Volume Ii Part 26 (1/2)
”Will you sit by the window?” said Maxwell. ”The day promises to be extraordinarily hot.”
Tressady took the seat a.s.signed him. Maxwell's grey eye ran over the young man's figure and bearing. Then he bent forward from a chair on the other side of a small writing-table.
”You will probably have guessed the reason of my intrusion upon you--you and I have already discussed this troublesome affair--and the kind manner in which you treated our anxieties then--”
”Ancoats!” exclaimed Tressady, with a start he could not control. ”You wish to consult me about Ancoats?”
A flash of wonder crossed the other's mind. ”He imagined--” Instinctively Maxwell's opening mildness stiffened into a colder dignity.
”I fear we may be making an altogether improper claim upon you,” he said quietly; ”but this morning, about an hour ago, Ancoats's mother came to us with the news that he had left her two days ago, and was now discovered to be at Trouville, where he has a chalet, waiting for this girl, of whom we all know, to join him. You will imagine Mrs. Allison's despair. The entanglement is in itself bad enough. But she--I think you know it--is no ordinary woman, nor can she bring any of the common philosophy of life to bear upon this matter. It seems to be sapping her very springs of existence, and the impression she left upon myself--and upon Lady Maxwell”--he said the words slowly--”was one of the deepest pity and sorrow. As you also know, I believe, I have till now been able to bring some restraining influence to bear upon the girl, who is of course not a girl, but a very much married woman, with a husband always threatening to turn up and avenge himself upon her. There is a good man, one of those High Church clergymen who interest themselves specially in the stage, who has helped us many times already. I have telegraphed to him, and expect him here before long. We know that she has not yet left London, and it may be possible again, at the eleventh hour, to stop her.
But that--”
”Is not enough,” said Tressady, quickly, raising his head. ”You want someone to grapple with Ancoats?”
Face and voice were those of another man--attentive, normal, sympathetic.
Maxwell observed him keenly.
”We want someone to go to Ancoats; to represent to him his mother's determination to leave him for good if this disgraceful affair goes on; to break the shock of the girl's non-arrival to him, if, indeed, we succeed in stopping her; and to watch him for a day or two, in case there should be anything in the miserable talk of suicide with which he seems to have been threatening his mother.”
”Oh! Suicide! Ancoats!” said Tressady, throwing back his head.
”We rate him, apparently, much the same,” said Maxwell, drily. ”But it is not to be wondered at that the mother should be differently affected.
She sent you”--the speaker paused a moment--”what seemed to me a touching message.”
Tressady bent forward.
”'Tell him that I have no claim upon him--that I am ashamed to ask this of him. But he once said some kind words to me about my son, and I know that Ancoats desired his friends.h.i.+p. His help _might_ save us. I can say no more.'”
Tressady looked up quickly, reddening involuntarily.
”Was Fontenoy there--did he agree?”
”Fontenoy agreed,” said Maxwell, in the same measured voice. ”In fact, you grasp our pet.i.tion. To speak frankly, my wife suggested it, and I was deputed to bear it to you. But I need not say that we are quite prepared to find that you are not able to do what we have ventured to ask of you, or that your engagements will not permit it.”
A strange gulp rose in Tressady's throat. He understood--oh! he understood her--perfectly.
He leant back in his chair, looking through the open window to the Thames. A breeze had risen and was breaking up the thunderous sky into gay s.p.a.ces of white and blue. The river was surging and boiling under the tide, and strings of barges were mounting with the mounting water, slipping fast along the terrace wall. The fronts of the various buildings opposite rose in shadow against the dazzling blue and silver of the water. Here over the river, even for this jaded London, summer was still fresh; every mast and spar, every track of boat or steamer in the burst of light, struck the eye with sharpness and delight.
Each line and hue printed itself on Tressady's brain. Then he turned slowly to his companion. Maxwell sat patiently waiting for his reply; and for the first time Tressady received, as it were, a full impression of a personality he had till now either ignored or disliked. In youth Maxwell had never pa.s.sed for a handsome man. But middle life and n.o.ble habit were every year giving increased accent and spiritual energy to the youth's pleasant features; and Nature as she silvered the brown hair, and drove deep the lines of thought and experience, was bringing more than she took away. A quiet, modest fellow Maxwell would be to the end; not witty; not brilliant; more and more content to bear the yoke of the great commonplaces of life as subtlety and knowledge grew; saying nothing of spiritual things, only living them--yet a man, it seemed, on whom England would more and more lay the burden of her fortunes.
Tressady gazed at him, shaken with new reverences, new compunctions.
Maxwell's eyes were drawn to his--mild, penetrating eyes, in which for an instant Tressady seemed to read what no words would ever say to him. Then he sprang up.
”There is an afternoon train put on this month. I can catch it. Tell me, if you can, a few more details.”
Maxwell took out a half-sheet of notes from his pocket, and the two men standing together beside the table went with care into a few matters it was well for Tressady to know. Tressady threw a quick intelligence into his questions that inevitably recalled to Maxwell the cut-and-thrust of his speech on the preceding evening; nor behind his rapid discussion of a vulgar business did the constrained emotion of his manner escape his companion.