CHAPTER LV.—ON SHAKESPEARE AND ARCHIE BROWN.
IT was early on the same afternoon that Beatrice Avon received intimation of a visitor—a lady, the butler said, who gave the name of Mrs. Mowbray.
“I do not know any Mrs. Mowbray, but, of course, I’ll see her,” was the reply that Beatrice gave to the inquiry if she were at home.
“Was it possible,” she thought, “that her visitor was the Mrs. Mowbray whose portraits in the character of Cymbeline were in all the illustrated papers?”
Before Beatrice, under the impulse of this thought, had glanced at herself in a mirror—for a girl does not like to appear before a woman of the highest reputation (for beauty) with hair more awry than is consistent with tradition—her mind was set at rest. There may have been many Mrs. Mowbrays in London, but there was only one woman with such a figure, and such a face.
She looked at Beatrice with undisguised interest, but without speaking for some moments. Equally frank was the interest that was apparent on the face of Beatrice, as she went forward to meet and to greet her visitor.
She had heard that Mrs. Mowbray’s set of sables had cost someone—perhaps even Mrs. Mowbray herself—seven hundred guineas.
“Thank you, I will not sit down,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I feel that I must apologize for this call.”
“Oh, no,” said Beatrice.
“Oh, yes; I should,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I will do better, however, for I will make my visit a short one. The fact is, Miss Avon, I have heard so much about you during the past few months from—from—several people, I could not help being interested in you—greatly interested indeed.”
“That was very kind of you,” said Beatrice, wondering what further revelation was coming.
“I was so interested in you that I felt I must call upon you. I used to know Lady Innisfail long ago.”
“Was it Lady Innisfail who caused you to be interested in me?” asked Beatrice.
“Well, not exactly,” said Mrs. Mowbray; “but it was some of Lady Innisfail’s guests—some who were entertained at the Irish Castle. I used also to know Mrs. Lampson—Lord Fotheringay’s daughter. How terrible the blow of his death must have been to her and her brother.”
“I have not seen Mrs. Lampson since,” said Beatrice, “but—”
“You have seen the present Lord Fotheringay? Will you let me say that I hope you have seen him—that you still see him? Do not think me a gossiping, prying old woman—I suppose I am old enough to be your mother—for expressing the hope that you will see him, Miss Avon. He is the best man on earth.”
Beatrice had flushed the first moment that her visitor had alluded to Harold. Her flush had not decreased.
“I must decline to speak with you on the subject of Lord Fotheringay, Mrs. Mowbray,” said Beatrice, somewhat unequally.
“Do not say that,” said Mrs. Mowbray, in the most musical of pleading tones. “Do not say that. You would make me feel how very gross has been my effrontery in coming to you.”
“No, no; please do not think that,” cried Beatrice, yielding, as every human being could not but yield, to the lovely voice and the gracious manner of Mrs. Mowbray. What would be resented as a gross piece of insolence on the part of anyone else, seemed delicately gracious coming from Mrs. Mowbray. Her insolence was more acceptable than another woman’s compliment. She knew to what extent she could draw upon her resources, both as regards men and women. It was only in the case of a young cub such as Archie that she now and again overrated her powers of fascination. She knew that she would never pat Archie’s red head again.
“Yes, you will let me speak to you, or I shall feel that you regard my visit as an insolent intrusion.”
Beatrice felt for the first time in her life that she could fully appreciate the fable of the Sirens. She felt herself hypnotized by that mellifluous voice—by the steady sympathetic gaze of the lovely eyes that were resting upon her face.
“He is so fond of you,” Mrs. Mowbray went on. “There is no lover’s quarrel that will not vanish if looked at straight in the face. Let me look at yours, my dear child, and I will show you how that demon of distrust can be exorcised.” Beatrice had become pale. The word distrust had broken the spell of the Siren.
“Mrs. Mowbray,” said she, “I must tell you again that on no consideration—on no pretence whatever shall I discuss Lord Fotheringay with you.”
