IT was commonly reported that Mr. Durdan had stated with some degree of publicity that the days of the Government were numbered.
There were a good many persons who were ready to agree with him before the month of December had passed; for the agitation on the subject of Siberia was spreading through the length and breadth of the land. The active and observant Leader of the Opposition knew the people of England, Scotland, and perhaps—so far as they allowed themselves to be understood—of Wales, thoroughly. Of course Ireland was out of the question altogether.
Knowing the people so well, he only waited for a sharp frost to open his campaign. He was well aware that it would be ridiculous to commence an agitation on the subject of Siberia unless in a sharp frost. To try to move the constituencies while the water-pipes in their dwellings remained intact, would be a waste of time. It is when his pipes are burst that the British householder will join in any agitation that may be started. The British farmer invariably turns out the Government after a bad harvest; and there can be but little doubt that a succession of wet summers would make England republican.
It was because all the water-pipes in England were burst, that the atrocities in Bulgaria stirred the great sympathetic heart of this England of ours, and the strongest Government that had existed for years became the most unpopular. A strong Government may survive a year of great commercial depression; but the strongest totters after a wet summer, and none has ever been known to survive a frost that bursts the household water-pipes.
The campaign commenced when the thermometer fell to thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. That was the time to be up and doing. In every quarter the agitation made itself felt.
“The sympathetic pulse of the nation was not yet stilled,” we were told. “Six years of inefficient Government had failed to crush down the manhood of England,” we were assured. “The Heart was still there—it was beating still; and wherever the Heart of an Englishman beats there was found a foe—a determined, resolute foe—nay, an irresistible foe, to tyranny, and what tyranny had the world ever known that was equal to that which sent thousands and tens of thousands of noble men and women—women—women—to a living death among the snows of Siberia? Could any one present form an idea of the horrors of a Siberian winter?” (Cries of “Yes, yes,” from householders whose water-pipes had burst.) “Well, in the name of our common humanity—in the name of our common sympathies—in the name of England (cheers)—England, mind you, with her fleet, that in spite of six years of gross mismanagement on the part of the Government, was still the mistress of the main—(loud cheers) England, mind you, whose armies had survived the shocking incapacity of a Government that had refused a seven-hours day to the artisans at Woolwich and Aldershot—(tremendous cheers) in the name of this grand old England of ours let those who were responsible for Siberia—that blot upon the map of Europe”—(the agitator is superior to geography)—“let them be told that their day is over. Let the Government that can look with callous eyes upon such horrors as are enacted among the frosts and snows of Siberia be told that its day is over (cheers). Did anyone wish to know something of these horrors?” (‘Yes, yes!’) “Well, here was a book written by a correspondent to a New York journal, and which, consequently, was entitled to every respect”.... and so forth.
That was the way the opponents of the Government talked at every meeting. And in the course of a short time they had successfully mixed up the labour question, the army and navy retrenchment question, the agricultural question, and several other questions, with the stories of Siberian horrors, and the aggregate of evil was laid to the charge of the Government.
The friends of the Government were at their wits’ end to know how to reply to this agitation. Some foolish ones endeavoured to make out that England was not responsible for what was done in Siberia. But this sophistry was too shallow for the people whose water-pipes were burst, and those who were responsible for it were hooted on every platform.
It was at this critical time that the Prime Minister announced at a Dinner at which he was entertained, that, while the Government was fully sensible of the claims of Siberia, he felt certain that he was only carrying out the desire of the people of England, in postponing consideration of this vast question until a still greater question had been settled. After long and careful deliberation, Her Majesty’s Ministers had resolved to submit to the country a programme the first item of which was the Conversion of the Jews.
The building where this announcement was made rang with cheers. The friends of the Government no longer looked gloomy. In a few days they knew that the Nonconformist Conscience would be awake, and as a political factor, the Nonconformist Conscience cannot be ignored. A Government that had for its policy the Conversion of the Jews would be supported by England—this great Christian England of ours.
“My Lords and Gentlemen,” said the Prime Minister, “the contest on which we are about to enter is very limited in its range. It is a contest of England and Religion against the Continent and Atheism. My Lords and Gentlemen, come what may, Her Majesty’s Ministers will be on the side of Religion.”
It was felt that this timely utterance had saved the Government.
It was not to be expected that, when these tremendous issues were broadening out, Mr. Edmund Airey should have much time at his disposal for making afternoon calls; still he managed to visit Beatrice Avon pretty frequently—much more frequently than he had ever visited anyone in all his life. The season of German Opera was a brilliant one, and upon several occasions Beatrice appeared in Mr. Airey’s box by the side of the enthusiastic lady, who was pointed out in society as having remained in her stall from the beginning to the end of “Parsifal.” Mr. Airey never missed a performance at which Beatrice was present. He missed all the others.
