CHAPTER XI.
Marcella was sitting in a deep and comfortable chair at the open windowof Lady Winterbourne's drawing-room. The house--in James Street,Buckingham Gate--looked out over the exercising ground of the greatbarracks in front, and commanded the greenery of St. James's Park to theleft. The planes lining the barrack railings were poor, wilted things,and London was as hot as ever. Still the charm of these open spaces ofsky and park, after the high walls and innumerable windows of Brown'sBuildings, was very great; Marcella wanted nothing more but to liestill, to dally with a book, to dream as she pleased, and to be letalone.
Lady Winterbourne and her married daughter, Lady Ermyntrude, were stillout, engaged in the innumerable nothings of the fashionable afternoon.Marcella had her thoughts to herself.
But they were not of a kind that any one need have wished to share. Inthe first place, she was tired of idleness. In the early days after LadyWinterbourne had carried her off, the soft beds and sofas, the trainedservice and delicate food of this small but luxurious house had been sopleasant to her that she had scorned herself for a greedy Sybaritictemper, delighted by any means to escape from plain living. But she hadbeen here a fortnight, and was now pining to go back to work. Her moodwas too restless and transitional to leave her long in love with comfortand folded hands. She told herself that she had no longer any placeamong the rich and important people of this world; far away beyond theseparks and palaces, in the little network of dark streets she knew, laythe problems and the cares that were really hers, through which herheart was somehow wrestling--must somehow wrestle--its passionate way.But her wrenched arm was still in a sling, and was, moreover,under-going treatment at the hands of a clever specialist; and she couldneither go home, as her mother had wished her to do, nor return to hernursing--a state of affairs which of late had made her a little silentand moody.
On the whole she found her chief pleasure in the two weekly visits shepaid to the woman whose life, it now appeared, she _had_ saved--probablyat some risk of her own. The poor victim would go scarred and maimedthrough what remained to her of existence. But she lived; and--asMarcella and Lady Winterbourne and Raeburn had abundantly made up theirminds--would be permanently cared for and comforted in the future.
Alas! there were many things that stood between Marcella and true rest.She had been woefully disappointed, nay wounded, as to the results ofthat tragic half-hour which for the moment had seemed to throw a bridgeof friendship over those painful, estranging memories lying between herand Aldous Raeburn. He had called two or three times since she had beenwith Lady Winterbourne; he had done his best to make her inevitableappearance as a witness in the police-court, as easy to her as possible;the man who had stood by her through such a scene could do no less, incommon politeness and humanity. But each time they met his manner hadbeen formal and constrained; there had been little conversation; and shehad been left to the bitterness of feeling that she had made a strangeif not unseemly advance, of which he must think unkindly, since he hadlet it count with him so little.
Childishly, angrily--_she wanted him to be friends!_ Why shouldn't he?He would certainly marry Betty Macdonald in time, whatever Mr. Hallinmight say. Then why not put his pride away and be generous? Their futurelives must of necessity touch each other, for they were bound to thesame neighbourhood, the same spot of earth. She knew herself to be herfather's heiress. Mellor must be hers some day; and before that day,whenever her father's illness, of which she now understood the incurablethough probably tedious nature, should reach a certain stage, she mustgo home and take up her life there again. Why embitter such asituation?--make it more difficult for everybody concerned? Why notsimply bury the past and begin again? In her restlessness she wasinclined to think herself much wiser and more magnanimous than he.
Meanwhile in the Winterbourne household she was living among people towhom Aldous Raeburn was a dear and familiar companion, who admired himwith all their hearts, and felt a sympathetic interest alike in hisprivate life and his public career. Their circle, too, was his circle;and by means of it she now saw Aldous in his relations to his equals andcolleagues, whether in the Ministry or the House. The result was anumber of new impressions which she half resented, as we may resent theinformation that some stranger will give us upon a subject we imaginedourselves better acquainted with than anybody else. The promise ofRaeburn's political position struck her quick mind with a curioussurprise. She could not explain it as she had so often tacitly explainedhis place in Brookshire--by the mere accidents of birth. After all,aristocratic as we still are, no party can now afford to choose its menby any other criterion than personal profitableness. And a man nowadaysis in the long run personally profitable, far more by what he is than bywhat he has--so far at least has "progress" brought us.