“Why not with me, my child?” said Mrs. Mowbray. “Because I distrust you—no I don’t mean that. I only mean that—that you have given me no reason to trust you. Why have you come to me in this way, may I ask you? It is not possible that you came here on the suggestion of Lord Fotheringay.”
“No; I only came to see what sort of girl it is that Mr. Airey is going to marry,” said Mrs. Mowbray, with a wicked little smile.
Beatrice was no longer pale. She stood with clenched hands before Mrs. Mowbray, with her eyes fixed upon her face.
Then she took a step toward the bell rope. “One moment,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “Do you expect to marry Edmund Airey?”
Beatrice turned, and looked again at her visitor. If the girl had been less feminine she would have gone on to the bell rope, and have pulled it gently. She did nothing of the sort. She gave a laugh, and said, “I shall marry him if I please.”
She was feminine.
So was Mrs. Mowbray.
“Will you?” she said. “Do you fancy for a moment—are you so infatuated that you can actually fancy that I—I—Gwendoline Mowbray, will allow you—you—to take Edmund Airey away from me? Oh, the child is mad—mad!”
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Beatrice, coming close to her, “that Edmund Airey is—is—a lover of yours?”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Mowbray, smiling, “you do not live in our world, my child.”
“No, I do not,” said Beatrice. “I now see why you have come to me to-day.”
“I told you why.”
“Yes; you told me. Edmund Airey has been your lover.”
“Has been? My child, it is only when I please that a lover of mine becomes associated with a past tense. I have not yet allowed Edmund Airey to associate with my ‘have beens.’ It was from him that I learned all about you. He alluded to you in his letters to me from Ireland merely as ‘a gray eye or so.’ You still mean to marry him?”
“I still mean to do what I please,” said Beatrice. She had now reached the bell rope and she pulled it very gently.
“You are an extremely beautiful young person,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “But you have not been able to keep close to you a man like Harold Wynne—a man with a perfect genius for fidelity. And yet you expect—”
Here the door was opened by the butler. Mrs. Mowbray allowed her sentence to dwindle away into the conventionalities of leave-taking with a stranger.
Beatrice found herself standing with flushed cheeks and throbbing heart at the door through which her visitor had passed.
It was somewhat remarkable that the most vivid impression which she retained of the rather exciting series of scenes in which she had participated, was that Mrs. Mowbray’s sables were incomparably the finest that she had ever seen.
Mrs. Mowbray could scarcely have driven round the great square before the butler inquired if Miss Avon was at home to Miss Innisfail. In another minute Norah Innisfail was embracing her with the warmth of a true-hearted girl who comes to tell another of her engagement to marry an eligible man, or a handsome man, let him be eligible or otherwise.
“I want to be the first to give you the news, my dearest Beatrice,” said Norah. “That is why I came alone. I know you have not heard the news.”
“I hear no news, except about things that do not interest me in the least,” said Beatrice.
“My news concerns myself,” said Norah.
“Then it’s sure to interest me,” cried Beatrice.
“It’s so funny! But yet it’s very serious,” said Norah. “The fact is that I’m going to marry Archie Brown.”
“Archie Brown?” said Beatrice. “I hope he is the best man in the world—he should be, to deserve you, my dear Norah.”
“I thought perhaps you might have known him,” said Norah. “I find that there are a good many people still who do not know Archie Brown, in spite of the Legitimate Theatre and all that he has done for Shakespeare.”
“The Legitimate Theatre. Is that where Mrs. Mowbray acts?”
“Only for another week. Oh, yes, Archie takes a great interest in Shakespeare. He meant the Legitimate Theatre to be a monument to the interest he takes in Shakespeare, and so it would have been, if the people had only attended properly, as they should have done. Archie is very much disappointed, of course; but he says, very rightly, that the Lord Chamberlain isn’t nearly particular enough in the plays that he allows to be represented, and so the public have lost confidence in the theatres—they are never sure that something objectionable will not be played—and go to the Music Halls, which can always be trusted. Archie says he’ll turn the Legitimate into a Music Hall—that is, if he can’t sell the lease.”
