Beneath these startling announcements Mrs. de Lacy Trevor further reads much of which she did not know. Then she lays down the paper.
“My dear, it’s like a dream,” she exclaims. “What will happen?”
“What has happened already,” answers Lady Manderton. “Revolution. Vivi,” she continues eagerly, “I suppose it’s no use asking you to take the step I’m going to? I’m going to throw in my lot with Gloria de Lara, and help her by every means in my poor power.”
“Dodo! what do you mean?” cries her friend in a horrified voice.
“I mean what I have said, Vivi,” answers Lady Manderton in a quiet, sad voice. “Vivi, I can’t tell you how terribly I feel my past wasted life. But it was not all my fault. I was brought up to nothing better, and probably should never have realised it, if Hector D’Estrange had not been born. Ah, Vivi! Gloria’s life has opened my eyes. I see now that if woman had fair play, women in the position of you and I, Vivi, would never throw away and waste our lives as we have done. But, thank God, there is a chance of remedying it. At any rate, I’ll do my best. For Gloria de Lara’s noble cause I would die willingly a thousand times.”
She has taken her friend’s hand as she speaks. “Good-bye, Vivi,” she says gently.
But Vivi has risen and thrown her arms round Lady Manderton’s neck.
“Don’t, don’t, Dodo! You musn’t go! There are going to be terrible doings; I can see that plainly. Oh, Dodo! please don’t go.”
There is just a slight curl of contempt upon the lips of Lady Manderton’s handsome mouth as she kisses the weak, timid woman, whom all these years she has been contented to call friend. Then she gently undoes the tightly clasped hands of Vivi Trevor from around her neck, and presses her firmly but kindly back into her seat. “I have no fear, Vivi. There, now, don’t cry; you will hear of me soon, dear—God grant better employed than I have been. There now, think of what I’ve said. Good-bye.” The next moment she is gone, and Vivi Trevor is left alone.
For a time she sits like one in a dream, then she rises and walks to the window. The crowd is still surging to and fro. All traffic is rendered impossible save on foot. Mounted policemen and military patrol the street, interfering as little as possible with the people, who, save for the rougher element already mentioned, are orderly enough, albeit excited and angry.
“What will happen?” mutters Vivi to herself. “What a strange sight! Never realised before what a number of people London contains, and what a strange-looking lot, too! Didn’t think there were such people in existence.”
There is a knock at her boudoir door as she stands thus soliloquising to herself.
“Come in,” she answers.
It is Marie, the French maid, and she is the bearer of a note.
“A letter for madame,” she says.
“Marie, what a fearful crowd!” exclaims her mistress. “What will happen? Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
“Mais jamais, jamais de ma vie, madame,” answers the Frenchwoman shuddering. “C’est terrible.”
“Marie, you can bring me my coffee and bread-and-butter now,” continues Vivi, as she turns the note over in her hand and looks at it curiously. It is from Mr. Trevor.
“Madame will have to take café noir this morning,” remarks the maid gloomily.
“Café noir? You know I hate it, Marie.”
“Tant pis, madame,” replies the woman, with a shrug of the shoulders. “But no milkman has called, and there is no milk in the house.”
“But we shall starve, Marie!” exclaims her mistress.
“Je le crois bien, madame,” is all the other replies as she leaves the room. Marie is not a stranger to revolution. She was in Paris as a young girl during the revolt which cost Napoleon III. his throne. She knows well the suffering which an upheaval of the people always brings with it. She will be astonished at nothing that may come. Has she not been detailing her experiences downstairs to the frightened servants, who are undergoing their first hardships in Mr. and Mrs. de Lacy Trevor’s luxurious service by having to go without milk in their tea that morning? Do they, by any chance, cast a thought to the suffering thousands who have no tea into which to put either milk or sugar,—those suffering thousands whose condition and very existence has given the brain of Gloria de Lara many a racking thought, as—when in power—she has pondered the problem, so far unravelled, of their amelioration and upraising? Not a bit of it. These servants do not realise a suffering which they have never seen. It is just the world’s way. Not one half of it knows how the other half lives.