She saw then that this quiet, strong man, with his obvious defects oftemperament and manner, had already gained a remarkable degree of"consideration," using the word in its French sense, among his politicalcontemporaries. He was beginning to be reckoned upon as a man of thefuture by an inner circle of persons whose word counted and carried;while yet his name was comparatively little known to the public.Marcella, indeed, had gathered her impression from the most slight andvarious sources--mostly from the phrases, the hints, the manner of menalready themselves charged with the most difficult and responsible workof England. Above all things did she love and admire power--the power ofpersonal capacity. It had been the secret, it was still half thesecret, of Wharton's influence with her. She saw it here under whollydifferent conditions and accessories. She gave it recognition with akind of unwillingness. All the same, Raeburn took a new place in herimagination.
Then--apart from the political world and its judgments--the intimacybetween him and the Winterbourne family showed her to him in many newaspects. To Lady Winterbourne, his mother's dear and close friend, hewas almost a son; and nothing could be more charming than theaffectionate and playful tolerance with which he treated her littleoddities and weaknesses. And to all her children he was bound by thememories and kindnesses of many years. He was the godfather of LadyErmyntrude's child; the hero and counsellor of the two sons, who wereboth in Parliament, and took his lead in many things; while there was noone with whom Lord Winterbourne could more comfortably discuss county oragricultural affairs. In the old days Marcella had somehow tended toregard him as a man of few friends. And in a sense it was so. He did noteasily yield himself; and was often thought dull and apathetic bystrangers. But here, amid these old companions, his delicacy andsweetness of disposition had full play; and although, now that Marcellawas in their house, he came less often, and was less free with them thanusual, she saw enough to make her wonder a little that they were all sokind and indulgent to _her_, seeing that they cared so much for him andall that affected him.
Well! she was often judged, humbled, reproached. Yet there was a certainirritation in it. Was it all her own fault that in her brief engagementshe had realised him so little? Her heart was sometimes oddly sore; herconscience full of smart; but there were moments when she was ascombative as ever.
Nor had certain other experiences of this past fortnight been any moresoothing to this sore craving sense of hers. It appeared very soon thatnothing would have been easier for her had she chosen than to become thelion of the later season. The story of the Batton Street tragedy had, ofcourse, got into the papers, and had been treated there with the usualadornments of the "New Journalism."
The world which knew the Raeburns or knew of them--comparatively a largeworld--fell with avidity on the romantic juxtaposition of names. To loseyour betrothed as Aldous Raeburn had lost his, and then to come acrossher again in this manner and in these circumstances--there was adramatic neatness about it to which the careless Fate that governs ustoo seldom attains. London discussed the story a good deal; and wouldhave liked dearly to see and to exhibit the heroine. Mrs. Lane inparticular, the hostess of the House of Commons dinner, felt that shehad claims, and was one of the first to call at Lady Winterbourne's andse
e her guest. She soon discovered that Marcella had no intentionwhatever of playing the lion; and must, in fact, avoid excitement andfatigue. But she had succeeded in getting the girl to come to her onceor twice of an afternoon to meet two or three people. It was better forthe wounded arm that its owner should walk than drive; and Mrs. Lanelived at a convenient distance, at a house in Piccadilly, just acrossthe Green Park.
Here then, as in James Street, Marcella had met in discreet successiona few admiring and curious persons, and had tasted some of the smallersweets of fame. But the magnet that drew her to the Lanes' house hadbeen no craving for notoriety; at the present moment she was totallyindifferent to what perhaps constitutionally she might have liked; theattraction had been simply the occasional presence there of HarryWharton. He excited, puzzled, angered, and commanded her more than ever.She could not keep herself away from the chance of meeting him. And LadyWinterbourne neither knew him, nor apparently wished to know him--a factwhich probably tended to make Marcella obstinate.