“Whether he does so or not, I congratulate you with all my heart, my dearest Norah.”
“If you had come down to Abbeylands in time—before that awful thing happened—you would have met Archie. We met him there. Mamma took a great fancy to him at once, and I think that I must have done the same. At any rate I did when he came to stay with us. He’s such a good fellow, with red hair—not the sort that the old Venetian painters liked, but another sort. Strictly speaking some of his features—his mouth, for instance—are too large, but if you look at him in one position, when he has his face turned away from you, he’s quite—quite—ah—quite curious—almost nice. You’ll like him, I know.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Beatrice.
“Yes; and he’s such a friend of Harold Wynne’s,” continued the artful Norah. “Why, what’s the matter with you, Beatrice? You are as pale—dearest Beatrice, you and I were always good friends. You know that I always liked Harold.”
“Do not talk about him, Norah.”
“Why should I not talk about him? Tell me that.”
“He is gone—gone away.”
“Not he. He’s too wretched to go away anywhere. Archie was with him to-day, and when he heard that—well, the way some people are talking about you and Mr. Airey, he had not a word to throw to a dog—Archie told me so.”
“Oh, do not talk of him, Norah.”
“Why should I not?”
“Because—ah, because he’s the only one worth talking about, and now he’s gone from me, and I’ll never see him again—never, never again!” Before she had come to the end of her sentence, Beatrice was lying sobbing on the unsympathetic cushion of the sofa—the same cushion that had absorbed her tears when she had told Harold to leave her.
“My dearest Beatrice,” whispered Norah, kneeling beside her, with her face also down a spare corner of the cushion, “I have known how you were moping here alone. I’ve come to take you away. You’ll come down with us to our place at Netherford. There’s a lake with ice on it, and there’s Archie, and many other pretty things. Oh, yes, you’ll come, and we’ll all be happy.”
“Norah,” cried Beatrice, starting up almost wildly, “Mr. Airey will be here in half an hour to ask me to marry him. He wrote to say that he would be here, and I know what he means.” Mr. Airey did call in half an hour, and he found Beatrice—as he felt certain she should—waiting to receive him, wearing a frock that he admired, and lace that he approved of.
But in the meantime Beatrice and Norah had had a few words together beyond those just recorded.
CHAPTER LVI.—ON THE BITTER CRY.
EDMUND AIREY drank his cup of tea which Beatrice poured out for him, and while doing so, he told her of the progress that was being made by the agitation of the Opposition and the counter agitation of the Government. There was no disguising the fact that the country—like the fool that it was—had been caught by the bitter cry from Siberia. There was nothing like a bitter cry, Edmund said, for catching hold of the country. If any cry was only bitter enough it would succeed. Fortunately, however, the Government, in its appeal against the Atheism of the Continent, had also struck a chord that vibrated through the length and breadth of England and Scotland. The Government orators were nightly explaining that no really sincere national effort had ever been made to convert the Jews. To be sure, some endeavours had been made from time to time to effect this great object—in the days of Isaac of York the gridiron and forceps had been the auxiliaries of the Church to bring about the conversion of the Hebrew race; and, more recently, the potent agency of drawing-room meetings and a house-to-house collection had been resorted to; but the results had been disappointing. Statistics were forthcoming—nothing impresses the people of Great Britain more than a long array of figures, Edmund Airey explained—to show that, whereas, on any part of the West coast of Africa where rum was not prohibited, for one pound sterling 348 negroes could be converted—the rate was 0.01 where rum was prohibited—yet for a subscription of five pounds, one could only depend on 0.31 of the Jewish race—something less than half an adult Hebrew—being converted. The Government orators were asking how long so scandalous a condition of affairs was to be allowed to continue, and so forth.
