous, harrowed often by a new dread--the dreadof dying. The woman beside him held him in the hollow of her hand. Inthe long wrestle between her nature and his, she had conquered. His fearof her and his need of her had even come to supply the place of a dozenethical instincts he was naturally without.
Some discomfort, probably physical, seemed at last to break up hismoment of rest.
"Well, I tell you, I often wish it were the other man," he said, withsome impatience. "Raeburn 's so d----d superior. I suppose I offendedhim by what I said of Marcella's whims, and the risk of letting hercontrol so much money at her age, and with her ideas. You never saw suchan air!--all very quiet, of course. He buttoned his coat and got up togo, as though I were no more worth considering than the table. Neitherhe nor his precious grandfather need alarm themselves: I shan't troublethem as a visitor. If I shock them, they bore me--so we're quits.Marcella'll have to come here if she wants to see her father. But owingto your charming system of keeping her away from us all her childhood,she's not likely to want."
"You mean Mr. Wharton by the other man?" said Mrs. Boyce, not defendingherself or Aldous.
"Yes, of course. But he came on the scene just too late, worse luck! Whywouldn't he have done just as well? He's as mad as she--madder. Hebelieves all the rubbish she does--talks such _rot_, the people tell me,in his meetings. But then he's good company--he amuses you--you don'tneed to be on your p's and q's with _him_. Why wouldn't she have takenup with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. _He's_not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just badluck."
Mrs. Boyce smiled a little.
"What there is to make you suppose that she would have inclined to him,I don't exactly see. She has been taken up with Mr. Raeburn, really,from the first week of her arrival here."
"Well, I dare say--there was no one else," said her husband, testily."That's natural enough. It's just what I say. All I know is, Whartonshall be free to use this house just as he pleases during hiscanvassing, whatever the Raeburns may say."
He bent forward and poked the somewhat sluggish fire with a violencewhich hindered rather than helped it. Mrs. Boyce's smile had quitevanished. She perfectly understood all that was implied, whether in hisinstinctive dislike of Aldous Raeburn, or in his cordiality towardsyoung Wharton.
After a minute's silence, he got up again and left the room, walking, asshe observed, with di
fficulty. She stopped a minute or so in the sameplace after he had gone, turning her rings absently on her thin fingers.She was thinking of some remarks which Dr. Clarke, the excellent andexperienced local doctor, had made to her on the occasion of his lastvisit. With all the force of her strong will she had set herself todisbelieve them. But they had had subtle effects already. Finally shetoo went upstairs, bidding Marcella, whom she met coming down, hurryWilliam with the tea, as Mr. Wharton might arrive any moment.
* * * * *
Marcella saw the room shut up--the large, shabby, beautiful room--thelamps brought in, fresh wood thrown on the fire to make it blaze, andthe tea-table set out. Then she sat herself down on a low chair by thefire, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands claspedin front of her. Her black dress revealed her fine full throat and herwhite wrists, for she had an impatience of restraint anywhere, and worefrills and falls of black lace where other people would have followedthe fashion in high collars and close wristbands. What must have struckany one with an observant eye, as she sat thus, thrown into beautifullight and shade by the blaze of the wood fire, was the massiveness ofthe head compared with the nervous delicacy of much of the face, thethinness of the wrist, and of the long and slender foot raised on thefender. It was perhaps the great thickness and full wave of the hairwhich gave the head its breadth; but the effect was singular, and wouldhave been heavy but for the glow of the eyes, which balanced it.
She was thinking, as a _fiancee_ should, of Aldous and their marriage,which had been fixed for the end of February. Yet not apparently withany rapturous absorption. There was a great deal to plan, and her mindwas full of business. Who was to look after her various village schemeswhile she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London? Mary Harden hadhardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was. They must find somecapable woman and pay her. The Cravens would tell her, of course, thatshe was on the high road to the most degrading of _roles_--the _role_ ofLady Bountiful. But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls. Andthe _role_ itself was inevitable. It all depended upon how it wasmanaged--in the interest of what ideas.
She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town. It wouldcertainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward alittle. Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over.
