NOT SUPERHUMAN.
"I don't set up for being superhuman," said Alexander Quisanté with a
shrug and a smile at his sister-in-law, "and I should very soon be told
of my mistake if I did. I had nothing to do with putting the story
about. I never countenanced it in any way. But since it got about, since
Mildmay chose to give himself airs and make a fool of himself, and then
come to me to get him out of his trouble, I thought myself entitled to
give him one little dig."
"Of course you were," agreed Fanny.
"And if they choose to decide the election on that instead of on the
Government policy, why, in the first place we can't help it, and in the
second we needn't talk about it." He paused and then added with greater
gravity, "I have nothing to reproach myself with in the matter."
"What's Mr. Williams going to do?"
"Oh, he made one solemn protest and now, at my request, he'll hold his
tongue."
"He's done all the mischief, though," said Jimmy Benyon with much
satisfaction.
It was true enough, and the triumph at the Bull equalled the depression
at Moors End, where the Dean was aghast at the result of his diplomacy,
and Sir Winterton began to perceive that he had vindicated his honour at
the cost of his good sense, and his dignity at the price of his
popularity. It was not Henstead's moral sense that was against him now,
but that far more formidable enemy, Henstead's wounded vanity. The best
judges refused to estimate how many votes that ride on the high horse
was likely to cost him; but all agreed that the bill would be heavy;
even Smiley, his own agent, shook a rueful head over the probable
figure. And all this advantage had accrued to the Quisanté faction
without involving any reproach or any charge of unfair tactics; rather
were they praised for moderation, magnanimity, and good-nature.
"To tell the truth," Jimmy whispered to Fanny, "I never felt sure that
Quisanté would treat it in such a gentlemanly way."
"No, neither did I," Fanny confessed. "I'm so glad about it."
"He's rather proud of himself, though," chuckled Jimmy.
"Yes, I know. Well, we mustn't be too critical," urged Fanny. His public
demeanour had been beyond reproach, and after all even persons of more
delicate feeling and more exalted position than Quisanté are apt to
plume their feathers a little in the family circle.
In the whirl of these last few days there was however little time for
scrutinising the fine shades of manner or speculating on nice points of
conscience. They were all worked to death, they were all inflamed with
enthusiasm and the determination to win. As was only becoming,
Quisanté's wife was the most enthusiastic and the most resolute; a thing
not seeming so natural to herself was that she was also happier than she
had ever been since her marriage. As the fight grew hotter, Quisanté
grew greater in her eyes; he had less time to make postures, she less
leisure to criticise; if he forgot himself in what he was doing, she
could come near to forgetting the side of him she disliked in an
admiration of the qualities that attracted her. His praises were in
men's mouths beyond Henstead; letters of congratulation came from great
folk, and Quisanté was told that his speeches had more than a local
audience and more than a local influence. Sympathy joined with
admiration; he was not only successful, he was brave; for it was a
serious question whether his body and his nerves would last out, and
every night found him utterly exhausted and prostrate. Yet he never
spared himself, he was wherever work was to be done, refused no call,
and surrendered not an inch to his old and hated enemy, the physical
weakness which had always hindered him. May wrote to Miss Quisanté that
he was "wonderful, wonderful, wonderful." There she paused, and added
after a moment's thought, "It's something to be his wife." And to Mr.
Foster she said, "They must elect him, they can't help it, can they?"
"Well, I think we shall win now," said old Foster, smiling, but
directing a rather inquisitive glance at her. "Japhet Williams has
helped us; not so much as Sir Winterton himself, though."
May's face fell a little. "I didn't mean that," she said. "Oh, I suppose
I want to win anyhow, but I'd much rather not win through that."
"Must take what we can get," murmured Foster, quite resignedly.
"I suppose so; and it's not as if my husband, or you, or any of his
friends had taken any part in it."
The inquisitive glance ceased; Foster had found out the answer to what
it had asked; there were limits to the confidence which existed between
Lady May Quisanté and her husband. But he only smiled comfortably;
Quisanté wouldn't talk, he himself was safe, and, if anything had
cropped up in talk between him and Japhet, his skill and Japhet's vanity
had ensured that the little man should think himself the initiator,
inventor, and sole agent in the whole affair.
"We're not responsible for Japhet Williams," said he. "His vote's safe
for us now, though, and it means a few besides his own."
"I sometimes wonder," mused May, "whether anybody at an election ever
votes one way and not the other simply because he thinks that way right
and the other wrong." She laughed, adding, "You don't get the impression
that they ever do, canvassing and going about like this."
"Must allow for local feelings, Lady May."
"Yes, I know; and everybody has feelings, and I suppose every place is
local. You say a lot of people'll vote for us because Sir Winterton
wouldn't let Lady Mildmay come to the town?"
"A better stroke for us than any even Mr. Quisanté has done."
"And there's something like that in every constituency, I suppose! How
do we get governed even as well as we do?"
