Part 17 (1/2)

”I dare say,” exclaimed Marcella, her colour rising again. ”I never can see how we Socialists are to succeed. But how can any one _rejoice_ in it? How can any one _wish_ that the present state of things should go on? Oh! the horrors one sees in London. And down here, the cottages, and the starvation wages, and the ridiculous wors.h.i.+p of game, and then, of course, the poaching--”

Miss Raeburn pushed back her chair with a sharp noise. But her brother was still peeling his pear, and no one else moved. Why did he let such talk go on? It was too unseemly.

Lord Maxwell only laughed. ”My dear young lady,” he said, much amused, ”are you even in the frame of mind to make a hero of a poacher?

Disillusion lies that way!--it does indeed. Why--Aldous!--I have been hearing such tales from Westall this morning. I stopped at Corbett's farm a minute or two on the way home, and met Westall at the gate coming out. He says he and his men are being harried to death round about Tudley End by a gang of men that come, he thinks, from Oxford, a driving gang with a gig, who come at night or in the early morning--the smartest rascals out, impossible to catch. But he says he thinks he will soon have his hand on the local accomplice--a Mellor man--a man named Hurd: not one of our labourers, I think.”

”Hurd!” cried Marcella, in dismay. ”Oh no, it _can't_ be--impossible!”

Lord Maxwell looked at her in astonishment.

”Do you know any Hurds? I am afraid your father will find that Mellor is a bad place for poaching.”

”If it is, it is because they are so starved and miserable,” said Marcella, trying hard to speak coolly, but excited almost beyond bounds by the conversation and all that it implied. ”And the Hurds--I don't believe it a bit! But if it were true--oh! they have been in such straits--they were out of work most of last winter; they are out of work now, No one _could_ grudge them. I told you about them, didn't I?” she said, suddenly glancing at Aldous. ”I was going to ask you to-day, if you could help them?” Her prophetess air had altogether left her. She felt ready to cry; and nothing could have been more womanish than her tone.

He bent across to her. Miss Raeburn, invaded by a new and intolerable sense of calamity, could have beaten him for what she read in his s.h.i.+ning eyes, and in the flush on his usually pale cheek.

”Is he still out of work?” he said. ”And you are unhappy about it? But I am sure we can find him work: I am just now planning improvements at the north end of the park. We can take him on; I am certain of it. You must give me his full name and address.”

”And let him beware of Westall,” said Lord Maxwell, kindly. ”Give him a hint, Miss Boyce, and n.o.body will rake up bygones. There is nothing I dislike so much as rows about the shooting. All the keepers know that.”

”And of course,” said Miss Raeburn, coldly, ”if the family are in real distress there are plenty of people at hand to a.s.sist them. The man need not steal.”

”Oh, charity!” cried Marcella, her lip curling.

”A worse crime than poaching, you think,” said Lord Maxwell, laughing.

”Well, these are big subjects. I confess, after my morning with the lunatics, I am half inclined, like Horace Walpole, to think everything serious ridiculous. At any rate shall we see what light a cup of coffee throws upon it? Agneta, shall we adjourn?”

CHAPTER XI.

Lord Maxwell closed the drawing-room door behind Aldous and Marcella.

Aldous had proposed to take their guest to see the picture gallery, which was on the first floor, and had found her willing.

The old man came back to the two other women, running his hand nervously through his shock of white hair--a gesture which Miss Raeburn well knew to show some disturbance of mind.

”I should like to have your opinion of that young lady,” he said deliberately, taking a chair immediately in front of them.

”I like her,” said Lady Winterbourne, instantly. ”Of course she is crude and extravagant, and does not know quite what she may say. But all that will improve. I like her, and shall make friends with her.”

Miss Raeburn threw up her hands in angry amazement.

”Most forward, conceited, and ill-mannered,” she said with energy. ”I am certain she has no proper principles, and as to what her religious views may be, I dread to think of them! If _that_ is a specimen of the girls of the present day--”

”My dear,” interrupted Lord Maxwell, laying a hand on her knee, ”Lady Winterbourne is an old friend, a very old friend. I think we may be frank before her, and I don't wish you to say things you may regret.

Aldous has made up his mind to get that girl to marry him, if he can.”

Lady Winterbourne was silent, having in fact been forewarned by that odd little interview with Aldous in her own drawing-room, when he had suddenly asked her to call on Mrs. Boyce. But she looked at Miss Raeburn. That lady took up her knitting, laid it down again, resumed it, then broke out--