Yet what pleasure had there been after all in these meetings! Again andagain she had seen him surrounded there by pretty and fashionable women,with some of whom he was on amazingly easy terms, while with all of themhe talked their language, and so far as she could see to a great extentlived their life. The contradiction of the House of Commons eveningreturned upon her perpetually. She thought she saw in many of his newfriends a certain malicious triumph in the readiness with which theyoung demagogue had yielded to their baits. No doubt they were at leastas much duped as he. Like Hallin, she did not believe, that at bottom hewas the man to let himself be held by silken bonds if it should be tohis interest to break them. But, meanwhile, his bearing among thesepeople--the claims they and their amusement made upon his time and hismind--seemed to this girl, who watched them, with her dark, astonishedeyes, a kind of treachery to his place and his cause. It was somethingshe had never dreamed of; and it roused her contempt and irritation.
Then as to herself. He had been all eagerness in his enquiries after herfrom Mrs. Lane; and he never saw her in the Piccadilly drawing-room thathe did not pay her homage, often with a certain extravagance, a kind ofappropriation, which Mrs. Lane secretly thought in bad taste, andMarcella sometimes resented. On the other hand, things jarred betweenthem frequently. From day to day he varied. She had dreamt of a greatfriendship; but instead, it was hardly possible to carry on the threadof their relation from meeting to meeting with simplicity and trust. Onthe Terrace he had behaved, or would have behaved, if she had allowedhim, as a lover. When they met again at Mrs. Lane's he would besometimes devoted in his old paradoxical, flattering vein; sometimes,she thought, even cool. Nay, once or twice he was guilty of curiouslittle neglects towards her, generally in the presence of some greatlady or other. On one of these occasions she suddenly felt herselfflushing from brow to chin at the thought--"He does not want any one tosuppose for a moment that he wishes to marry me!"
It had taken Wharton some difficult hours to subdue in her the effectsof that one moment's fancy. Till then it is the simple truth to say thatshe had never seriously considered the possibility of marrying him. Whenit _did_ enter her mind, she saw that it had already entered his--andthat he was full of doubts! The perception had given to her manner anincreasing aloofness and pride which had of late piqued Wharton intoefforts from which vanity, and, indeed, something else, could notrefrain, if he was to preserve his power.
So she was sitting by the window this afternoon, in a mood which had init neither simplicity nor joy. She was conscious of a certain dull andbaffled feeling--a sense of humiliation--which hurt. Moreover, the sceneof sordid horror she had gone through haunted her imaginationperpetually. She was unstrung, and the world weighed upon her--the pity,the ugliness, the confusion of it.
* * * * *
The muslin curtain beside her suddenly swelled out in a draught of air,and she put out her hand quickly to catch the French window lest itshould swing to. Some one had opened the door of the room.
"_Did_ I blow you out of window?" said a girl's voice; and there behindher, in a half-timid attitude, stood Betty Macdonald, a vision of whitemuslin, its frills and capes a little tossed by the wind, the pointedface and golden hair showing small and elf-like under the big shady hat.
"Oh, do come in!" said Marcella, shyly; "Lady Winterbourne will be indirectly."
"So Panton told me," said Betty, sinking down on a high stool besideMarcella's chair, and taking off her hat; "and Panton doesn't tell _me_any stories _now_--I've trained him. I wonder how many he tells in theday? Don't you think there will be a special little corner of purgatoryfor London butlers? I hope Panton will get off easy!"
Then she laid her sharp chin on her tiny hand, and studied Marcella.Miss Boyce was in the light black dress that Minta approved; her paleface and delicate hands stood out from it with a sort of noble emphasis.When Betty had first heard of Marcella Boyce as the heroine of a certainstory, she had thought of her as a girl one would like to meet, if onlyto prick her somehow for breaking the heart of a good man. Now that shesaw her close she felt herself near to falling in love with her.Moreover, the incident of the fight and of Miss Boyce's share in it hadthrilled a creature all susceptibility and curiosity; and the littlemerry thing would sit hushed, looking at the heroine of it, awed by thethought of what a girl only two years older than herself must havealready seen of sin and tragedy, envying her with all her heart, and bycontrast honesty despising--for the moment--that very happy and popularperson, Betty Macdonald!
"Do you like being alone?" she asked Marcella, abruptly.
Marcella coloured.
"Well, I was just getting very tired of my own company," she said. "Iwas very glad to see you come in."
"Were you?" said Betty, joyously, with a little gleam in her prettyeyes. Then suddenly the golden head bent forward. "May I kiss you?" shesaid, in the wistfullest, eagerest voice.