Left alone, Vivi Trevor opens her husband’s note. She thinks it strange he should write to her. He has never written to her before while staying under the same roof. She has not set eyes on him since the day before, when he parted with her after the trial, conviction, and sentence of Hector D’Estrange. He had not come in to dinner that night, nothing out of the way to Vivi, the comings and goings of her husband being of small importance or interest to her. These two have drifted more than ever apart since the days when Mr. Trevor first had his eyes opened by the Eton boy’s article in the Free Review. He has never sought to interfere with his wife’s goings on, feeling that to do so would only make his desolate home more unhomely and comfortless than ever. It is therefore with some surprise that Vivi reads the following:—
“My Dearest Vivi,—You will wonder at these few lines, but I feel I owe you some little explanation, though whether you will care about it I know not. Our lives as regards one another have not been over happy; at least I can speak for myself in saying so. I do not blame you, Vivi, for the want of affection you have always shown me, or for your goings on with other men. The fault lies in your bringing up, and the false position in which your sex is placed by man’s unnatural laws. I learnt to recognise this long ago, and to acknowledge the teaching of Hector D’Estrange as true and just. That noble genius, now unveiled to a wondering world as Gloria de Lara, is paying the penalty of her attempt to naturalise woman’s position in this world, as a lead up to many and much-needed social reforms. I feel strongly that in this moment of trial she should receive the support of all men and women, high and low, rich and poor, who feel with her, and I have determined to place my services at her disposal. This, Vivi, will naturally take me away from you for a time, perhaps for ever. Who knows? Only God. You will not miss me, for I have never been anything to you. I do not blame you, dearest, for I ought never to have married you. Still I loved you, and love you still; that is my only plea, and I ask your forgiveness. You will perhaps accord it when you realise that I am giving my life to the upraising of your sex, and to attaining its freedom, thereby accomplishing the first great step in the direction of social reform, on which the gaze of Gloria de Lara is fixed. How this struggle will end I know not. It will be the greatest revolution this world has ever known,—far-reaching in its results, and, let us hope and pray, bringing about a final, fair, and lasting settlement of that all-momentous question, which has given to the world its noblest woman in Gloria de Lara. Good-bye, Vivi.
She lays the letter down on her lap, and sits staring at it. Her thoughts fly back across the years of her wedded life, years spent in vain amusements and false excitements. She cannot recall a single kindly or unselfish act on her part towards the man who has loved her so devotedly and tenderly, nor can she lay hold of one single act of usefulness upon which she can look back with either pleasure or satisfaction. Very acutely she feels this now; and yet has it been entirely her own fault?
“What else could I do?” she murmurs to herself. “I was never brought up to think of anything else. Mother bade me marry well and quickly. That’s exactly what I did do. What other opening was given me? None. If I had been a man, and properly educated, I might have done something; but as it was, what else could I do?”
Her thoughts are flying on ahead now, to that vague future of which she can know nothing till it comes. Yet what hope does that glance ahead bring to Vivi Trevor? Absolutely none. In the past her life had been wasted, and now the future, when regarded, brings her nothing but the vague dread of growing old and passée, with nothing to turn to when that time comes, nothing to console her for the gay, giddy life which she has led in the past.
She is beginning to understand Lady Manderton’s words and action better now. Launcelot Trevor’s note has opened her eyes very wide. Vivi vividly sees what she has never seen before, for she is beginning to think for the first time.
She throws herself face downwards on the sofa upon which she had been reclining so daintily, when Lady Manderton called in upon her but a short time since. There is a big black void all round Vivi Trevor’s heart, a dull, hopeless feeling of despair. Large tears are welling up into her beautiful eyes, and bitter sobs shake her slight, girlish frame.
Poor Vivi! She is truly miserable, and yet she has no idea how to end that misery. In a like position, Lady Manderton had risen equal to the occasion; but then the latter is of different stuff to her hitherto gay, unthinking friend, a woman of stronger brain and sterner mould, one who is able to make up her mind, and act promptly when occasion requires it.
There she lies, this victim of neglected childhood and unfair, unnatural laws. She lies there, a living protest against the selfishness and conceit that have built up that wall within which she lies imprisoned. Of what good is life to such as she, whose education since childhood has been vain, mindless, ephemeral? If Vivi Trevor had never been born, the world would have lost nothing. And yet, as a drop is to an ocean, so is the life of this one despairing soul to the thousands who, like her, have gone down to their graves in uselessness and obscurity, not because in natural body and mind they were unfitted to work in the great army of man, not because in desire and willingness they were found wanting, but because of that barrier, that artificial mountain which one sex has forbidden the other sex to climb, which one sex has erected in the face of Nature, to shut out the operations of Nature’s laws.
These words but reflect the thoughts of thousands, who, wearily struggling along the path of life, ask themselves wonderingly, “Why existence, if this is all it brings?” Many a tired and saddened soul has lain itself down to die, with the undefined feeling that the wasted life left behind might not have been if only—only—ay, if only what? Gloria de Lara, Flora Desmond, and others, could answer that vague, yearning cry. They would reply, “If only Nature had been obeyed.” Therein lies the secret of the troubles of this world, the suffering, agony, and misery that millions have to put up with, while a clique lives and reigns, making laws and leading the multitude by the nose under the guise of liberty and freedom! For every happy heart, thousands there are of wretched ones; for every well-fed mortal, thousands there are who starve and suffer. The world is old, its years unknown to the ken of man. Through all these years man has ruled therein, and this is what he has brought it to! Can he do nothing better? Yes, but only hand in hand with woman. Nature declares it; and he who would fight against Nature, must create the evils that torture the world.