Foster looked thoughtful and nursed his foot (in which he had a touch of
the gout). "It's all under God," he said gravely. "He turns things to
account in ways we can't foresee, Lady May." Was it possible that he was
remembering the peculiar qualities of Mr. Japhet Williams? May did not
laugh, for Mr. Foster was obviously sincere, but she looked at him with
surprise; his religion came in such odd flashes across the homely tints
of his worldly wisdom and placid acceptance of things and men as he
happened to find them. Henstead was not the Kingdom of Heaven, and he
did not pretend to think it wise to act on the assumption that it was.
Like Quisanté, he did not set up for being superhuman--nor set other
people up for it either. May felt that there were lessons to be learnt
here; nay, that she was making some progress in them; though she
wondered now and then what Weston Marchmont would think of the lessons
and of her progress in them.
"The worst of it is," she went on, "that I'm afraid one has to say a lot
of things that are not exactly quite true."
"Truer than the other side," Mr. Foster affirmed emphatically, his
corpulence seeming to give weight to the dictum as he threw himself
forward in his chair.
"Relative truth!" laughed May. "Like No. 77?"
"You must ask Mr. Quisanté about that."
"Oh, no, I won't. I'll listen to his speeches about it." She grew grave
as she went on. "I've only asked him about one thing all through the
election. I had to ask him about that."
"Ah!" murmured Foster, cautiously, vaguely, safely.
"This wretched story about Sir Winterton, you know. And I got into
terrible trouble by my question." She laughed a little. "He doesn't as a
rule scold me, you know, but he really did. I was very much surprised.
Fancy boring you with this! Well, I asked him if he'd had anything to do
with reviving the story. I asked him right straight out. Did you think I
was like that, Mr. Foster?"
"Pretty well, pretty well," said old Foster; he was smiling, but he was
watching her again.
"Was it insulting? Well, you see----" She stopped abruptly; Foster was
not, after all, Aunt Maria, and she could not tell him how it was that
she might ask her husband questions that sounded insulting. "Anyhow he
was very much offended."
Foster still nursed his foot, and now he shifted a little in his chair.
"He gave me his word directly, but told me he was very much hurt at my
asking him." She smiled again. "There's a confession of a conjugal
quarrel for you, Mr. Foster. Don't talk about it, or Mr. Smiley will
have a caricature of us throwing the furniture at one another. I've been
very humble ever since, I assure you."
Mr. Foster chuckled. May imagined that his fancy was touched by her
suggestion of the caricature; in fact he was picturing Alexander
Quisanté's indignant disclaimer.
"Don't tell him I said anything to you about it," she added.
"You may be sure I won't," he promised.
It would not have been out of harmony with Mr. Foster's general
theological position to consider the sudden and serious development of
his gout as a direct judgment on him for a diplomacy that perhaps
overstepped legitimate limits, and in another man's case he might have
adopted such a view with considerable complacency. When, however, he was
laid up and placed _hors du combat_ in the last three critical days, he
needed all his faith to reconcile him to one of the most unfathomable
instances of the workings of Providence. His grumbles were loud and long,
and the directions which he sent from his sick bed were tinged with
irritability. For at last the other side had come to its senses; Sir
Winterton was affable again, Lady Mildmay was canvassing, and Mr. Smiley
had high hopes. Despondency would have fallen on Foster's spirit but for
the report of Quisanté's exploits, performed in the teeth of the orders
of that same Dr. Tillman who had given Sir Winterton such excellent
unprofessional advice touching the affair of Tom Sinnett. He gave
Quisanté just as good counsel, and with just as little result. Then he
tried Quisanté's wife and found in her what he thought a hardness or an
insensibility, or, if that were an unjust view, a sort of fatalism which
forbade her to seek to interfere, and reduced her to being a spectator of
her husband's doings and destiny rather than a partner in them.
"How can he lie by now?" she asked. "It's impossible; he must see this
out whatever happens." Quisanté had said exactly the same thing, but his
wife's perfect agreement in it seemed strange to the doctor. It was
making the man's success more than the man; there was too much of the
Spartan wife about it, without the Spartan wife's excuse of patriotism.
Something of these feelings found expression in the look with which he
regarded May, and he allowed himself to express them more freely to Lady
Mildmay, who would have disappointed the most important meeting sooner
than face the risk of Sir Winterton's taking cold. He told her how May
had said, "He won't stand being coddled," and then had added, with a
frankness which the doctor had not become accustomed to, "Besides I
should never do it. We aren't in the least like that to one another."
"I felt rather sorry for the man," said the doctor. "It's as if he was a
racehorse, and they didn't think so much about him as about a win for
the stable."
"Do you like him?" asked Lady Mildmay, merely in natural curiosity. But
the doctor started a little as he answered, "Why, no, I don't like him
at all." And as he drove home he was thoughtful.
"Well, here we are at last!" said Jimmy Benyon as he sat down to
breakfast on the morning of the polling day. "I'm told Mildmay's people
were asking for six to four last night. Where's Quisanté?"