All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell,which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it wasnot easy to hear. Their coming guest was not much in her mind. Shetacitly assumed that her father would look after him. On the two orthree occasions when they had met during the last three months,including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, herthoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice ofhim--picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be. Of late he had not beenmuch in the neighbourhood. There had been a slack time for bothcandidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hardcanvassing in view of the election which everybody expected at the endof February.
But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin! That interested her. She felt anintense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certainnervousness. The impression she might be able to make on him would be insome sense an earnest of her future.
Suddenly, something undefinable--a slight sound, a current of air--madeher turn her head. To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorwaylooking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves.
She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance.
"Mr. Wharton!"
"Oh!--must you?"--he said, with a movement of one hand, as though tostop her. "Couldn't you stay like that? At first I thought there wasnobody in the room. Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are asthe sand of the sea for multitude, so I wandered in by myself. Then Isaw you--and the fire--and the room. It was like a bit of music. It wasmere wanton waste to interrupt it."
Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him.
"I did not hear the front door," she said coldly. "My mother will behere directly. May I give you some tea?"
"Thanks. No, I knew you did not hear me. That delighted me. It showedwhat charming things there are in the world that have no spectators!What a _delicious_ place this is!--what a heavenly old place--especiallyin these half lights! There was a raw sun when I was here before, butnow--"
He stood in front of the fire, looking round the great room, and at thefew small lamps making their scanty light amid the flame-lit darkness.His hands were loosely crossed behind his back, and his boyish face, inits setting of curls, shone with content and self-possession.
"Well," said Marcella, bluntly, "I should prefer a little more light tolive by. Perhaps, when you have fallen downstairs here in the dark asoften as I have, you may too."
He laughed.
"But how much better, after all--don't you think so?--to have too littleof anything than too much!"
He flung himself into a chair beside the tea-table, looking up with gayinterrogation as Marcella handed him his cup. She was a good dealsurprised by him. On the few occasions of their previous meetings, thesebright eyes, and this pronounced manner, had been--at any rate astowards herself--much less free and evident. She began to recover thestart he had given her, and to study him with a half-unwillingcuriosity.
"Then Mellor will please you," she said drily, in answer to his remark,carrying her own tea meanwhile to a chair on the other side of the fire."My father never bought anything--my father can't. I believe we havechairs enough to sit down upon--but we have no curtains to half thewindows. Can I give you anything?"
For he had risen, and was looking over the tea-tray.
"Oh! but I _must_," he said discontentedly. "I _must_ have enough sugarin my tea!"
"I gave you more than the average," she said, with a sudden little leapof laughter, as she came to his aid. "Do all your principles break downlike this? I was going to suggest that you might like some of that firetaken away?" And she pointed to the pile of blazing logs which nowfilled up the great chimney.
"That fire!" he said, shivering, and moving up to it. "Have you any ideawhat sort of a wind you keep up here on these hills on a night likethis? And to think that in this weather, with a barometer that laughs inyour face when you try to move it, I have three meetings to-morrownight!"
"When one loves the 'People,' with a large P," said Marcella, "onemustn't mind winds."
He flashed a smile at her, answering to the sparkle of her look, thenapplied himself to his tea and toasted bun again, with the daintydeliberation of one enjoying every sip and bite.
"No; but if only the People didn't live so far apart. Some murderousperson wanted them to have only one neck. I want them to have only oneear. Only then unfortunately everybody would speak well--which wouldbring things round to dulness again. Does Mr. Raeburn make you thinkvery bad things of me, Miss Boyce?"
He bent forward to her as he spoke, his blue eyes all candour and mirth.
Marcella started.
"How can he?" she said abruptly. "I am not a Conservative."
"Not a Conservative?" he said joyously. "Oh! but impossible! Does thatmean that you ever read my poor little speeches?"
He pointed to the local newspaper, freshly cut, which lay on a table atMarcella's elbow.
"Sometimes--" said Marcella, embarrassed. "There is so little time."
In truth she had hardly given his candidature a thought since the dayAldous proposed to her. She had been far too much taken up with her ownprospects, with Lady Winterbourne's friendship, and her village schemes.