CHAPTER VII.
Downing Street is awake betimes, and within the precincts of the residence of the First Lord of the Treasury an unusual stir and signs of an unwonted anxiety are perceivable. Seated around a long oblong table in a singularly doleful-looking room, are a baker’s dozen of gentlemen, apparently in eager discussion. Perplexity and anxiety is on every face, not unmixed, in some cases, with vacuity. A stranger dropped from the clouds, and unaccustomed to the ways, and manners, and customs of our planet, might innocently inquire who these disturbed-looking personages are, and what their business? He would be told in reply that the personages are nothing more nor less than the Sovereign of Great Britain’s Ministers, their business, the holding of a Cabinet Council. But at such an hour, nine o’clock in the morning! Why, in the ordinary course of affairs, poor old Lord Muddlehead, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, would be adjusting his night-cap, and turning over for his second sleep in bed, and that excellent nonentity, Lord Donothing, Lord President of the Council and Privy Seal, would be sweetly dreaming of rest and peace, well merited and well earned, after the arduous and fatiguing duties attaching to his noble office!
However, a matter of importance has shaken sleep from their eyes, as they have been summoned post-haste to attend their chief on urgent public business.
The chief in question, the first Lord of the Treasury, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland, is the Duke of Devonsmere, a tall, aristocratic-looking man, with thick moustaches, whiskers, and beard, in which the grey hairs of advancing age are rapidly gathering. He has thick lips, a not very pleasant eye, and a forehead chiefly remarkable for the crease or wrinkle, which, starting from the centre, runs down perpendicularly to meet the nose. He has a voice far from genial; and, in fact, his manner all round is cold, and haughty, and unwinning.
The duke is a good speaker. That is his chief forte. He has not particularly distinguished himself through life as a great politician, though he has held high posts in various Ministries. He has been Secretary for War in a former Ministry, but seceded from his chief when this latter brought in his Irish Home Rule Bill. No one has ever been able to accuse the Duke of Devonsmere of attempting to aggrandise himself. In politics he has been strictly honest according to his lights, though many believe that in the old days of Conservatives and Liberals, he would have graced more appropriately the ranks of the former, which as a Unionist he eventually joined. However, those days are past. There are no Liberals, or Conservatives, or Unionists now. The former having adopted the Progressist title, the two latter become merged in the National party, of which party the Duke of Devonsmere is the head.
The position which he holds at this moment is an awkward one. His is only a provisional Ministry, held together by the temporary support of the Progressist party, the natural and avowed enemy of the Nationals. But the hatred of the Progressists for the D’Estrangeites is so intense, that for a time their minor enmity with the Nationals is merged and forgotten in this new and greater one. It is, therefore, with such assistance as this, that the duke, with a Cabinet chiefly distinguished for its dulness and want of perspicacity, is endeavouring to cope with the extraordinary state of affairs, that has arisen on the defeat of Hector D’Estrange’s policy, and the revolution which has resulted from the events following upon that defeat.
Gloria de Lara is at large. Although warrants have been issued for her arrest as well as that of Lady Flora Desmond, no traces of either have yet been discovered. Of course the officials of Scotland Yard surrounded Montragee House, and demanded admission soon after the former’s rescue; but when at length the great front door was thrown open for the admittance of the officers of the law, they were received only by Lord Bernard Fontenoy, who smilingly regretted that he could afford them no information or assist their search in any way. All he knew was that his brother had left him in charge of Montragee House during his unavoidable absence. Clearly there was very little to be extracted from the youthful lord.
The Home Department Minister is speaking now, but apparently affording but cold comfort to his colleagues. Mr. Mayhew belongs to the English bar. He is an excellent speaker, but that is all. It would have been better if he had stuck to his profession exclusively, and left politics alone, for he has not shone in them. He is a weak man, and an obstinate one, and can never be got to acknowledge having committed a mistake. He has held office before in a Conservative Ministry in the same department, which did not profit much by his supervision, or attain any particular distinction for efficiency. He is the best man, however, that the Nationals have at their command for the post, which is not saying much for the existing state of things.
“Detectives are at work in nearly every great centre, and the police are fully instructed how to act,” he assures his colleagues.
“Don’t you think, Mayhew, that Hector D’Estrange, or, as I suppose we must now call her, Gloria de Lara, has many secret friends in the force? There is no doubt she has the mass of the working classes of the country on her side—certainly nearly every woman amongst them. Depend upon it your detectives will not trace her, and it seems to me you are all of you vastly underrating her power.”