Only once did he venture to introduce Harold’s name in her drawing-room. He mentioned having seen him casually in the street, and then he watched her narrowly as he said, “By the way, I have never come upon him here. Does he not call upon you?”
There was only a little brightening of her eyes—was it scorn?—as she replied: “Is it not natural that Lord Fotheringay should be a very different person from Mr. Harold Wynne? Oh, no, he never calls now.”
“I have heard several people say that they had found him greatly changed, poor fellow!” said Edmund.
“Greatly changed—not ill?” she said.
He wondered if the tone in which she spoke suggested anxiety—or was it merely womanly curiosity?
“Oh, no; he seems all right; but it is clear that his father’s death and the circumstances attending it affected him deeply.”
“It gave him a title at any rate.”
The suspicion of scorn was once more about her voice. Its tone no longer suggested anxiety for the health of Lord Fotheringay.
“You are too hard on him, Beatrice,” said Edmund. She had come to be Beatrice to him for more than a week—a week in which he had been twice in her drawing-room, and in which she had been twice in his opera box.
“Too hard on him?” said she. “How is it possible for you to judge what is hard or the opposite on such a point?”
“I have always liked Harold,” said he; “that is why I must stand up for him.”
“Ah, that is your own kindness of heart,” said she. “I remember how you used to stand up for him at Castle Innisfail. I remember that when you told me how wretchedly poor he was, you were very bitter against the destiny that made so good a fellow poor, while so many others, not nearly so good, were wealthy.”
“I believe I did say something like that. At any rate I felt that. Oh, yes, I always felt that I must stand up for him; so even now I insist on your not being too hard on him.”
He laughed, and so did she—yes, after a little pause.
“Come again—soon,” she said, as she gave him her hand, which he retained for some moments while he looked into her eyes—they were more than usually lustrous—and said,
“Oh, yes, I will come again soon. Don’t you remember what I said to you in this room—it seems long ago, we have come to be such close friends since—what I said about my aspirations—my supreme aspiration?”
“I remember it,” said she—her voice was very low.
“I have still to reveal it to you, Beatrice,” said he.
Then he dropped her hand and was gone.
He made another call the same afternoon. He drove westward to the residence of Helen Craven and her mother, and in the drawing-room he found about a dozen people drinking tea, for Mrs. Craven had a large circle.
It took him some time to get beside Helen; but a very small amount of manoeuvring on her part was sufficient to secure comparative privacy for him and herself in a dimly-lighted part of the great room—an alcove that made a moderately valid excuse for a Moorish arch and hangings.
“The advice that I gave to you was good,” said he.
“Your advice was that I should make no move whatever,” said she. “That could not be hard advice to take, if he were disposed to make any move in my direction. But, as I told you, he only called once, and then we were out. Have you learned anything?”
“I have learned that whomsoever she marries, she will never marry Harold Wynne,” said Edmund.
“Great heavens! You have found this out? Are you certain? Men are so apt to rush at conclusions.”
“Yes; some men are. I have always preferred the crawling process, though it is the slower.”
“That is a confession—crawling! But how have you found out that she will not marry him?”
“He has treated her very badly.”
“That has got nothing whatever to do with the question. Heavens! If women declined to marry the men that treat them badly, the statistics of spinsterhood would be far more alarming than they are at present.”
“She will not marry him.”
“Will she marry you?”
Miss Craven had sprung to her feet. She was in a nervous condition, and it was intensified by his irritating reiteration of the one statement.
“Will she marry you?” she cried, in a voice that had a strident ring about it. “Will she marry you?”
“I think it highly probable,” said he.
She looked at him in silence for a long time.
“Let us return to the room,” said she.
They went through the Moorish arch back to the drawing-room.
IT was a few days after Edmund Airey had made his revelation—if it was a revelation—to Helen Craven, that Harold received a visitor in the person of Archie Brown. The second week in January had now come. The season of German Opera was over, and Parliament was about to assemble; but neither of these matters was engrossing the attention of Archie. That he was in a state of excitement anyone could see, and before he had even asked after Harold’s health, he cried, “I’ve fired out the lot of them, Harry; that’s the sort of new potatoes I am.”
“The lot of what?” asked Harold.
“Don’t you know? Why, the lot of Legitimists,” said Archie.
“The Legitimists? My dear Archie, you don’t surely expect me to believe that you possess sufficient political power to influence the fortunes of a French dynasty.”
