Sir George Tressady (Vol.1&2). Mrs. Humphry Ward

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СКАЧАТЬ the Maxwell Bill their prey.

      Meanwhile, for the initiated, the situation possessed one or two points of special interest. Lady Maxwell, indeed, was by this time scarcely less of a political force than her husband. Was her position an illustration of some new power in women's hands, or was it merely an example of something as well known to the Pharaohs as to the nineteenth century—the ability of any woman with a certain physique to get her way? That this particular woman's way happened to be also her husband's way made the case less interesting for some observers. On the other hand, her obvious wifely devotion attracted simple souls to whom the meddling of women in politics would have been nothing but repellent had it not been recommended to them by the facts that Marcella Maxwell was held to be good as well as beautiful; that she loved her husband; and was the excellent mother of a fine son.

      Of her devotion, in the case of this particular Bill, there was neither concealment nor doubt. She was known to have given her husband every assistance in the final drafting of the measure: she had seen for herself the working of every trade that it affected; she had innumerable friends among wage-earners of all sorts, to whom she gave half her social life; and both among them and in the drawing-rooms of the rich she fought her husband's cause unceasingly, by the help of beauty, wits, and something else—a broad impulsiveness and charm—which might be vilified or scorned, but could hardly be matched, by the enemy.

      Meanwhile Lord Maxwell was a comparatively ineffective speaker, and passed in social life for a reserved and difficult personality. His friends put no one else beside him; and his colleagues in the Cabinet were well aware that he represented the keystone in their arch. But the man in the street, whether of the aristocratic or plebeian sort, knew comparatively little about him. All of which, combined with the special knowledge of an inner circle, helped still more to concentrate public attention on the convictions, the temperament, and the beauty of his wife.

      Amid a situation charged with these personal or dramatic elements the Friday so keenly awaited by Fontenoy and his party arrived.

      Immediately after question-time Fontenoy made his speech. In reply, the Home Secretary, suave, statistical, and conciliatory, poured a stream of facts and reports upon the House. The more repulsive they were, the softer and more mincing grew his voice in dealing with them. Fontenoy had excited his audience, Dowson succeeded in making it shudder. Nevertheless, the effect of the evening lay with Fontenoy.

      George stayed to hear the official defence to its end. Then he hurried upstairs in search of Letty, who, with Miss Tulloch, was in the Speaker's private gallery. As he went he thought of Fontenoy's speech, its halting opening, the savage force of its peroration. His pulses tingled: "Magnificent!" he said to himself; "magnificent! We have found a man!"

      Letty was eagerly waiting for him, and they walked down the corridor together. "Well?" he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, and looking down upon her with a smile. "Well?"

      Letty saw that she was expected to praise, and she did her best, his smile still bent upon her. He was perfectly aware all the time of the fatuity of what she was saying. She had caught up since her engagement a certain number of political phrases, and it amused him to note the cheap and tinkling use she made of them. Nevertheless she was chatting, smiling, gesticulating, for his pleasure. She was posing for him, using her grey eyes in these expressive ways, all for him. He thought her the most entertaining plaything; though it did occur to him sometimes that when they were married he would give her instruction.

      "Ah, well, you liked it—that's good!" he said at last, interrupting her. "We've begun well, any way. It'll be rather hard, though, to have to speak after that on Monday!"

      "As if you need be afraid! You're not, you know—it's only mock modesty.

      Do you know that Lady Maxwell was sitting two from me?"

      "No! Well, how did she like Fontenoy?"

      "She never moved after he got up. She pressed her face against that horrid grating, and stared at him all the time. I thought she was very flushed—but that may have been the heat—and in a very bad temper," added Letty, maliciously. "I talked to her a little about your adventure."

      "Did she remember my existence?"

      "Oh dear, yes! She said she expected you on Sunday. She never asked me to come." Letty looked arch. "But then one doesn't expect her to have pretty manners. People say she is shy. But, of course, that is only your friends' way of saying that you're rude."

      "She wasn't rude to you?" said George, outwardly eager, inwardly sceptical. "Shall I not go on Sunday?"

      "But of course you must go. We shall have to know them. She's not a woman's woman—that's all. Now, are we going to get some dinner, for Tully and I are famishing?"

      "Come along, then, and I'll collect the party."

      George had asked a few of his acquaintance in the House to meet his betrothed, together with an old General Tressady and his wife who were his distant cousins. The party were to assemble in the room of an under-secretary much given to such hospitable functions; and thither accordingly George led the way.

      The room, when they reached it, was already fairly full of people, and alive with talk.

      "Another party!" said George, looking round him. "Benson is great at this sort of thing."

      "Do you see Lady Maxwell?" said Letty, in his ear.

      George looked to his right, and perceived the lady in question. She also recognised him at once, and bowed, but without rising. She was the centre of a group of people, who were gathered round her and the small table on which she was leaning, and they were so deeply absorbed in the conversation that had been going on that they hardly noticed the entrance of Tressady and his companion.

      "Leven has a party, you see," said the under-secretary. "Blaythwaite was to have taken them in—couldn't at the last moment; so they had to come in here. This is your side of the room! But none of your guests have come yet. Dinner at the House in the winter is a poor sort of business, Miss Sewell. We want the Terrace for these occasions."

      He led the young girl to a sofa at the further end of the room, and made himself agreeable, to him the easiest process in the world. He was a fashionable and charming person, in the most irreproachable of frock-coats, and Letty was soon at her ease with him, and mistress of all her usual arts and graces.

      "You know Lady Maxwell?" he said to her, with a slight motion of the head towards the distant group.

      Letty replied; and while she and her companion chattered, George, who was standing behind them, watched the other party.

      They were apparently in the thick of an argument, and Lady Maxwell, whose hands were lightly clasped on the table in front of her, was leaning forward with the look of one who had just shot her bolt, and was waiting to see how it would strike.

      It struck apparently in the direction of her vis-à-vis, Sir Frank Leven, for he bent over to her, making a quick reply in a half-petulant boy's voice. He had been three years in the House, but had still the air of an Eton "swell" in his last half.

      Lady Maxwell listened to what he had to say, a sort of silent passion in her face all the time—a noble passion nobly restrained.

      When he stopped, George caught her reply.

      "He has neither seen nor felt—every sentence showed it—that is all one can say. How can one take his judgment?"

      George's СКАЧАТЬ