The speaker is a man of about fifty years of age, with a fine forehead, rather scant hair, prominent, intelligent eyes, a sallow complexion, and somewhat of the middle height. He looks younger than he really is, and it is probably his long thick moustache that gives him a little of the military appearance. But Lord Pandulph Chertsey is no soldier. He is every inch a politician, living for nothing else but politics.
While we can pass over the remainder of the Devonsmere Cabinet without notice, because of the extreme mediocrity of talent displayed therein, a glance at the character of Lord Pandulph Chertsey is necessary. The extraordinary point which first strikes one is—why is not Lord Pandulph Prime Minister? Clearly amongst all those thirteen gentlemen he is the only one possessing a large grasp of thought, or a power to look at events and regard them as they are. Few men have been more abused than Lord Pandulph; and yet he has done nothing to merit that abuse beyond showing a certain independence of mind and an inclination to follow the dictates of conscience before party. He has been accused of ambition. It is certain that if he had been less honest in his political career, and less straightforward, he might have risen more quickly to supreme power. But though doubtless ambitious—and what sin is there in that?—he has known how to subordinate his ambition to the dictates of his conscience in all matters, which, according to his lights, he believes affect the welfare of Society. He sees clearly now what the high and dignified Duke of Devonsmere, old Lord Muddlehead, Lord Donothing, and their colleagues do not see in the least. He sees that Gloria de Lara, though she may have many an enemy in the country, is yet a power which must not be despised. Lord Pandulph has no sympathy with her cause or her teachings; but that is no reason why he should ignore the fact that there are thousands who have, and who are prepared to support her. Mr. Mayhew shakes his head. We have said he is an obstinate man, and obstinacy is more or less a sign of weakness.
“No, no,” he says hastily. “I think it is you, Chertsey, who overrate her power. Of course she has a few friends, but not many. I always said D’Estrangeism was ephemeral. You will see how quickly the storm she has raised will become subdued. I have not the slightest doubt on that score. But for the sake of law and order we must strain every nerve to arrest both her and Lady Flora. It is a terrible business, but murder cannot go unpunished, that is very clear.”
Lord Pandulph laughs, as he glances at the duke, who is sprawling back in his chair with his legs stretched out. Mr. Mayhew’s remarks appear to him ridiculous. “Depend upon it,” he exclaims again, “that you are utterly underrating her power. We know enough of Hector D’Estrange to be pretty well certain that Gloria de Lara will not remain inactive. You talk of your detectives and police, but let me remind you that there are scattered throughout the country those companies of Women Volunteers, whom she can call out at any moment. Surely you do not underrate their power for mischief?”
But Mr. Mayhew does, and so do the rest of the Cabinet, including the Duke of Devonsmere. This latter is a bitter opponent of Gloria de Lara’s advocacy for woman’s freedom. He is quite convinced that the sex is hopelessly inferior to his own, and regards their emancipation with the same horror as did the South in the American Civil War when the North upheld the abolition of slavery.
“I think we are straying wide of the mark, Chertsey,” he observes rather gruffly. “The policy we have got to decide on, is how the riotous crowds that are paralysing public freedom are to be suppressed. There is no doubt that for the moment this adventuress has a strong party in her favour, but I think, with Mayhew, that all sympathy with her will quickly subside, especially if the Government show a bold and determined front to the mutineers. The most strenuous efforts must be made to arrest those two women, and so put an end to the mutiny which they have provoked. I consider, therefore, that the military ought to be employed to assist the police, and I have little doubt that in a very short time order will be restored. Do you all think with me?”
The eleven satellites do, but not the independent planet. Lord Pandulph does not agree, and he says so plainly. He thinks it will be madness to employ the military, and thus provoke civil brawls, and perhaps civil war. He cannot make himself responsible for such a state of things.
“I am very sorry,” he says gravely, “but I am quite unable to fall in with such a policy, which, if pursued, I believe will entail lamentable results. Do your best if you think it possible to arrest the leaders of this movement by means of detectives and police, but for goodness’ sake keep the soldiers out of the fray. However, if you persist, I can make way for a fresh Secretary for India. I can resign.”
“That is an old game with you,” remarks the duke drily. “It will not be the first time you have left your colleagues in the lurch.”
“Say rather not the first time that I have refused to stifle conscience for the sake of office, or to make over my honest opinion to the care of others,” answers Lord Pandulph somewhat hotly, nettled no doubt by the duke’s unfair remark. “However,” he continues quietly, “I have no wish to mar the unanimity of these proceedings, and will withdraw. My reasons for resignation can be fully explained in the proper place.”
There is a significant ring in his voice which cannot be mistaken. The duke knows perfectly well that with Lord Pandulph out of his Cabinet, this excellent clique will be little less than a group of mechanical dolls. To lose Lord Pandulph means discredit to his Ministry, and a considerable loss of confidence outside it. He feels he must temporise.