“French dynasty be grilled. I said the Legitimists—the actors, the carpenters, the gasmen, the firemen, the check-takers, Shakespeare, and Mrs. Mowbray of the Legitimate Theatre. I’ve fired out the lot of them, and be hanged to them!”
“Oh, I see; you’ve fired out Shakespeare?”
“He’s eternally fired out, so far as I’m concerned. Why should I end my days in a workhouse because a chap wrote plays a couple of hundred years ago—may be more?”
“Why, indeed? And so you fired him out?”
“I’ve made things hum at the Legitimate this morning”—Archie had once spent three months in the United States—“and now I’ve made the lot of them git. I’ve made W. S. git.”
“And Mrs. Mowbray?”
“She gits too.”
“She’ll do it gracefully. Archie, my man, you’re not wanting in courage.”
“What courage was there needed for that?”—Archie had picked up a quill pen and was trying, but with indifferent success, to balance it on the toe of his boot, as he leant back in a chair. “What courage is needed to tell a chap that’s got hold of your watch chain that the time has come for him to drop it? Great Godfrey! wasn’t I the master of the lot of them? Do you fancy that the manager was my master? Do you fancy that Mrs. Mowbray was my—I mean, do you think that I’m quite an ass?”
“Well, no,” said Harold—“not quite.”
“Do you suppose that my good old dad had any Scruples about firing out a crowd of navvies when he found that they didn’t pay? Not he. And do you suppose that I haven’t inherited some of his good qualities?”
“And when does the Legitimate close its doors?”
“This day week. Those doors have been open too long already. Seventy-five pounds for the Widow’s champagne for the Christmas week—think of that, Harry. Mrs. Mowbray’s friends drink nothing but Clicquot. She expects me to pay for her entertainments, and calls it Shakespeare. If you grabbed a chap picking your pocket, and he explained to the tarty chips at Bow Street that his initials were W. S. would he get off? Don’t you believe it, Harry.”
“Nothing shall induce me.”
“The manager’s only claim to have earned his salary is that he has been at every theatre in London, and has so got the biggest list of people to send orders to, so as to fill the house nightly. It seems that the most valuable manager is the one who has the longest list of people who will accept orders. That’s theatrical enterprise nowadays. They say it’s the bicycle that has brought it about.”
“Anyhow you’ve quarrelled with Mrs. Mowbray? Give me your hand; Archie. You’re a man.”
“Quarrelled with Mrs. Mowbray? It was about time. She went to pat my head again to-day, when there was a buzz in the manager’s office. She didn’t pat my head, Harry—the day is past for pats, and so I told her. The day is past when she could butter me with her pats. She gave me a look when I said that—if she could give such looks on the stage she’d crowd the house—and then she cried, ‘Nothing on earth shall induce me ever to speak to you again.’ ‘I ask nothing better,’ said I. After that she skipped. I promised Norah that I’d do it, and I have done it.”
“You promised whom?”
“Norah. Great Godfrey! you don’t mean to say that you haven’t heard that Norah Innisfail and I are to be married?”
“Norah—Innisfail—and—you—you?”
Harold lay back in his chair and laughed. The idea of the straightlaced Miss Innisfail marrying Archie Brown seemed very comical to him.
“What are you laughing about?” said Archie. “You shouldn’t laugh, considering that it was you that brought it about.”
“I? I wish that I had no more to reproach myself with; but I can’t for the life of me see how—”
“Didn’t you get Mrs. Lampson to invite me to Abbeylands, and didn’t I meet Norah there, bless her! At first, do you know, I fancied that I was getting fond of her mother?”
“Oh, yes; I can understand that,” said Harold, who was fully acquainted with the systems which Lady Innisfail worked with such success.
“But, bless your heart! it was all motherly kindness on Lady Innisfail’s part—so she explained when—ah—later on. Then I went with her to Lord Innisfail’s place at Netherford and—well, there’s no explaining these things. Norah is the girl for me! I’ve felt a better man for knowing her, Harry. It’s not every girl that a chap can say that of—mostly the other way. Lord Innisfail heard something about the Legitimate business, and he said that it was about time I gave it up; I agreed with him, and I’ve given it up.”
“Archie,” said Harold, “you’ve done a good morning’s work. I was going to advise you never to see Mrs. Mowbray again—never to grant her an interview—she’s an edged tool—but after what you’ve done, I feel that it would be a great piece of presumption on my part to offer you any advice.”
“Do you know what it is?” said Archie, in a low and very confidential voice: “I’m not quite so sure of her character as I used to be. I know you always stood up for her.”
“I still believe that she never had more than one lover at a time,” said Harold.
“Was that seventy-five pound’s worth of the Widow swallowed by one lover in a week?” asked Archie. “Oh, I’m sick of the whole concern. Don’t you mention Shakespeare to me again.”