Marcella smiled, and, laying her hand on Betty's, shyly drew her.
"That's better!" said Betty, with a long breath. "That's the secondmilestone; the first was when I saw you on the Terrace. Couldn't youmark all your friendships by little white stones? I could. But thehorrid thing is when you have to mark them back again! Nobody ever didthat with you!"
"Because I have no friends," said Marcella, quickly; then, when Bettyclapped her hands in amazement at such a speech, she added quickly witha smile, "except a few I make poultices for."
"There!" said Betty, enviously, "to think of being really _wanted_--forpoultices--or, anything! I never was wanted in my life! When I diethey'll put on my poor little grave--
"She's buried here--that hizzie Betty; She did na gude--so don't ee fret ye!
"--oh, there they are!"--she ran to the window--"Lady Winterbourne andErmyntrude. Doesn't it make you laugh to see Lady Winterbourne doing herduties? She gets into her carriage after lunch as one might mount atumbril. I expect to hear her tell the coachman to drive to the scaffoldat Hyde Park Corner.' She looks the unhappiest woman in England--and allthe time Ermyntrude declares she likes it, and wouldn't do without herseason for the world! She gives Ermyntrude a lot of trouble, but she_is_ a dear--a naughty dear--and mothers are _such_ a chance!Ermyntrude! _where_ did you get that bonnet? You got it without me--andmy feelings won't stand it!"
Lady Ermyntrude and Betty threw themselves on a sofa together,chattering and laughing. Lady Winterbourne came up to Marcella andenquired after her. She was still slowly drawing off her gloves, whenthe drawing-room door opened again.
"Tea, Panton!" said Lady Winterbourne, without turning her head, and inthe tone of Lady Macbeth. But the magnificent butler took no notice.
"Lady Selina Farrell!" he announced in a firm voice.
Lady Winterbourne gave a nervous start; then, with the air of a personcut out of wood, made a slight advance, and held out a limp hand to hervisitor.
"Won't you sit down?" she said.
Anybody who did not know her would have supposed that she had never
seenLady Selina before. In reality she and the Alresfords were cousins. Butshe did not like Lady Selina, and never took any pains to conceal it--afact which did not in the smallest degree interfere with the youngerlady's performance of her family duties.
Lady Selina found a seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingersto draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. Sheenquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrudehow her husband and baby in the country were getting on without her. Thetone of this last question made the person addressed flush and drawherself up. It was put as banter, but certainly conveyed that LadyErmyntrude was neglecting her family for the sake of dissipations. Bettymeanwhile curled herself up in a corner of the sofa, letting one prettyfoot swing over the other, and watching the new-comer with a maliciouseye, which instantly and gleefully perceived that Lady Selina thoughther attitude ungraceful.
Marcella, of course, was greeted and condoled with--Lady Selina,however, had seen her since the tragedy--and then Lady Winterbourne,after every item of her family news, and every symptom of her own andher husband's health had been rigorously enquired into, began to attemptsome feeble questions of her own--how, for instance, was LordAlresford's gout?
Lady Selina replied that he was well, but much depressed by thepolitical situation. No doubt Ministers had done their best, but hethought two or three foolish mistakes had been made during the session.Certain blunders ought at all hazards to have been avoided. He fearedthat the party and the country might have to pay dearly for them. But_he_ had done his best.
Lady Winterbourne, whose eldest son was a junior whip, had been therecipient, since the advent of the new Cabinet, of so much rejoicingover the final exclusion of "that vain old idiot, Alresford," from anyfurther chances of muddling a public department, that Lady Selina's talkmade her at once nervous and irritable. She was afraid of beingindiscreet; yet she longed to put her visitor down. In her odddisjointed way, too, she took a real interest in politics. Her cravingidealist nature--mated with a cheery sportsman husband who laughed ather, yet had made her happy--was always trying to reconcile the ends ofeternal justice with the measures of the Tory party. It was a task ofSisyphus; but she would not let it alone.
"I do not agree with you," she said with cold shyness in answer to LadySelina's concluding laments--"I am told--our people say--we are doingvery well--except that the session is likely to be dreadfully long."