“Really, Chertsey, I don’t understand what you want,” he observes impatiently. “A short while ago you were making fun of the detective force, and assuring us we had underrated Gloria de Lara’s power. Now that I propose to take decisive measures to arrest that power, you object to them. Will you propose a policy yourself?”
“Well, I will, as you invite me to do so,” answers Lord Pandulph, with a smile, “but I do not suppose you will adopt it. However, here is my opinion. I am not in sympathy with Gloria de Lara’s desires, but I fully recognise that her doctrines are accepted by thousands. I am not likely to forget that it was she who raised the Hall of Liberty, who drilled into efficiency a large Woman Volunteer Force, and who has worked her way into the affections of vast numbers of the working classes. Having read the evidence at her trial, I am extremely dissatisfied with the verdict, while in regard to the death of the policeman in the prison-van, I do not look upon Lady Flora’s act as murder. We are assured by members of the police force, that she fired through the lock of the van, only after giving the policeman full warning of her intention to do so. She naturally supposed he had lain down as she bade him; and though his death is most grievous, really she cannot be accused of murder. Looking at matters in this light, I think the wisest thing the present Government can do is to appeal to the country to decide the question, revoke the warrant against Lady Flora, and offer Gloria de Lara a fresh trial. Such a policy may be out of the way, but we must not forget that we are now facing a state of affairs unparalleled in the world’s history. For my part, I cannot take the responsibility of deciding for the country. It is the country which should be appealed to, and allowed to decide for itself.”
He has spoken as befits a statesman, who is able and willing to look upon the people as the proper tribunal to decide the policy to be pursued. But the Duke of Devonsmere, unlike Lord Pandulph, has never and will never be able to quit his aristocratic perch in order to descend to the people’s level. He is willing to give them a policy and ask them to accept it, but he cannot realise that the masses are able to produce one for themselves. It is not wonderful that he thinks as he does, for he is not, and never has been, in touch with the people.
Like Mr. Mayhew, he shakes his head.
“Your proposal is simple madness, Chertsey. I, for one, cannot fall in with it.”
He looks sternly at the eleven satellites who are regarding him. They thoroughly understand that look.
“Nor we,” they murmur deferentially, apeing the abject acquiescence of poor old Lord Muddlehead.
Again Lord Pandulph laughs. Words would not measure the contemptuous ring that there is in that laugh.
“And you will pardon me if I say that I think your proposal madness also. I cannot agree to it, and it is best I should resign,” he says quietly.
“Very well,” answers the duke coldly. “As you are determined, so be it, Chertsey.”
Lord Pandulph rises. He accepts his congé willingly. It has been gall and wormwood to work with such colleagues as these. He is out of place, and he feels it. He knows that he ought to be where the duke is sitting. Undoubtedly he ought.
“Then it is understood? I shall tender my resignation without any delay, so that you will be able to nominate my successor. This being so, it is better I should retire at once. Good-morning, Devonsmere.” And without deigning recognition of the eleven satellites, Lord Pandulph leaves the room.
“Really, Chertsey is about the most insufferable fellow to deal with I have ever known,” murmurs Lord Hankney, the Minister for Agriculture, adjusting his eyeglass. “We shall do much better without him, Devonsmere.”
So they sit on in council these strange twelve, a Ministry misrepresentative of the people. The policy against which Lord Pandulph warned them, they agree to adopt. The military is to be ordered out, a direct incentive to civil war, while the warrants for the arrest of Gloria de Lara and Lady Flora Desmond are to remain in force. It is the old story, merely history repeating itself, of a group of men omitting to consult the people—whose paid servants they are—before acting. Office, unfortunately, nowadays is too much considered as the happy hunting ground of a clique or class, to the exclusion of the people’s acknowledged representatives. So the wrong men step in, and take upon themselves responsibilities for which they are totally disqualified and unfitted; and thus are mistakes committed for which those who pay the taxes have to suffer. The case in point is a good one. Such a decision would never have been come to had the Duke of Devonsmere’s Cabinet contained some of the people’s representatives.
CHAPTER VIII.
“What news, Evie?”
The speaker has risen from a low wooden stool just outside the verandahed porch of a pretty, straggling, rambling cottage, hidden amidst many and various creepers, whose parasitical arms interlace with each other in bewildering confusion. All around stretch dark pine woods far as the eye can reach, as it scans their broad expanse through the cuttings in the forest, fashioned by the hand of man.
