The Great House. Weyman Stanley John

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      "And I am not a princess! But tell me, please, what are they?"

      "You will not be long before you come upon one," he replied, a hint of derision in his tone. "You will see a placard in the streets, 'Shall the people's bread be taxed?' Not quite so romantic as the independence of Poland? But I can tell you that heads are quite as likely to be broken over it."

      "Surely," she said, "there can be only one answer to that."

      "Just so," he replied dryly. "But what is the answer? The land claims high prices that it may thrive; the towns claim cheap bread that they may live. Each says that the country depends upon it. 'England self-supporting!' says one. 'England the workshop of the world!' says the other."

      "I begin to see."

      "'The land is the strength of the country,' argues the squire. 'Down with monopoly,' cries the cotton lord. Then each arms himself with a sword lately forged and called 'Philanthropy,' and with that he searches for chinks in the other's armor. 'See how factories work the babes, drive the women underground, ruin the race,' shout the squires. 'Vote for the land and starvation wages,' shout the mill-owners."

      "But does no one try to find the answer?" she asked timidly. "Try to find out what is best for the people?"

      "Ah!" he rejoined, "if by the people you mean the lower classes, they cry, 'Give us not bread, but votes!' And the squires say that that is what the traders who have just got votes don't mean to give them; and so, to divert their attention, dangle cheap bread before their noses!"

      Mary sighed. "I am afraid that I must give it up," she said. "I am so ignorant."

      "Well," he replied thoughtfully. "Many are puzzled which side to take, and are waiting to see how the cat jumps. In the meantime every fence is placarded with 'Speed the Plough!' on one side, and 'The Big Loaf!' on the other. The first man you meet thinks the landlord a devourer of widows' houses; to the next the mill-owner is an ogre grinding men's bones to make his bread. Even at the Gatehouse I doubt if you will escape the excitement, though there is not a field of wheat within a mile of it!"

      "To me it is like a new world," she said.

      "Then, when you are in the new world," he replied, smiling as he rose, "do not forget Columbus! But here is the lad to tell you that your tea is ready."

      He repented when Mary had left him that he had not made better use of his time. It had been his purpose to make such an impression on the girl as might be of use in the future, and he wondered why he had not devoted himself more singly to this; why he had allowed minutes which might have been given to intimate subjects to be wasted in a dry discussion. But there was a quality in Mary that did not lightly invite to gallantry-a gravity and a balance that, had he looked closely into the matter, might have explained his laches.

      And in fact he had builded better than he knew, for while he reproached himself, Mary, safe within the tiny bathing machine which the packet company called a cabin, was giving much thought to him. The dip-candle, set within a horn lantern, threw its light on the one comfortable object, the tea-tray, seated beside which she reviewed what had happened, and found it all interesting; his meeting with her, his thought for her, the glimpses he had given her of things beyond the horizon of the convent school, even his diversion into politics. He was not on good terms with her uncle, and it was unlikely that she would see more of him. But she was sure that she would always remember his appearance on the threshold of her new life, that she would always recall with gratitude this crossing and the kindness which had lapped her about and saved her from loneliness.

      In her eyes he figured as one of the brilliant circle of the Hôtel Lambert. For her he played a part in great movements and high enterprises such as those which he had revealed to her. His light treatment of them, his air of detachment, had, indeed, chilled her at times; but these were perhaps natural in one who viewed from above and from a distance the ills which it was his task to treat. How ignorant he must think her! How remote from the plane on which he lived, the standards by which he judged, the objects at which he aimed! Yet he had stooped to explain things to her and to make them clear.

      She spent an hour deep in thought, and, strange as the life of the ship was to her, she was deaf to the creaking of the timbers, and the surge of the waves as they swept past the beam. At intervals hoarse orders, a rush of feet across the deck, the more regular tramp of rare passengers, caught her attention, only to lose it as quickly. It was late when she roused herself. She saw that the candle was burning low, and she began to make her arrangements for the night.

      Midway in them she paused, and colored, aware that she knew his tread from the many that had passed. The footstep ceased. A hand tapped at her door. "Yes?" she said.

      "We shall be in the river by daybreak," Audley announced. "I thought that you might like to come on deck early. You ought not to miss the river from the Nore to the Pool."

      "Thank you," she answered.

      "You shouldn't miss it," he persisted. "Greenwich especially!"

      "I shall be there," she replied. "It is very good of you. Good-night."

      He went away. After all, he was the only man on board shod like a gentleman; it had been odd if she had not known his step! And for going on deck early, why should she not? Was she to miss Greenwich because Lord Audley went to a good bootmaker?

      So when Peter Basset, still pale and qualmish, came on deck in the early morning, a little below the Pool, the first person he saw was the girl whom he had come to escort. She was standing high above him on the captain's bridge, her hands clasping the rail, her hair blown about and shining golden in the sunshine. Lord Audley's stately form towered above her. He was pointing out this and that, and they were talking gaily; and now and again the captain spoke to them, and many were looking at them. She did not see Basset; he was on the deck below, standing amid the common crowd, and so he was free to look at her as he pleased. He might be said not to have seen her before, and what he saw now bewildered, nay, staggered him. Unwillingly, and to please his uncle, he had come to meet a girl of whom they knew no more than this, that, rescued from some backwater of Paris life, into which a weak and shiftless father had plunged her, she had earned her living, if she had earned it at all, in a dependent capacity. He had looked to find her one of two things; either flashy and underbred, with every fault an Englishman might consider French, or a nice mixture of craft and servility. He had not been able to decide which he would prefer.

      Instead he saw a girl tall, slender, and slow of movement, with eyes set under a fine width of brow and grave when they smiled, a chin fuller than perfect beauty required, a mouth a little large, a perfect nose. Auburn hair, thick and waving, drooped over each temple, and framed a face as calm as it was fair. "Surely a pearl found on a midden!" he thought. And as the thought passed through his mind, Mary looked down. Her eyes roved for a moment over the crowded deck, where some, like Basset, returned her gaze with interest, while others sought their baggage or bawled for missing companions. He was not a man, it has been said, to stand out in a crowd, and her eyes travelled over him without seeing him. Audley spoke to her, she lifted her eyes, she looked ashore again. But the unheeding glance which had not deigned to know him stung Basset! He dubbed her, with all her beauty, proud and hard. Still-to be such and to have sprung from such a life! It was marvellous.

      He knew nothing of the convent school with its hourly discipline lasting through years. He did not guess that the obstinacy which had been weakness in the father was strength in the child. Much less could he divine that the improvidence of that father had become a beacon, warning the daughter off the rocks which had been fatal to him! Mary was no miracle, but neither was she proud or hard.

      They had passed Erith, and Greenwich with its stately pile and formal gardens glittering in the sunshine of an April morning. СКАЧАТЬ