Lady Selina raised both her eyebrows and her shoulders.
"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne! you really mean it?" she said with theindulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded--"But just think!The session will go on, every one says, till _quite_ the end ofSeptember. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented?_All_ our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believesso _much_ of the friction might have been avoided. He is all in favourof doing more for Labour. He thinks these Labour men might have beeneasily propitiated without anything revolutionary. It's no goodsupposing that these poor starving people will wait for ever!"
"Oh!" said Lady Winterbourne, and sat staring at her visitor. To thosewho knew its author well, the monosyllable could not have been moreexpressive. Lady Winterbourne's sense of humour had no voice, butinwardly it was busy with Lord Alresford as the "friend of the poor."_Alresford_!--the narrowest and niggardliest tyrant alive, so far as hisown servants and estate were concerned. And as to Lady Selina, it waswell known to the Winterbourne cousinship that she could never get amaid to stay with her six months.
"What did _you_ think of Mr. Wharton's speech the other night?" saidLady Selina, bending suavely across the tea-table to Marcella.
"It was very interesting," said Marcella, stiffly--perfectly consciousthat the name had pricked the attention of everybody in the room, andangry with her cheeks for reddening.
"Wasn't it?" said Lady Selina, heartily. "You can't _do_ those things,of course! But you should show every sympathy to the clever enthusiasticyoung men--the men like that--shouldn't you? That's what my father says.He says we've got to win them. We've got somehow to make them feel ustheir friends--or we shall _all_ go to ruin! They have the votingpower--and we are the party of education, of refinement. If we can onlylead that kind of man to see the essential justice of our cause--and atthe same time give them our help--in reason--show them we want to betheir friends--wouldn't it be best? I don't know whether I put itrightly--you know so much about these things! But we can't undo '67--canwe? We must get round it somehow--mustn't we? And my father thinksMinisters so unwise! But perhaps"--and Lady Selina drew herself backwith a more gracious smile than ever--"I ought not to be saying thesethings to you--of course I know you _used_ to think us Conservativesvery bad people--but Mr. Wharton tells me, perhaps you don't think_quite_ so hardly of us as you used?"
Lady Selina's head in its Paris bonnet fell to one side in a gentleinterrogative sort of way.
Something roused in Marcella.
"Our cause?" she repeated, while the dark eye dilated--"I wonder whatyou mean?"
"Well, I mean--" said Lady Selina, seeking for the harmless word, inthe face of this unknown explosive-looking girl--"I mean, of course, thecause of the educated--of the people who have made the country."
"I think," said Marcella, quietly, "you mean the cause of the rich,don't you?"
"Marcella!" cried Lady Winterbourne, catching at the tone rather thanwords--"I thought you didn't feel like that any more--not about thedistance between the poor and the rich--and our tyranny--and its beinghopeless--and the poor always hating us--I thought you changed."
And forgetting Lady Selina, remembering only the old talks at Mellor,Lady Winterbourne bent forward and laid an appealing hand on Marcella'sarm.
Marcella turned to her with an odd look.
"If you only knew," she said, "how much more possible it is to thinkwell of the rich, when you are living amongst the poor!"
"Ah! you must be at a distance from us to do us justice?" enquired LadySelina, settling her bracelets with a sarcastic lip.
"_I_ must," said Marcella, looking, however, not at her, but at LadyWinterbourne. "But then, you see,"--she caressed her friend's hand witha smile--"it is so easy to throw some people into opposition!"
"Dreadfully easy!" sighed Lady Winterbourne.
The flush mounted again in the girl's cheek. She hesitated, then feltdriven to explanations.
"You see--oddly enough"--she pointed away for an instant to thenorth-east through the open window--"it's when I'm over there--among thepeople who have nothing--that it does me good to remember that thereare persons who live in James Street, Buckingham Gate!"
"My dear! I don't understand," said Lady Winterbourne, studying her withher most perplexed and tragic air.
"Well, isn't it simple?" said Marcella, still holding her hand andlooking up at her. "It comes, I suppose, of going about all day in thosestreets and houses, among people who live in one room--with not a bit ofprettiness anywhere--and no place to be alone in, or to rest in. I comehome and _gloat_ over all the beautiful dresses and houses and gardens Ican think of!"