Gloria de Lara it is, who thus questions the new-comer. A tall, powerful-looking man, with thick, bushy beard and whiskers, and a clean-shaven upper lip. He is dressed in the habiliments of a navvy, and carries on his back a bag of tools. These he throws down as he replies,
“News, Gloria? Much what I expected. You are to be hunted down by every means at the command of Scotland Yard. Warrants are out not only for your arrest but for Lady Flora’s as well, and the military are to be employed to assist the police in suppressing the ‘riotous crowds,’ as such are termed the people who are agitating in your favour. Pandulph Chertsey has resigned. Bernie was in the House last night to hear him give his reasons. He says Chertsey made a splendid speech, in which he advocated an appeal to the country to settle this question, and a fresh trial for you. His remarks were received in gloomy silence by both Progressists and Nationals, though loudly applauded by the D’Estrangeites. But the two former have no intention to appeal at present. They hate you and yours too much, Gloria. They want to crush you first before they do anything else. To accomplish this, dog and cat though they be, they will be amicable in order to attain their end.”
“I know that,” she answers, with a sad smile; “but I will do my best to baulk them until my work is done. Then, they may do as they please.”
“Hush, Gloria!” exclaims Evie Ravensdale, with a shudder. “Do not speak of harm befalling you. O God, forfend it! I could not survive it.”
She smiles again, still sadly, as she lays her hand on his arm, and looks at him with the dark sapphire eyes that have haunted him day and night for many a year with a strange, yearning love, which he often found hard to fathom. He understands it all now, however. There is no mystery about that love any longer. Its cause, Gloria de Lara.
“It is I who should say hush, Evie dear,” she says gently, “and it is you who must not speak thus. Remember the great cause we have both at heart, the glorious cause that must and shall win! On its behalf are we not ready to face trial and trouble, and many an anxious hour? Ah, Evie! remember our vows.”
Yes, he remembers them well enough. Is he not striving to fulfil them even now? But the future, threatening, as it does, the person of all that he holds most dear, is dark and fearsome in Evie Ravensdale’s anxious mind.
“Did you manage to see Flora Desmond?” she inquires, breaking thus the silence which has followed her last words.
“Yes, Gloria,” he answers; “and that reminds me that I have much to tell you. Lady Flora has not been idle. She is indeed a most wonderful woman. There she is working away in the heart of London, with the warrant for her arrest duly out, with detectives and police in every direction, and yet not an idea have they where she is, thanks to the people’s loyalty.”
“God bless them!” is all Gloria says. She is eagerly awaiting the information he has to give her.
“She is not working single-handed either. Who do you think has joined the White Guards, Gloria? You will never guess.”
“Who?” she says anxiously.
“Why, Lady Manderton! and Launcelot Trevor has offered his services to Lady Flora.”
“Lady Manderton!” Gloria can hardly believe her ears. She looks incredulously at the speaker.
“It is true, Gloria, however impossible it may seem; and a real enthusiastic worker she is. However, to business. Lady Flora told me to tell you, that she has sent picked messengers from the White Guards to every one of our Volunteer centres, so as to be able to keep up active communication with them all. The code adopted works admirably, and has been arranged with extreme skill and forethought. In a few days all will be ready for your campaign. She suggests that you should hold a first meeting in the Hall of Liberty. The White Guards will be in readiness for that one. If the police and military interfere every means for escape will be at hand. Before they have time to look round you will be heard of at York, where you will be attended by the Women’s Rifle Corps, and so on. Rapidity of action will be the characteristic feature of your campaign—a regular Will-o’-the-wisp crusade, in fact. Of course it will be attended by a good deal of risk; but it is quite certain that the people must be appealed to, and those who are supporting you now not left in the lurch. God grant there may be no more blood shed!”
“Yes, God grant it indeed!” she answers fervently. “Nevertheless, Evie, ’twere better thus to shed one’s blood than to submit any longer and without protest to the present state of things. Whatever may be the outcome of this revolution, I have no fear but that it will lead up to victory in the future. I may never see the day. What matter? It will come.”
She laughs softly, a low triumphant laugh, as her mind’s eye strives to pierce the murky darkness of the future. Instinctively she realises what lies behind that impenetrable veil, and sees with the glance of prophecy the promised land beyond. It is thus with all reformers. If to them was only vouchsafed the cold, sneering support which the world generally bestows upon early effort, they would sink and die beneath the venomed shafts of the unbelievers; but these latter do not see the noble visions which are given to the pioneers of the future, visions which beckon them forward, and unfold to their eager gaze the triumph of their labours in the establishment of that for which they have given their lives.
“Well, I will go and get rid of this disguise,” observes the duke, with a smile. “This beard and these whiskers are uncommonly hot, Gloria. By-the-bye, when does Mrs. de Lara sail?”
“In two days, Evie, she goes by the White Star Line,” answers his companion. “I left her in the study just before meeting you. Go in and see her before you change.”
He passes on through the porch, outside of which he had found her sitting on his arrival, and enters the cottage, and Gloria takes up her old position to ponder and think over the situation of affairs, which her trusty messenger has brought to her from the outside world.