Oh, yes, he explained, things were going on merrily. In three days Parliament would meet, and the Opposition had drafted their Amendment to the Address, “That in the opinion of this House no programme of legislation can be considered satisfactory that does not include a protest against the horrors daily enacted in Siberia.”
If this Amendment were carried it would, of course, be equivalent to a Vote of Censure upon the Government, and the Ministers would be compelled to resign, Edmund explained to Beatrice.
She was very attentive, and when he had completed a clever account of the political machinery by which the operations of the Nonconformist Conscience are controlled, she said quietly, “My sympathies are certainly with Siberia. I hope you will vote for that Amendment.”
He laughed in his superior way.
“That is so like a girl,” said he. “You are carried away by your sympathies of the moment. You do not wait to reason out any question.”
“I dare say you are right,” said she, smiling. “Our conscience is not susceptible of those political influences to which you referred just now.”
“‘They are dangerous guides—the feelings’,” said he, “at least from a standpoint of politics.”
“But there are, thank God, other standpoints in the world from which humanity may be viewed,” said she.
“There are,” said he. “And I also join with you in saying, ‘thank God!’ Do you fancy that I am here to-day—that I have been here so frequently during the past two months, from a political motive, Beatrice?”
“I cannot tell,” she replied. “Have you not just said that the feelings are dangerous guides?”
“They lead one into danger,” said he. “There can be no doubt about that.”
“Have you ever allowed them to lead you?” she asked, with another smile.
“Only once, and that is now,” said he. “With you I have thrown away every guide but my feelings. A few months ago I could not have believed it possible that I should do so. But with God and Woman all things are possible. That is why I am here to-day to ask you if you think it possible that you could marry me.”
She had risen to her feet, not by a sudden impulse, but slowly. She was not looking at him. Her eyes were fixed upon some imaginary point beyond him. She was plainly under the influence of some very strong feeling. A full minute had passed before she said, “You should not have come to me with that request, Mr. Airey.
“Why should I not? Do you think that I am here through any other impulse than that of my feelings?”
“How can I tell?” she said, and now she was looking at him. “How can I tell which you hold dearer—political advancement, or my love?”
“How can you doubt me for a moment, Beatrice?” he said reproachfully—almost mournfully. “Why am I waiting anxiously for your acceptance of my offer, if I do not hold your love more precious than all other considerations in the world?”
“Do you so hold it?”
“Indeed I do.”
“Then I have told you that my sympathies are altogether with Siberia. Vote for the Amendment of the Opposition.”
“What can you mean, Beatrice?”
“I mean that if you vote for the Amendment, you will have shown me that you are capable of rising above mere party considerations. I don’t make this the price of my love, remember. I don’t make any compact to marry you if you adopt the course that I suggest. I only say that you will have proved to me that your words are true—that you hold something higher than political expediency.”
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
There was a long pause.
“You are unreasonable. I cannot do it,” he said.
“Good-bye,” said she.
He looked at the hand which she had thrust out to him, but he did not take it.
“You really mean me to vote against my party?” said he.
“What other way can you prove to me that you are superior to party considerations?” said she.
“It would mean self-effacement politically,” said he. “Oh, you do not appreciate the gravity of the thing.”
He turned abruptly away from her and strode across the room.
She remained silent where he had left her.
“I did not think you capable of so cruel a caprice as this,” he continued, from the fireplace. “You do not understand the consequences of my voting against my party.”
“Perhaps I do not,” said she. “But I have given you to understand the consequences of not doing so.”
“Then we must part,” said he, approaching her. “Good-bye,” said she, once more.
He took her hand this time. He held it for a moment irresolutely, then he dropped it.
“Are you really in earnest, Beatrice?” said he. “Do you really mean to put me to this test?”
“I never was more in earnest in my life,” said she. “Think over the matter—let me entreat of you to think over it,” he said, earnestly.
“And you will think over it also?”
“Yes, I will think over it. Oh, Beatrice, do not allow yourself to be carried away by this caprice. It is unworthy of you.”