“I won’t,” said Harold. “But it strikes me that Shakespeare is like Madame Roland’s Liberty.”
“Whose Liberty?”
“Madame Roland’s.”
“Oh, she’s a dressmaker of Bond Street, I suppose. They’re all Madames there. I dare say I’ve got a bill from her to pay with the rest of them. Mrs. Mowbray has dealt with them all. Now I’m off. I thought I’d drop in and tell you all that happened, as you’re accountable for my meeting Norah.”
“You will give her my best regards and warmest congratulations,” said Harold. “Accept the same yourself.”
“You had a good time at their Irish place yourself, hadn’t you?” said Archie. “How was it that you didn’t fall in love with Norah when you were there? That’s what has puzzled me. How is it that every tarty chip didn’t want to marry her? Oh, I forgot that you—well, wasn’t there a girl with lovely eyes in Ireland?”
“You have heard of Irish girls and their eyes,” said Harold.
“She had wonderful gray eyes,” said Archie. Harold became grave. “Oh, yes, Norah has a pair of eyes too, and she keeps them wide open. She told me a good deal about their party in Ireland. She took it for granted that you—”
“Archie,” said Harold, “like a good chap don’t you ever talk about that to me again.”
“All right, I’ll not,” said Archie. “Only, you see, I thought that you wouldn’t mind now, as everyone says that she’s going to marry Airey, the M.P. for some place or other. I knew that you’d be glad to hear that I’d fired out the Legitimate.”
“So I am—very glad.”
Archie was off, having abandoned as futile his well-meant attempts to balance the quill on the toe first of one boot, then of the other.
He was off, and Harold was standing at the window, watching him gathering up his reins and sending his horses at a pretty fair pace into the square.
It had fallen—the blow had fallen. She was going to marry Edmund Airey.
Could he blame her?
He felt that he had treated her with a baseness that deserved the severest punishment—such punishment as was now in her power to inflict. She had trusted him with all her heart—all her soul. She had given herself up to him freely, and he had made her the victim of a fraud. That was how he had repaid her for her trustfulness.
He did not stir from the window for hours. He thought of her without any bitterness—all his bitterness was divided between the thoughts of his own cruelty and the thoughts of Edmund Airey’s cleverness. He did not know which was the more contemptible; but the conclusion to which he came, after devoting some time to the consideration of the question of the relative contemptibility of the two, was that, on the whole, Edmund Airey’s cleverness was the more abhorrent.
But Archie Brown, after leaving St. James’s, drove with his customary rapidity to Connaught Square, to tell of his achievement to Norah.
Miss Innisfail, while fully recognizing the personal obligations of Archie to the Shakesperian drama, had agreed with her father that this devotion should not be an absorbing one. She had had a hint or two that it absorbed a good deal of money, and though she had been assured by Archie that no one could say a word against Mrs. Mowbray’s character, yet, like Harold—perhaps even better than Harold—she knew that Mrs. Mowbray was an extremely well-dressed woman. She listened with interest to Archie’s account of how he had accomplished that process of “firing out” in regard to the Legitimate artists; and when he had told her all, she could not help wondering if Mrs. Mowbray would be quite as well dressed in the future as she had been in the past.
Archie then went on to tell her how he had called upon Harold, and how Harold had congratulated him.
“You didn’t forget to tell him that people are saying that Mr. Airey is going to marry Miss Avon?” said Norah.
“Have I ever forgotten to carry out one of your commissions?” he asked.
“Good gracious! You didn’t suggest that you were commissioned by me to tell him that?”
“Not likely. That’s not the sort of new potatoes I am. I was on the cautious side, and I didn’t even mention the name of the girl.” He did not think it necessary to say that the reason for his adoption of this prudent course was that he had forgotten the name of the girl. “No, but when I told him that Airey was going to marry her, he gave me a look.”
“A look? What sort of a look?”
“I don’t know. The sort of a look a chap would give to a surgeon who had just snipped off his leg. Poor old Harry looked a bit cut up. Then he turned to me and said as gravely as a parson—a bit graver than some parsons—that he’d feel obliged to me if I’d never mention her name again.”
“But you hadn’t mentioned her name, you said.”
“Neither I had. He didn’t mention it either. I can only give you an idea of what he said, I won’t take my oath about the exact words. But I’ll take my oath that he was more knocked down than any chap I ever came across.”
“I knew it,” said Norah. “He’s in love with her still. Mamma says he’s not; but I know perfectly well that he is. She doesn’t care a scrap for Mr. Airey.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know it.”
“Oh.”
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.
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.