He laughed.
"Of course there is. When is the great event to be?"
"I didn't mean that," said Marcella, stiffly. "Lady Winterbourne and Ihave been trying to start some village workshops. We have been workingand talking, and writing, morning, noon, and night."
"Oh! I know--yes, I heard of it. And you really think anything is goingto come out of finicking little schemes of that sort?"
His dr
y change of tone drew a quick look from her. The fresh-colouredface was transformed. In place of easy mirth and mischief, she read anacute and half contemptuous attention.
"I don't know what you mean," she said slowly, after a pause. "Orrather--I do know quite well. You told papa--didn't you?--and Mr.Raeburn says that you are a Socialist--not half-and-half, as all theworld is, but the real thing? And of course you want great changes: youdon't like anything that might strengthen the upper class with thepeople. But that is nonsense. You can't get the changes for a long_long_ time. And, meanwhile, people must be clothed and fed and keptalive."
She lay back in her high-backed chair and looked at him defiantly. Hislip twitched, but he kept his gravity.
"You would be much better employed in forming a branch of theAgricultural Union," he said decidedly. "What is the good of playingLady Bountiful to a decayed industry? All that is childish; we want _themeans of revolution_. The people who are for reform shouldn't wastemoney and time on fads."
"I understand all that," she said scornfully, her quick breath risingand falling. "Perhaps you don't know that I was a member of theVenturist Society in London? What you say doesn't sound very new to me!"
His seriousness disappeared in laughter. He hastily put down his cupand, stepping over to her, held out his hand.
"You a Venturist? So am I. Joy! Won't you shake hands with me, ascomrades should? We are a very mixed set of people, you know, andbetween ourselves I don't know that we are coming to much. But we canmake an alderman dream of the guillotine--that is always something. Oh!but now we can talk on quite a new footing!"
She had given him her hand for an instant, withdrawing it with shyrapidity, and he had thrown himself into a chair again, with his armsbehind his head, and the air of one reflecting happily on a changedsituation. "Quite a new footing," he repeated thoughtfully. "But itis--a little surprising. What does--what does Mr. Raeburn say to it?"
"Nothing! He cares just as much about the poor as you or I, pleaseunderstand! He doesn't choose my way--but he won't interfere with it."
"Ah! that is like him--like Aldous."
Marcella started.
"You don't mind my calling him by his Christian name sometimes? It dropsout. We used to meet as boys together at the Levens. The Levens are mycousins. He was a big boy, and I was a little one. But he didn't likeme. You see--I was a little beast!"
His air of appealing candour could not have been more engaging.
"Yes, I fear I was a little beast. And he was, even then, and always,'the good and beautiful.' You don't understand Greek, do you, MissBoyce? But he was very good to me. I got into an awful scrape once. Ilet out a pair of eagle owls that used to be kept in the courtyard--SirCharles loved them a great deal more than his babies--I let them out atnight for pure wickedness, and they came to fearful ends in the park. Iwas to have been sent home next day, in the most unnecessary and penalhurry. But Aldous interposed--said he would look after me for the restof the holidays."
"And then you tormented him?"
"Oh no!" he said with gentle complacency. "Oh no! I never tormentanybody. But one must enjoy oneself you know; what else can one do? Thenafterwards, when we were older--somehow I don't know--but we didn't geton. It is very sad--I wish he thought better of me."
The last words were said with a certain change of tone, and sitting uphe laid the tips of his fingers together on his knees with a littleplaintive air. Marcella's eyes danced with amusement, but she lookedaway from him to the fire, and would not answer.
"You don't help me out. You don't console me. It's unkind of-you. Don'tyou think it a melancholy fate to be always admiring the people whodetest you?"
"Don't admire them!" she said merrily.
His eyebrows lifted. "_That_," he said drily, "is disloyal. I call--Icall your ancestor over the mantelpiece"--he waved his hand towards ablackened portrait in front of him--"to witness, that I am all foradmiring Mr. Raeburn, and you discourage it. Well, but now--_now_"--hedrew his chair eagerly towards hers, the pose of a minute before thrownto the winds--"do let us understand each other a little more beforepeople come. You know I have a labour newspaper?"