“Do not be too hard on me, I am only a woman,” said she, very meekly.
She was only a woman. He felt that very strongly as he walked away.
And yet he had told Harold that he had great hope of Woman, by reason of her femininity.
And yet he had told Harold that he understood Woman and her motives.
“Papa,” said Beatrice, from the door of the historian’s study. “Papa, Mr. Edmund Airey has just been here to ask me to marry him.”
“That’s right, my dear,” said the great historian. “Marry him, or anyone else you please, only run away and play with your dolls now. I’m very busy.”
This was precisely the answer that Beatrice expected. It was precisely the answer that anyone might have expected from a man who permitted such a ménage as that which prevailed under his roof.
CHAPTER LVII.—ON THE REJECTED ADDRESSES.
THE next day Beatrice went with Norah Innisfail and her mother to their home in Nethershire. Two days afterwards the Legitimate Theatre closed its doors, and Parliament opened its doors. The Queen’s Speech was read, and a member of the Opposition moved the Amendment relating to Siberia. The Debate on the Address began.
On the second night of the debate Edmund Airey called at the historian’s house and, on asking for Miss Avon, learned that she was visiting Lady Innisfail in Nethershire. On the evening of the fourth day of the debate—the Division on the Amendment was to be taken that night—he drove in great haste to the same house, and learned that Miss Avon was still in Nethershire, but that she was expected home on the following day.
He partook of a hasty dinner at his club, and, writing out a telegram, gave it to a hall-porter to send to the nearest telegraph office.
The form was addressed to Miss Avon, in care of Lord Innisfail, Netherford Hall, Netherford, Nethershire, and it contained the following words, “I will do it. Edmund.”
He did it.
He made a brief speech amid the cheers of the Opposition and the howls of the Government party, acknowledging his deep sympathy with the unhappy wretches who were undergoing the unspeakable horrors of a Siberian exile, and thus, he said he felt compelled, on conscientious grounds (ironical cheers from the Government) to vote for the Amendment.
He went into the lobby with the Opposition.
It was an Irish member who yelled out “Judas!”
The Government was defeated by a majority of one vote, and there was a “scene” in the House.
Some time ago an enterprising person took up his abode in the midst of an African jungle, in order to study the methods by which baboons express themselves. He might have spared himself that trouble, if he had been present upon the occasion of a “scene” in the House of Commons. He would, from a commanding position in the Strangers’ Gallery, have learned all that he had set his heart upon acquiring—and more.
It was while the “scene” was being enacted that Edmund Airey had put into his hand the telegraph form written out by himself in his club.
“Telegraph Office at Netherford closes at 6 p.m.,” were the words that the hall-porter had written on the back of the form.
The next day he drove to the historian’s, and inquired if Miss Avon had returned.
She was in the drawing-room, the butler said.
With triumph—a sort of triumph—in his heart, and on his face, he ascended the staircase.
He thought that he had never before seen her look so beautiful. Surely there was triumph on her face as well! It was glowing, and her eyes were more lustrous even than usual. She had plainly just returned, for she had on a travelling dress.
“Beatrice, you saw the newspapers? You saw that I have done it?” he cried, exultantly.
“Done what?” she inquired. “I have seen no newspaper to-day.”
“What? Is it possible that you have not heard that I voted last night for the Amendment?” he cried.
“I heard nothing,” she replied.
“I wrote a telegram last evening, telling you that I meant to do it, but it appears that the office at Netherford closes at six, so it could not be sent. I did not know how much you were to me until yesterday, Beatrice.”
“Stop,” she said. “I was married to Harold Wynne an hour ago.”
He looked at her for some moments, and then dropped into a chair.
“You have made a fool of me,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I could not do that. If I had got your telegram in time last evening I would have replied to it, telling you that, whatever step you took, it would not bring you any nearer to me. Harold Wynne, you see, came to me again. I had promised to marry him when we were together at that seal-hunt, but—well, something came between us.”