"But don't you _hate_ the people that have them?" said Betty, again onher stool, chin in hand.
"No! it doesn't seem to matter to me then what kind of people they are.And I don't so much want to take from them and give to the others. Ionly want to be sure that the beauty, and the leisure, and the freshnessare _some_where--not lost out of the world."
"How strange!--in a life like yours--that one should think so much ofthe _ugliness_ of being poor--more than of suffering or pain," saidBetty, musing.
"Well--in some moods--you do--_I_ do!" said Marcella; "and it is inthose moods that I feel least resentful of wealth. If I say to myselfthat the people who have all the beauty and the leisure are oftenselfish and cruel--after all they die out of their houses and theirparks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of itsshell. The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain.And why should one be envious of _them_ personally? They have had t
hebest chances in the world and thrown them away--are but poor animals atthe end! At any rate I can't hate them--they seem to have afunction--when I am moving about Drury Lane!" she added with a smile.
"But how can one help being ashamed?" said Lady Winterbourne, as hereyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehowinto playing devil's advocate.
"No! No!" said Marcella, eagerly, "don't be ashamed! As to the peoplewho make beauty more beautiful--who share it and give it--I often feelas if I could say to them on my knees, Never, _never_ be ashamed merelyof being rich--of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoythem! One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than acripple, or having two eyes rather than one!"
"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered,"when one has all the beauty and the freedom--and other people must_die_ without any--"
"Oh, I know, I _know_!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair;"that's what makes the world the world. And one begins with thinking itcan be changed--that it _must_ and _shall_ be changed!--that everybodycould have wealth--could have beauty and rest, and time to think, thatis to say--if things were different--if one could get Socialism--if onecould beat down the capitalist--if one could level down, and level up,till everybody had 200 _l._ a year. One turns and fingers the puzzle allday long. It seems so _near_ coming right--one guesses a hundred ways inwhich it might be done! Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt--onebegins to see that it never _will_, never _can_ come right--not in anymechanical way of that sort--that _that_ isn't what was meant!"
Her voice dropped drearily. Betty Macdonald gazed at her with a girl'snascent adoration. Lady Winterbourne was looking puzzled and unhappy,but absorbed like Betty in Marcella. Lady Selina, studying the threewith smiling composure, was putting on her veil, with the most carefulattention to fringe and hairpins. As for Ermyntrude, she was no longeron the sofa; she had risen noiselessly, finger on lip, almost at thebeginning of Marcella's talk, to greet a visitor. She and he werestanding at the back of the room, in the opening of the conservatory,unnoticed by any of the group in the bow window.
"Don't you think," said Lady Selina, airily, her white fingers stillbusy with her bonnet, "that it would be a very good thing to send allthe Radicals--the well-to-do Radicals I mean--to live among the poor? Itseems to teach people such extremely useful things!"
Marcella straightened herself as though some one had touched herimpertinently. She looked round quickly.
"I wonder what you suppose it teaches?"
"Well," said Lady Selina, a little taken aback and hesitating; "well! Isuppose it teaches a person to be content--and not to cry for the moon!"
"You _think_," said Marcella, slowly, "that to live among the poor canteach any one--any one that's _human_--to be _content_!"
Her manner had the unconscious intensity of emphasis, the dramatic forcethat came to her from another blood than ours. Another woman couldhardly have fallen into such a tone without affectation--without pose.At this moment certainly Betty, who was watching her, acquitted her ofeither, and warmly thought her a magnificent creature.
Lady Selina's feeling simply was that she had been roughly addressed byher social inferior. She drew herself up.
"As I understand you," she said stiffly, "you yourself confessed that tolive with poverty had led you to think more reasonably of wealth."
Suddenly a movement of Lady Ermyntrude's made the speaker turn her head.She saw the pair at the end of the room, looked astonished, then smiled.
"Why, Mr. Raeburn! where have you been hiding yourself during this greatdiscussion? Most consoling, wasn't it--on the whole--to us West Endpeople?"
She threw back a keen glance at Marcella. Lady Ermyntrude and Raeburncame forward.
"I made him be quiet," said Ermyntrude, not looking, however, quite ather ease; "it would have been a shame to interrupt."
