Volume Ii Part 21 (1/2)

He had a book of hers which he had promised to return. It was a precious little ma.n.u.script book, containing records written out by herself of lives she had known among the poor. She prized it much, and had begged him to keep it safe and return it.

He took it out of his pocket, looked at it, and put it carefully back. In a few hours the little book should pa.s.s him into her presence. The impulse that possessed him barred for the moment all remorse, all regret.

Then he looked for paper and pen and began to write.

He sat for some time, absorbed in his task, doing his very best with it.

It was a letter to his const.i.tuents, and it seemed to him he must have been thinking of it in his sleep, so easily did the sentences run.

No doubt, ill-natured gossip of the Watton type would be humming and hissing round her name for the next few days. Well, let him write his letter as well as he could, and publish it as soon as possible! It took him about an hour and a half, and when he read it over it appeared to him the best piece of political statement he had yet achieved. Very likely it would make Fontenoy more savage still. But Fontenoy's tone and att.i.tude in the House of Commons had been already decisive. The breech between them was complete.

He put the sheets down at last, groaning within himself. Fustian and emptiness! What would ever give him back his old self-confidence, the gay whole-heartedness with which he had entered Parliament? But the thing had to be done, and he had done it efficiently. Moreover, the brain-exercise had acted as a tonic; his tension of nerve had returned. He stood beside the window once more, looking out into a fast-awakening London with an absent and frowning eye. He was thinking out the next few hours.

A little after eight Letty was roused from a restless sleep by the sound of a closing door. She rang hastily, and Grier appeared.

”Who was that went out?”

”Sir George, my lady. He's just dressed and left word that he had gone to take a packet to the 'Pall Mall' office. He said it must be there early, and he would breakfast at his club.”

Letty sat up in bed, and bade Grier draw the curtains, and be quick in bringing her what she wanted. The maid glanced inquisitively, first at her mistress's haggard looks, then at the writing-table, as she pa.s.sed it on her way to draw the blinds. The table was littered with writing-materials; some torn sheets had been transferred to the waste-paper basket, and a sealed letter was lying, address downwards, on the blotting-book. Letty, however, did not encourage her to talk. Indeed, she found herself sent away, and her mistress dressed without her.

Half an hour later Letty in her hat and cape slipped out of her room. She looked over the banisters into the hall. No one was to be seen, and she ran downstairs to the hall-door, which closed softly behind her. Five minutes later a latch-key turned quietly in the lock, and Letty reappeared. She went rapidly up to her room, a pale, angry ghost, glancing from side to side.

”Is Lady Maxwell at home?”

The butler glanced doubtfully at the inquirer.

”Sir George Tressady, I believe, sir? I will go and ask, if you will kindly wait a moment. Her ladys.h.i.+p does not generally see visitors in the morning.”

”Tell her, please, that I have brought a parcel to return to her.”

The butler retired, and shortly appeared at the corner of the stairs beckoning to the visitor. George mounted.

They pa.s.sed through the outer drawing-room, and the servant drew aside the curtain of the inner room. Was it February again? The scent of hyacinth and narcissus seemed to be floating round him.

There was a hasty movement, and a tall figure came with a springing step to meet him.

”Sir George! How kind of you to come! I wish Maxwell were in. He would have enjoyed a chat with you so much. But Lord Ardagh sent him a note at breakfast-time, and he has just gone over to Downing Street. Hallin, move your puzzle a little, and make a way for Sir George to pa.s.s. Will you sit there?”

Hallin sprang up readily enough at the sight of his friend Sir George, put a fat hand into his, and then gave his puzzle-map of Europe a vigorous push to one side that drove Crete helplessly into the arms of the United Kingdom.

”Oh! what a muddle!” cried his mother, laughing, and standing to look at the disarray. ”You must try, Hallin, and see if you can straighten it out--as Sir George straightened out father's Bill for him last night.”

She turned to him; but the softness of her eyes was curiously veiled. It struck George at once that she was not at her ease--that there had been embarra.s.sment in her very greeting of him.

They began to talk of the debate. She asked him minutely about the progress of the combination that had defeated Fontenoy. They discussed this or that man's att.i.tude, or they compared the details of the division with those of the divisions which had gone before.

All through it seemed to Tressady that the person sitting in his chair and talking politics was a kind of automaton, with which the real George Tressady had very little to do. The automaton wore a grey summer suit, and seemed to be talking shrewdly enough, though with occasional lapses and languors. The real Tressady sat by, and noted what pa.s.sed. ”_How pale she is! She is not really happy--or triumphant. How she avoids all personal talk--nothing to be said_, _or hardly, of my part in it--my effort. Ah! she praises my speech, but with no warmth--I see! she would rather not owe such a debt to me. Her mind is troubled--perhaps Maxwell?--or some vile talk?”_

Meanwhile, all that Marcella perceived was that the man beside her became gradually more restless and more silent. She sat near him, with Hallin at her feet, her beautiful head held a little stiffly, her eyes at once kind and reserved. Nothing could have been simpler than her cool grey dress, her quiet att.i.tude. Yet it seemed to him he had never felt her dignity so much--a moral dignity, infinitely subtle and exquisite, which breathed not only from her face and movements, but from the room about her--the room which held the pictures she loved, the books she read, the great pots of wild flowers or branching green it was her joy to set like jewels in its shady corners. He looked round it from time to time. It had for him the a.s.sociations and the scents of a shrine, and he would never see it again! His heart swelled within him. The strange double sense died away.