“And you revenged yourself upon me? You made a fool of me!”
“If I had tried to do so, would it have been remarkable, Mr. Airey? Supposing that I had been made a fool of by the compact into which you entered with Miss Craven, who would have been to blame? Was there ever a more shameful compact entered into by a clever man and a clever woman to make a victim of a girl who believed that the world was overflowing with sincerity? I was made acquainted with the nature of that compact of yours, Mr. Airey, but I cannot say that I have yet learned what are the terms of your compact—or is it a contract?—with Mrs. Mowbray. Still, I know something. And yet you complain that I have made a fool of you.”
He had completely recovered himself before she had got to the end of her little speech. He had wondered how on earth she had become acquainted with the terms of his compact with Helen. When, however, she referred to Mrs. Mowbray, he felt sure that it was Mrs. Mowbray who had betrayed him.
He was beginning to learn something of women and their motives.
“Nothing is likely to be gained by this sort of recrimination,” said he, rising. “You have ruined my career.”
She laughed, not bitterly but merrily, he knew all along that she had never fully appreciated the gravity of the step which she had compelled him—that was how he put it—to take. She had not even had the interest to glance at a newspaper to see how he had voted. But then she had not read the leading articles in the Government organs which were plentifully besprinkled with his name printed in small capitals. That was his one comforting thought.
She laughed.
“Oh, no, Mr. Airey,” said she. “Your career is not ruined. Clever men are not so easily crushed, and you are a very clever man—so clever as to be able to make me clever, if that were possible.”
“You have crushed me,” he said. “Good-bye.”
“If I wished to crush you I should have married you,” said she. “No woman can crush a man unless she is married to him. Good-bye.”
The butler opened the door. “Is my husband in yet?” she asked of the man.
“His lordship has not yet returned, my lady,” said the butler, who had once lived in the best families—far removed from literature—and who was, consequently, able to roll off the titles with proper effect.
“Then you will not have an opportunity of seeing him, I’m afraid,” she said, turning to Mr. Airey.
“I think I already said good-bye, Lady Fotheringay.”
“I do believe that you did. If I did not, however, I say it now. Good-bye, Mr. Airey.”
He got into a hansom and drove straight to Helen Craven’s house. It was the most dismal drive he had ever had. He could almost fancy that the message boys in the streets were, in their accustomed high spirits, pointing to him with ridicule as the man who had turned his party out of office.
Helen Craven was in her boudoir. She liked receiving people in that apartment. She understood its lights.
He found that she had read the newspapers.
She stared at him as he entered, and gave him a limp hand.
“What on earth did you mean by voting—” she began.
“You may well ask,” said he. “I was a fool. I was made a fool of by that girl. She made me vote against my party.”
“And she refuses to marry you now?”
“She married Harold Wynne an hour ago.”
Helen Craven did not fling herself about when she heard this piece of news. She only sat very rigid on her little sofa.
“Yes,” resumed Edmund. “She is ill-treated by one man, but she marries him, and revenges herself upon another! Isn’t that like a woman? She has ruined my career.”
Then it was that Helen Craven burst into a long, loud, and very unmusical laugh—a laugh that had a suspicion of a shrill shriek about some of its tones. When she recovered, her eyes were full of the tears which that paroxysm of laughter had caused.
“You are a fool, indeed!” said she. “You are a fool if you cannot see that your career is just beginning. People are talking of you to-day as the Conscientious One—the One Man with a Conscience. Isn’t the reputation for a Conscience the beginning of success in England?”
“Helen,” he cried, “will you marry me? With our combined money we can make ourselves necessary to any party. Will you marry me?”
“I will,” she said. “I will marry you with pleasure—now. I will marry anyone—now.”
“Give me your hand, Helen,” he cried. “We understand one another—that is enough to start with. And as for that other—oh, she is nothing but a woman after all!”
He never spoke truer words.
But sometimes when he is alone he thinks that she treated him badly.
Did she?