"I think so, indeed!" said Lady Selina, with emphasis. "Good-bye, dearLady Winterbourne; good-bye, Miss Boyce! You have comforted me verymuch! Of _course_ one is sorry for the poor; but it is a great thing tohear from anybody who knows as much about it as _you_ do, that--afterall--it is no crime--to possess a little!"
She stood smiling, looking from the girl to the man--then, escorted byRaeburn in his very stiffest manner, she swept out of the room.
When Aldous came back, with a somewhat slow and hesitating step, heapproached Marcella, who was standing silent by the window, and askedafter the lame arm. He was sorry, he said, to see that it was still inits sling. His tone was a little abrupt. Only Lady Winterbourne saw thequick nervousness of the eyes,
"Oh! thank you," said Marcella, coldly, "I shall get back to work nextweek."
She stooped and took up her book.
"I must please go and write some letters," she said, in answer to LadyWinterbourne's flurried look.
And she walked away. Betty and Lady Ermyntrude also went to take offtheir things.
"Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, holding out her hand to him.
He took it, glanced unwillingly at her wistful, agitated face, pressedthe hand, and let it go.
"Isn't it sad," said his old friend, unable to help herself, "to see herbattling like this with life--with thought--all alone? Isn't it sad,Aldous?"
"Yes," he said. Then, after a pause, "Why _doesn't_ she go home? Mypatience gives out when I think of Mrs. Boyce."
"Oh! it isn't Mrs. Boyce's fault," said Lady Winterbourne, hopelessly."And I don't know why one should be sorry for her particularly--why oneshould want her to change her life again. She does it splendidly. OnlyI never, _never_ feel that she is a bit happy in it."
It was Hallin's cry over again.
He said nothing for a moment; then he forced a smile.
"Well! neither you nor I can help it, can we?" he said. The grey eyeslooked at her steadily--bitterly. Lady Winterbourne, with the sensationof one who, looking for softness, has lit on granite, changed thesubject.
Meanwhile, Marcella upstairs was walking restlessly up and down. Shecould hardly keep herself from rushing off--back to Brown's Buildings atonce. _He_ in the room while she was saying those things! Lady Selina'swords burnt in her ears. Her morbid, irritable sense was all onevibration of pride and revolt. Apology--appeal--under the neatest comedyguise! Of course!--now that Lord-Maxwell was dying, and the ill-usedsuitor was so much the nearer to his earldom. A foolish girl hadrepented her of her folly--was anxious to make those concernedunderstand--what more simple?
Her nerves were strained and out of gear. Tears came in a proud,passionate gush; and she must needs allow herself the relief of them.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Lady Selina had gone home full of new and uncomfortablefeelings. She could not get Marcella Boyce out of her head--neither asshe had just seen her, under the wing of "that foolish woman, MadeleineWinterbourne," nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with HarryWharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any wayeclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strangeand ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she layresting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that neverin all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into _her_ facewith the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she hadseen on Harry Wharton's, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terracetogether--nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonaldhad put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine's feet.
There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night.Wharton was to be among the guests. He was fast becoming one of the_habitues_ of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to LadySelina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozingpeacefully in a deep arm-chair.
Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, whichworked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenialto it, run over some possibilities of the future.
She was interrupted by the entrance of her m
aid, who, with the quickenedbreath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to herformidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids wasvery ill. Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who alwaysattended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness_might_ turn to rheumatic fever.
"Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!" said Lady Selina. "Let Mrs.Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and makearrangements. You understand?"
The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she hadbeen crying.
"If your ladyship would but let her stay," she said timidly, "we'd alltake our turns at nursing her. She comes from Ireland, perhaps you'llremember, my lady. She's no friends in London, and she's frightened todeath of going to the hospital."
"That's nonsense!" said Lady Selina, sternly. "Do you think I can haveall the work of the house put out because some one is ill? She might dieeven--one never knows. Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her abouther wages, and to look out for somebody else at once."
The girl's mouth set sullenly as she went about her work--put out theshining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, thevarious powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina'stoilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cryof a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend: "OMarie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay--I'll do everything thedoctor tells me--I'll make _haste_ and get well--I'll give no trouble.And it's all along of the work--and the damp up in these rooms--thedoctor said so."
