Part 18 (1/2)
So long as they had been in company he had seemed to her, as often before, shy, hesitating, and ineffective. But with the disappearance of spectators, who represented to him, no doubt, the hara.s.sing claim of the critical judgment, all was freer, more a.s.sured, more natural.
She leant her chin on her hand, considering his plea.
”Supposing you live long enough to see the State take it, shall you be able to reconcile yourself to it? Or shall you feel it a wrong, and go out a rebel?”
A delightful smile was beginning to dance in the dark eyes. She was recovering the tension of her talk with Lord Maxwell.
”All must depend, you see, on the conditions--on how you and your friends are going to manage the transition. You may persuade me--conceivably--or you may eject me with violence.”
”Oh, no!” she interposed quickly. ”There will be no violence. Only we shall gradually reduce your wages. Of course, we can't do without leaders--we don't want to do away with the captains of any industry, agricultural or manufacturing. Only we think you overpaid. You must be content with less.”
”Don't linger out the process,” he said laughing, ”otherwise it will be painful. The people who are condemned to live in these houses before the Commune takes to them, while your graduated land and income taxes are slowly starving them out, will have a bad time of it.”
”Well, it will be your first bad time! Think of the labourer now, with five children, of school age, on twelve s.h.i.+llings a week--think of the sweated women in London.”
”Ah, think of them,” he said in a different tone.
There was a pause of silence.
”No!” said Marcella, springing up. ”Don't let's think of them. I get to believe the whole thing a _pose_ in myself and other people. Let's go back to the pictures. Do you think t.i.tian 'sweated' his drapery men--paid them starvation rates, and grew rich on their labour? Very likely. All the same, that blue woman”--she pointed to a bending Magdalen--”will be a joy to all time.”
They wandered through the gallery, and she was now all curiosity, pleasure, and intelligent interest, as though she had thrown off an oppression. Then they emerged into the upper corridor answering to the corridor of the antiques below. This also was hung with pictures, princ.i.p.ally family portraits of the second order, dating back to the Tudors--a fine series of berobed and bejewelled personages, wherein clothes pre-dominated and character was unimportant.
Marcella's eye was glancing along the brilliant colour of the wall, taking rapid note of jewelled necks surmounting stiff embroidered dresses, of the whiteness of lace ruffs, or the love-locks and gleaming satin of the Caroline beauties, when it suddenly occurred to her,--
”I shall be their successor. This is already potentially mine. In a few months, if I please, I shall be walking this house as mistress--its future mistress, at any rate!”
She was conscious of a quickening in the blood, a momentary blurring of the vision. A whirlwind of fancies swept across her. She thought of herself as the young peeress--Lord Maxwell after all was over seventy--her own white neck blazing with diamonds, the historic jewels of a great family--her will making law in this splendid house--in the great domain surrounding it. What power--what a position--what a romance! She, the out-at-elbows Marcella, the Socialist, the friend of the people. What new lines of social action and endeavour she might strike out! Miss Raeburn should not stop her. She caressed the thought of the scandals in store for that lady. Only it annoyed her that her dream of large things should be constantly crossed by this foolish delight, making her feet dance--in this mere prospect of satin gowns and fine jewels--of young and feted beauty holding its brilliant court. If she made such a marriage, it should be, it must be, on public grounds.
Her friends must have no right to blame her.
Then she stole a glance at the tall, quiet gentleman beside her. A man to be proud of from the beginning, and surely to be very fond of in time. ”He would always be my friend,” she thought. ”I could lead him. He is very clever, one can see, and knows a great deal. But he admires what I like. His position hampers him--but I could help him to get beyond it.
We might show the way to many!”
”Will you come and see this room here?” he said, stopping suddenly, yet with a certain hesitation in the voice. ”It is my own sitting-room.
There are one or two portraits I should like to show you if you would let me.”
She followed him with a rosy cheek, and they were presently standing in front of the portrait of his mother. He spoke of his recollections of his parents, quietly and simply, yet she felt through every nerve that he was not the man to speak of such things to anybody in whom he did not feel a very strong and peculiar interest. As he was talking a rush of liking towards him came across her. How good he was--how affectionate beneath his reserve--a woman might securely trust him with her future.
So with every minute she grew softer, her eye gentler, and with each step and word he seemed to himself to be carried deeper into the current of joy. Intoxication was mounting within him, as her slim, warm youth moved and breathed beside him; and it was natural that he should read her changing behaviour for something other than it was. A man of his type asks for no advance from the woman; the woman he loves does not make them; but at the same time he has a natural self-esteem, and believes readily in his power to win the return he is certain he will deserve.
”And this?” she said, moving restlessly towards his table, and taking up the photograph of Edward Hallin.
”Ah! that is the greatest friend I have in the world. But I am sure you know the name. Mr. Hallin--Edward Hallin.”
She paused bewildered.
”What! _the_ Mr. Hallin--_that_ was Edward Hallin--who settled the Nottingham strike last month--who lectures so much in the East End, and in the north?”
”The same. We are old college friends. I owe him much, and in all his excitements he does not forget old friends. There, you see--” and he opened a blotting book and pointed smiling to some closely written sheets lying within it--”is my last letter to him. I often write two of those in the week, and he to me. We don't agree on a number of things, but that doesn't matter.”