We have not seen her since that eventful evening, when she was rescued by Flora Desmond and her White Guards from the arm of the law, and safely escorted to Montragee House. Here a hasty consultation had been held, and it was at once decided that without delay she must quit the duke’s mansion. Within an hour of her entrance she had left the ducal residence, and in a suit of plain dark clothes had sought a safe asylum with humble friends, in a quarter of the city where no one dreamed of searching for her. The duke himself had quitted his home to avoid awkward questions, leaving it in the care of his brother, and Mrs. de Lara had repaired to her Windsor residence. Communication had been maintained through loyal and trustworthy friends, and from her refuge in the mighty city, Gloria had rejoined her mother and the duke at “The Hut,” a tiny out-of-the-way residence belonging to the latter, situated in the heart of the pine forests that clothe the country for miles around, between Bracknell and Wokingham. From this secluded nook she could hold communication with her friends through the medium of Evie Ravensdale, who in various disguises passed to and fro between Bracknell and London daily.
Meanwhile the Devonsmere Ministry has been active. Supported by the Nationals and Progressists, a Bill has been hastily passed through the House of Commons, and sent up to the House of Lords for approval. It grants the Government exceptional facilities for suppressing the public meetings, which may be held by Gloria de Lara’s supporters. A large number of special constables have been enrolled, and entrusted with extensive powers. The military have been ordered to hold themselves in readiness to support the police, and a special proclamation has been issued, offering a large reward for the delivery up to justice of the persons of Gloria de Lara and Flora Desmond, or any man or woman found actively espousing the former’s cause. Armed with these tremendous powers, the Devonsmere Ministry are confident that the revolution will be summarily suppressed, and the chief actors brought speedily to justice. In vain Lord Pandulph Chertsey has warned them against the course they have resolved upon. He is unheeded, for the Ministry have a majority in their favour in both Houses, and are determined to enforce their policy rigidly and unrelentingly.
All this Gloria de Lara knows full well. The situation is thoroughly understood by her, and the risk fully appreciated, but she knows also that she will be faithful to her vow. She is of the same mind now as she was when, as a child, looking over the lovely Adriatic, that feeling had entered her heart which had bidden her go forward and struggle for the cause, even though the struggle should end in death. She made a vow then; through all these years she has kept it. Now that danger and death stare her in the face, will she draw back appalled? No, ten thousand times no.
Her plans are fully formed, and none so fit as Gloria to carry them into effect. In every part of the kingdom she has faithful emissaries at work. Aided by them, large open-air meetings are to be convened, which she will address in turn, vanishing as quickly and mysteriously as she appears. In this way she will be able to hold communication with the people in every part of the country, and scatter broadcast the seeds of her great doctrine. She knows full well that aid and sympathy will come to her from all parts of the world. She is sending messengers in every direction, Mrs. de Lara having volunteered to visit America on behalf of her child’s cause. She knows that the flame once kindled, will never more be extinguished, until victory waves aloft the wand of peace. If in the struggle she be doomed to fall—what matter, so that the great cause triumph?
She has the law against her, but law is only strong so long as the people acknowledge it to be just, and agree to obey it. No law is binding or sacred which has not been ratified by the people’s approval. There is no natural Divine right which gives to a few men the power and authority to impose on millions a command to obey. Might alone can force it. It has been declared that might is right. What if the people defy might, and struggle against its tyranny for the triumph of right?
She sits on alone, revolving this truth in her mind. Thought absorbs her with its dreamy influence, carrying her on beyond the present into the great unfathomed future before her. She sees the storm which she has raised angry and defiant, the elements thereof tossed and buffeted, but she knows that after that storm the waves of fury will be stilled in a great calm.
“Dreaming, Gloria? Of what, pray?”
She starts. The voice thrills her, for she loves it well. Gloria’s contact with the world in her self-imposed duties has not blunted or dulled the instincts of Nature. In past days, it was a favourite remark with our grandmothers and grandfathers, that woman’s connection with the coarser things of life would degrade her by constant familiarity with them. Poor things! They judged of Nature from the narrow-minded platforms on which they had been educated, knew nothing of and cared nothing for the sighs of liberty, or the rights of Nature.
Yes! though her life has been one of constant intercourse with man, though she has been and is familiar with the coarser things of life, Gloria loves, and loves truly and well. Hers is not the love of a timid, ignorant girl, longing to escape the captivity in which she has been reared, or the selfish, guilty love of the intriguante, whose love would fade and disappear were it not deemed unholy. Hers is the love of one who, knowing the world well, understanding the character of man, drilled to a knowledge of the laws of Nature, yet elects to love one being above all others. Gloria’s love is one that once given, can never die.
