Volume I Part 37 (1/2)
He was particularly glad that in this fresh day of growing intimacy she had as yet talked politics or ”questions” of any sort so little! It made it all the more possible to escape from, to wholly overthrow in his mind, that first hostile image of her, impressed--strange unreason on his part!--by that first meeting with her in the crowd round the injured child, and in the hospital ward. Had she started any subject of mere controversy he would have held his own as stoutly as ever. But so long as she let them lie, _herself_, the woman, insensibly argued for her, and wore down his earlier mood.
So long, indeed, as he forgot Maxwell's part in it all! But it was not possible to forget it long. For the wife's pa.s.sion, in spite of a n.o.ble reticence, shone through her whole personality in a way that alternately touched and challenged her new friend. No; let him remember that Maxwell's ways of looking at things were none the less pestilent because _she_ put them into words.
After luncheon Betty Leven found herself in a corner of the Green Drawing-room. On the other side of it Mrs. Allison and Lord Fontenoy were seated together, with Sir Philip Wentworth not far off. Lord Fontenoy was describing his week in Parliament. Betty, who knew and generally shunned him, raised her eyebrows occasionally, as she caught the animated voice, the queer laughs, and fluent expositions, which the presence of his muse was drawing from this most ungainly of wors.h.i.+ppers. His talk, indeed, was one long invocation; and the little white-haired lady in the armchair was doing her best to play Melpomene. Her speech was very soft. But it made for battle; and Fontenoy was never so formidable as when he was fresh from Castle Luton.
Betty's thoughts, however, had once more slipped away from her immediate neighbours, and were pursuing more exciting matters,--the state of Madeleine Penley's heart and the wiles of that witch-woman in London, who must be somehow plucked like a burr from Ancoats's skirts,--when Marcella entered the room, hat in hand.
”Whither away, fair lady?” cried Betty; ”come and talk to me.”
”Hallin will be in the river,” said Marcella, irresolute.
”If he is, Sir George will fish him out. Besides, I believe Sir George and Ancoats have gone for a walk, and Hallin with them. I heard Maxwell tell Hallin he might go.”
Marcella turned an uncertain look upon Lord Fontenoy and Mrs. Allison.
But directly Maxwell's wife entered the room, Maxwell's enemy had dropped his talk of political affairs, and he was now showing Sir Philip a portfolio of Mrs. Allison's sketches, with a subdued ardour that brought a kindly smile to Marcella's lip. In general, Fontenoy had neither eye nor ear for anything artistic; moreover, he spoke barbarous French, and no other European tongue; while of letters he had scarcely a tincture.
But when it became a question of Mrs. Allison's accomplishments, her drawing, her embroidery, still more her admirable French and excellent Italian, the books she had read, and the poetry she knew by heart, he was all appreciation--one might almost say, all feeling. It was Cymon and Iphigenia in a modern and middle-aged key.
His mien he fas.h.i.+oned and his tongue he filed.
And did a blunder come, Iphigenia gently and deftly put it to rights.
”Where is Madeleine?” asked Betty, as Marcella approached her sofa.
”Walking with Lord Naseby, I think.”
”What was the matter on the way from church?” asked Betty, in a low voice, raising her face to her friend.
Marcella, looked gravely down upon her.
”If you come into the garden I will tell you. Madeleine told me.”
Betty, all curiosity, followed her friend through the open window to a seat in the Dutch garden outside.
”It was a terrible thing that happened,” said Marcella, sitting erect, and speaking with a manner of suppressed energy that Betty knew well; ”one of the things that make my blood boil when I come here. You know how she rules the village?”--She turned imperceptibly towards the distant drawing-room, where Mrs. Allison's white head was still visible. ”Not only must all the cottages be beautiful, but all the people must reach a certain standard of virtue. If a man drinks, he must go; if a girl loses her character, she and her child must go. It was such a girl that threw herself in the way of the party this morning. Her mother would not part with her; so the decree went forth--the whole family must go. They say the girl has never been right in her head since the baby's birth; she raved and wept this morning, said her parents could find no work elsewhere--they must die, she and her child must die. Mrs. Allison tried to stop her, but couldn't; then she hurriedly sent the others on, and stayed behind herself--only for a minute or two; she overtook Madeleine almost immediately. Madeleine is sure she was inexorable; so am I; she always is. I once argued with her about a case of the kind--a _cruel_ case! 'Those are the sins that make me _shudder!_' she said, and one could make no impression on her whatever. You see how exhausted she looks this afternoon. She will wear herself out, probably, praying and weeping over the girl.”
Betty threw up her hands.
”My dear!--when she knows--”
”It may perfectly well kill her,” said Marcella, steadily. Then, after a pause, Betty saw her face flush from brow to chin, and she added, in a low and pa.s.sionate voice: ”Nevertheless, from all tyrannies and cruelties in the name of Christ, good Lord, deliver us!”
The two lingered together for some time without speaking. Both were thinking of much the same things, but both were tired with the endless talking of a country-house Sunday, and the rest was welcome.
And presently Marcella rambled away from her friend, and spent an hour pacing by herself in a glade beside the river.
And there her mind instantly shook itself from every care but one--the yearning over her husband and his work.
Two years of labour--she caught her breath with a little sob--labour which had aged and marked the labourer; and now, was it really to be believed, that after all the toil, after so much hope and promise of success, everything was to be wrecked at last?