Volume Ii Part 31 (1/2)

He was longing to ask her what had come of that promised visit of Lady Maxwell's. But neither by letter nor by word of mouth had Letty as yet said a word of it. And he did not know how to open the subject. During the time that he was with his wife and mother, nothing was seen of Marcella in Warwick Square, and an interview that he was to have had with Maxwell, by way of supplement to his numerous letters, had to be postponed because of overcrowded days on both sides. So that he was still in the dark.

Letty at first made no answer to his rather lame proposals for her benefit. But just as he was turning away with a look of added worry, she said:

”I don't want to go home, thank you, and I still less want to go to Ferth.”

”But you can't stay in London. There isn't a soul in town; and it would be too dull for you.”

He gazed at her in perplexity, praying, however, that he might not provoke a scene, for the carriage that was to take him and his mother to the station was almost at the door.

Letty rose slowly, and folded up some embroidery she had been playing with. Then she took a note from her work-basket, and laid it on the table.

”You may read that if you like. That's where I'm going.”

And she quickly went out of the room.

George read the note. His face flushed, and he hurriedly busied himself with some of his preparations for departure. When his wife came into the room again he went up to her.

”You could have done nothing so likely to save us both,” he said huskily, and then could think of nothing more to say. He drew her to him as though to kiss her, but a blind movement of the old rage with him or circ.u.mstance leapt in her, and she pulled herself away. The thought of that particular moment had done more perhaps than anything else to thin and whiten her since she had been at Maxwell Court.

And now he would be here to-night. She knew both from her host himself and from George's letters that Lord Maxwell had specially written to him begging him to come to the Court on his return, in order to join his wife and also to give that oral report of his mission for which there had been no time on his first reappearance. Maxwell had spoken to her of his wish to see her husband, without a tone or a word that could suggest anything but the natural friendliness and good-will of the man who has accepted a signal service from his junior. But Letty avoided Maxwell when she could; nor would he willingly have been left alone with this thin, sharp-faced girl whose letter to him had been like the drawing of an ugly veil from nameless and incredible things. He was sorry for her; but in his strong, deep nature he felt a repulsion for her he could not explain; and to watch Marcella with her amazed him.

Immediately after tea, Lady Leven's complaints of her entertainment became absurd. Guests poured in from the afternoon train, and a variety of men, her husband foremost among them, were soon at her disposal, asking nothing better than to amuse her.

Letty Tressady meanwhile looked on for a time at the brilliant crowd about her on the terrace, with a dull sense of being forgotten and of no account. She said to herself sullenly that of course no one would want to talk to her; it was not her circle, and she had even few acquaintances among them.

Then, to her astonishment, she began to find herself the object of an evident curiosity and interest to many people among the throng. She divined that her name was being handed from one to the other, and she soon perceived that Marcella had been asked to introduce to her this person and that, several of them men and women whose kindness, a few weeks before, would have flattered her social ambitions to the highest point. Colour and nerve returned, and she found herself sitting up, forgetting her headache, and talking fast.

”I am delighted to have this opportunity of telling you, Lady Tressady, how much I admired your husband's great speech,” said the deep and unctuous voice of the grey-haired Solicitor-General as he sank into a chair beside her. ”It was not only that it gave us our Bill, it gave the House of Commons a new speaker. Manner, voice, matter--all of it excellent! I hope there'll be no nonsense about his giving up his seat.

Don't you let him! He will find his feet and his right place before long, and you'll be uncommonly proud of him before you've done.”

”Lady Tressady, I'm afraid you've forgotten me,” said a plaintive voice; and, on turning, Letty saw the red-haired Lady Madeleine asking with smiles to be remembered. ”Do you know, I was lucky enough to get into the House on the great day? What a scene it was! You were there, of course?”

When Letty unwillingly said ”No,” there was a little chorus of astonishment.

”Well, take my advice, my dear lady,” said the Solicitor-General, speaking with lazy patronage somewhere from the depths of comfort,--he was accustomed to use these paternal modes of speech to young women,--”don't you miss your husband's speeches. We can't do without our domestic critics. But for the bad quarters of an hour that lady over there has given me, I should be nowhere.”

And he nodded complacently towards the wife as stout as himself, who was sitting a few yards away. She, hearing her name, nodded back, with smiles aside to the bystanders. Most of the spectators, however, were already acquainted with a conjugal pose which was generally believed to be not according to facts, and no one took the cue.

Then presently Mr. Bennett--the workmen's member from the North--was at Letty's elbow saying the most cordial things of the absent George. Bayle, too, the most immaculate and exclusive of private secretaries, who was at the Court on a wedding visit with a new wife, chose to remember Lady Tressady's existence for the first time for many months, and to bestow some of his carefully adapted conversation upon her. While, last of all, Edward Watton came up to her with a cousinly kindness she had scarcely yet received from him, and, drawing a chair beside her, overflowed with talk about George, and the Bill, and the state of things at Market Malford. In fact, it was soon clear even to Letty's bewildered sense that till her husband should arrive she was perhaps, for the moment, the person of most interest to this brilliant and representative gathering of a victorious party.

Meanwhile she was made constantly aware that her hostess remembered her.

Once, as Marcella pa.s.sed her, after introducing someone to her, Letty felt a hand gently laid on her shoulder and then withdrawn. Strange waves of emotion ran through the girl's senses. When would George be here?

About seven, she thought, when they would all have gone up to dress. He would have arrived from Wildheim in the morning, and was to spend the day doing business in town.

CHAPTER XXII