An hour later Lady Selina was in the stately drawing-room of AlresfordHouse, receiving her guests. She was out of sorts and temper, and thoughWharton arrived in due time, and she had the prospect to enliven herduring dinner--when he was of necessity parted from her by people ofhigher rank--of a _tete-a-tete_ with him before the evening was over,the dinner went heavily. The Duke on her right hand, and the Dean on herleft, were equally distasteful to her. Neither food nor wine had savour;and once, when in an interval of talk she caught sight of her father'sface and form at the further end, growing more vacant and decrepit weekby week, she was seized with a sudden angry pang of revolt andrepulsion. Her father wearied and disgusted her. Life was often tristeand dull in the great house. Yet, when the old man should have found hisgrave, she would be a much smaller person than she was now, and the dayswould be so much the more tedious.
Wharton, too, showed less than his usual animation. She said to herselfat dinner that he had the face of a man in want of sleep. His youngbrilliant look was somewhat tarnished, and there was worry in therestless eye. And, indeed, she knew that things had not been going sofavourably for him in the House of late--that the stubborn oppositionof the little group of men led by Wilkins was still hindering thatconcentration of the party and definition of his own foremost place init which had looked so close and probable a few weeks before. Shesupposed he had been exhausting himself, too, over that shocking Midlandstrike. The _Clarion_ had been throwing itself into the battle of themen with a monstrous violence, for which she had several timesreproached him.
When all the guests had gone but Wharton, and Lord Alresford, dulyplaced for the sake of propriety in his accustomed chair, was safelyasleep, Lady Selina asked what was the matter.
"Oh, the usual thing!" he said, as he leant against the mantelpiecebeside her. "The world's a poor place, and my doll's stuffed withsawdust. Did you ever know any doll that wasn't?"
She looked up at him a moment without speaking.
"Which means," she said, "that you can't get your way in the House?"
"No," said Wharton, meditatively, looking down at his boots. "No--notyet."
"You think you will get it some day?"
He raised his eyes.
"Oh yes!" he said; "oh dear, yes!--some day."
She laughed.
"You had better come over to us."
"Well, there is always that to think of, isn't there? You can't deny youwant all the new blood you can get!"
"If you only understood your moment and your chance," she said quickly,"you would make the opportunity and do it at once."
He looked at her aggressively.
"How easy it comes to you Tories to rat!" he said.
"Thank you! it only means that we are the party of common sense. Well, Ihave been talking to your Miss Boyce."
He started.
"Where?"
"At Lady Winterbourne's. Aldous Raeburn was there. Your beautifulSocialist was very interesting--and rather surprising. She talked of theadvantages of wealth; said she had been converted--by living among thepoor--had changed her mind, in fact, on many things. We were all muchedified--including Mr. Raeburn. How long do you suppose that businesswill remain 'off'? To my mind I never saw a young woman more eager toundo a mistake." Then she added slowly, "The accounts of Lord Maxwellget more and more unsatisfactory."
Wharton stared at her with sparkling eyes. "How little you know her!" hesaid, not without a tone of contempt.
"Oh! very well," said Lady Selina, with the slightest shrug of her whiteshoulders.
He turned to the mantelpiece and began to play with some ornaments uponit.
"Tell me what she said," he enquired presently.
Lady Selina gave her own account of the conversation. Wharton recoveredhimself.
"Dear me!" he said, when she stopped. "Yes--well--we may see anotheract. Who knows? Well, good-night, Lady Selina."
She gave him her hand with her usual aristocrat's passivity, and hewent. But it was late indeed that night before she ceased to speculateon what the real effect of her words had been upon him.
As for Wharton, on his walk home he thought of Marcella Boyce and ofRaeburn with a certain fever of jealous vanity which was coming, he toldhimself, dangerously near to passion. He did not believe Lady Selina,but nevertheless he felt that her news might drive him into rash stepshe could ill afford, and had indeed been doing his best to avoid.Meanwhile it was clear to him that the mistress of Alresford House hadtaken an envious dislike to Marcella. How plain she had looked to-nightin spite of her gorgeous dress! and how intolerable Lord Alresford grew!