As with her, so it is with Evie Ravensdale. The world has courted his love, but its wiles have not awoke it. Often, when in loving commune with his friend Hector D’Estrange, the thought would flash through the young duke’s mind, that if Hector had been a woman, the great love of which he felt himself capable, would have gone out to her absolutely and without reserve. What was the subtle power that had attracted him to Hector D’Estrange, which had made him pause on the verge of pleasure’s precipice, and, casting to the winds his hitherto selfish existence, had made him body and soul the devoted adherent of the young reformer?
Evie Ravensdale knows the reason now. From the moment that he learnt that in Hector D’Estrange was embodied the person of Gloria de Lara, he understood that the influence of a noble, high-minded, and genuine woman, had allured him from the false glare and glitter of the world, and had given him an aim in life.
“Ah, dear Evie! have I not much to think of? In such times as these, thought does not take much rest.”
She rises as she speaks, and links her arm in his. Men have often watched Hector D’Estrange and the Duke of Ravensdale in this friendly attitude before. Such an ape is Fashion, that it has become the proper thing for men to walk arm-in-arm. Doubtless, however, in view of the change which has come about in the altered fortunes of Hector D’Estrange, it will be suddenly discovered that such an attitude is both unbecoming and improper. So much for the monkey Custom and its cousin ape Fashion!
“Let us go for a stroll, Gloria,” he pleads, “the evening is so glorious; and it may be long before we have the chance again of a quiet chat together. We used to enjoy those tête-à-têtes at Montragee when you were Hector D’Estrange, did we not?”
“Yes,” she says quietly. “I did love them, Evie. In fact, I think I set too great a store upon them, more than was good for me to do; but they were a true rest and pleasure after toil and anxiety, and I accepted them as such.”
They have descended a gentle slope as she speaks and entered a glade in the forest. The warm, red glow of the setting sun pierces in parts the thickly grouped pines, and plays upon the ferns and bracken that grow in green luxuriance beneath. The evening commune of the birds is dying into a low twitter, and the rabbits have commenced to peep forth from their burrows to see if all is still, preparatory to indulging in the evening meal, as is their wont and custom at this hour.
What is it that throws its shadow across the glade in the wake of Evie Ravensdale and Gloria de Lara? As the two saunter slowly along the forest’s green pathway, the figure of a man suddenly presents itself at the entrance to the glade, and stands motionless gazing after the retreating pair. Only for a moment though, as with a low laugh he turns quickly in the direction of “The Hut.” His movements are peculiar. He does not walk openly up to the cottage, but, concealing himself behind the rhododendron bushes which surround it in thick luxuriance, he stealthily and silently gains the porch, outside of which Gloria de Lara was sitting on the arrival of Evie Ravensdale.
Passing noiselessly along the verandah which runs round “The Hut,” the man suddenly comes to a halt outside a half-opened window, and peers in. A logwood fire burns cheerily on the hearth, but there are no lamps as yet in the room, and this is the only light that irradiates it. It is sufficient, however, to enable him to make out the form of a woman seated by the fire. Her elbows are resting on her knees, and her head is bent in her hands, and through the half-opened fingers she is gazing into the glowing blaze. A single ring flashes on the third finger of her left hand; one ring only, but no more. The man’s eyes dilate with passion and fury as they watch her. The expression is that of a wild beast gloating upon its prey. This man, too, has a smile of triumph upon his coarse, sensual lips, mingled with malignity and hate.
A quick shudder runs through Speranza de Lara—for this lonely woman is no other than she—as with a sudden impulse she raises her head and looks towards the window with a scared and startled expression. The man draws quickly back from his post of observation, and passing rapidly along the verandah disappears amidst the thick bushes already mentioned. Too late, however, to conceal his features from the gaze of the woman, who, alas! knows them too well. With a cry of horror she springs forward, and pushing open the window makes her way out on to the verandah. Two minutes later, and the tongue of a little tower bell rings out half-a-dozen sharp, warning notes. Evie Ravensdale and Gloria de Lara know full well their meaning. Their sound heralds the word “danger,” and brings them sharply to attention. When, a few minutes later, they reach “The Hut,” they find Speranza anxiously awaiting them.
“Evie and Gloria,” she says in a quiet, self-possessed voice, in which all trace of excitement is absent, “this is no longer a safe place for either of you. It must be quitted at once. I have just seen him.”
“Him! Who, mother dearest?” inquires Gloria anxiously.
“The worst enemy I have ever known, and therefore yours too,” my darling, answers Speranza, with a shudder. “Ever right, my child, were you when you said he was not dead, for I have just looked on the face of Lord Westray.”
As she speaks the distant sound of a galloping horse strikes upon their ears.
“Evie,” says Gloria coolly, a quiet smile lighting up her face, “will you see to the horses being saddled at once?”