She nodded.
"You read it?"
"Is it the _Labour Clarion_? I take it in."
"Capital!" he cried. "Then I know now why I found a copy in the villagehere. You lent it to a man called Hurd?"
"I did."
"Whose wife worships you?--whose good angel you have been? Do I knowsomething about you, or do I not? Well, now, are you satisfied with thatpaper? Can you suggest to me means of improving it? It wants some freshblood, I think--I must find it? I bought the thing last year, in amoribund condition, with the old staff. Oh! we will certainly takecounsel together about it--most certainly! But first--I have beenboasting of knowing something about you--but I should like to ask--doyou know anything about me?"
Both laughed. Then Marcella tried to be serious.
"Well--I--I believe--you have some land?"
"Eight!" he nodded--"I am a Lincolnshire landowner. I have about fivethousand acres--enough to be tolerably poor on--and enough to playtricks with. I have a co-operative farm, for instance. At present I havelent them a goodish sum of money--and remitted them their firsthalf-year's rent. Not so far a paying speculation. But it will do--someday. Meanwhile the estate wants money--and my plans and I wantmoney--badly. I propose to make the _Labour Clarion_ pay--if I can.That will give me more time for speaking and organising, for whatconcerns _us_--as Venturists--than the Bar."
"The Bar?" she said, a little mystified, but following every word with afascinated attention.
"I made myself a barrister three years ago, to please my mother. Shethought I should do better in Parliament--if ever I got in. Did you everhear of my mother?"
There was no escaping these frank, smiling questions.
"No," said Marcella, honestly.
"Well, ask Lord Maxwell," he said, laughing. "He and she came acrosseach other once or twice, when he was Home Secretary years ago, and shewas wild about some woman's grievance or other. She always maintainsthat she got the better of him--no doubt he was left with a differentimpression. Well--my mother--most people thought her mad--perhaps shewas--but then somehow--I loved her!"
He was still smiling, but at the last words a charming vibration creptinto the words, and his eyes sought her with a young open demand forsympathy.
"Is that so rare?" she asked him, half laughing--instinctively defendingher own feeling lest it should be snatched from her by any make-believe.
"Yes--as we loved each other--it is rare. My father died when I was ten.She would not send me to school, and I was always in her pocket--Ishared all her interests. She was a wild woman--but she _lived_, as notone person in twenty lives."
Then he sighed. Marcella was too shy to imitate his readiness to askquestions. But she supposed that his mother must be dead--indeed, nowvaguely remembered to have heard as much.
There was a little silence.
"Please tell me," she said suddenly, "why do you attack mystraw-plaiting? Is a co-operative farm any less of a stopgap?"
Instantly his face changed. He drew up his chair again beside her, asgay and keen-eyed as before.
"I can't argue it out now. There is so much to say. But do listen! Ihave a meeting in the village here next week to preach landnationalisation. We mean to try and form a branch of the Labourers'Union. Will you come?"
Marcella hesitated.
"I think so," she said slowly.
There was a pause. Then she raised her eyes and found his fixed uponher. A sudden sympathy--of youth, excitement, pleasure--seemed to risebetween them. She had a quick impression of lightness, grace; of an openbrow set in curls; of a look more intimate, inquisitive, commanding,than any she had yet met.
"May I speak to you, miss?" said a voice at the door.
Marcella rose hastily. Her mother's maid was standing there.
She hurried across the room.
"What is the matter, Deaco
n?"
"Your mother says, miss," said the maid, retreating into the hall, "I amto tell you she can't come down. Your father is ill, and she has sentfor Dr. Clarke. But you are please not to go up. Will you give thegentlemen their tea, and she will come down before they go, if she can."
Marcella had turned pale.
"Mayn't I go, Deacon? What is it?"
"It's a bad fit of pain, your mother says, miss. Nothing can be donetill the doctor comes. She begged _particular_ that you wouldn't go up,miss. She doesn't want any one put out."
At the same moment there was a ring at the outer door.
"Oh, there is Aldous," cried Marcella, with relief, and she ran out intothe hall to meet him.