"He went out just before eight, to catch some of the men who work on the
line and can't be back to vote in the evening," said May.
"Lord!" sighed Jimmy in a self-reproachful tone; it was past nine now,
and he was only just out of bed. "What are you going to do?"
"Drive and bow and smile and shake hands," said May. "And you're going
to and fro in a wagonette of Mr. Williams'--without any springs, you
know. And Mr. Dunn's going to take Fanny in one of his waggons; she'll
have to sit on a plank without a back all day, so I told her to stay in
bed till she has to start at ten."
"It's a devilish difficult question," said Jimmy meditatively, "whether
it's all worth it, you know."
"Oh, it's worth more than that," said May lightly, as she sprang up and
put on her hat. "It's worth--well, almost anything. Six to four? They
expect us to win then?"
"By a neck, yes." He glanced at her and added rather uneasily, "They say
friend Japhet's done the trick for us." She made no answer, and he went
on hastily, "Old Foster's still in bed, and the waiter says he's written
five notes to your husband already--a regular row of them in the bar,
you know."
"Last instructions?"
"Oh, somebody else to be nobbled, don't you know; some fellow who wants
to marry his deceased wife's sister--or else is afraid he'll have to if
they pass the Bill. And there's the butcher in Market Street who's got
some trouble about slaughterhouses that I'm simply hanged if I can
understand. I jawed with him for half-an-hour yesterday, and then didn't
hook him safe."
"Alexander must find time to go and hook him," said May, smiling.
"Alexander'll be great on slaughter-houses."
"And at the last minute Smiley's been hinting something about Mildmay
giving a bit of land to extend the Recreation Ground. A beastly
unscrupulous fellow I call Smiley."
"Oh, poor Mr. Smiley! He wants to win."
"He might play fair, though."
"Might he? Oh, well, I suppose so. We've played fair anyhow--pretty
fair, haven't we?"
"Rather!"
"You really think so, Jimmy?" She was serious now; Jimmy reached out his
hand and touched hers for a moment; he divined that she was asking him
for a verdict and was anxious what it might be.
"Rather!" he said again. "That's all right. We've kept to the rules
square enough."
"Then I'm off to bow and smile!" she cried. As she went by she touched
his hand again. "Thanks, Jimmy," she said.
Jimmy, left alone, stretched himself, sighed, and lit a cigar; they were
nearly out of the wood now, and they had managed to play pretty fair.
For his own sake he was glad, since he had been mixed up in the
campaign; he had perception enough to be far more glad for May
Quisanté's.
Through all the fever of that day the same gladness and relief were in
her heart in a form a thousandfold more intense. They enabled her to do
her bowing and smiling, to hope eagerly, to work unceasingly, to be gay
and happy in the excitement of fighting and the prospect of victory. She
could put aside the memory of Tom Sinnett; they had not been to blame;
let that affair be set off against Smiley's hypothetical extension of
the Recreation Ground. She felt that she could face people, above all
that she could face the Mildmays when the time came for her to meet them
at the declaration of the poll. And as regarded her husband she could do
more than praise and more than admire; she could feel tenderness and a
touch of remorse as she saw him battling against worse than the enemy,
against a deadly weariness and weakness to which he would not yield.
From to-morrow she determined to lay to heart the doctor's counsel, to
try whether he could not be persuaded to stand a little coddling,
whether he might not be brought to, if only she could persuade herself
to show him more love. When she looked at the Mildmays she understood
what had perhaps been in the doctor's mind; dear Lady Mildmay (she was a
woman who immediately claimed that epithet with its expression of
mingled affection and ridicule) no doubt overdid a little her pleasant
part. She made Sir Winterton a trifle absurd. But then with what
chivalry he faced and covered the touch of absurdity, or avoided it
without offending the love that caused it! Very glad she was that, when
Lady Mildmay asked to be introduced, she could clasp hands with the
consciousness that her side had played fair, and by a delicate distant
reference could honestly assure the enemy's wife that both she and her
husband had looked with disfavour on that unpleasant episode.
She had known she would like Sir Winterton and was not disappointed; she
saw that he was very favourably impressed by her, largely, no doubt,
because she was handsome, even more because their ways of looking at
things would be very much the same; they had the same pride and the same
sensitiveness; in humour he was not her match, or he would not have
ridden his high horse. She felt that he complimented her in begging her
to make him known to Quisanté; and this office also she was able to
perform with pleasure, because they had played fair. Hope was high in
her that night, not merely for this contest, not merely now for her
husband's career, but for her life and his, for her and him themselves.
If her old fears had been proved wrong, if in face of temptation he had
not yielded, if now by honourable means he had made good his footing,
things might go better in the future, that constant terror vanish, and
there be left only what she admired and what attracted her. For they had
kept to the rules square enough; Quisanté had played fair.
She heard Sir Winterton tell him so in a friendly phrase, just touched
with a pleasantly ornate pompousness; eagerly looking, she saw Quisanté
accept the compliment just as he should, as a graceful tribute from an
antagonist, as no more than his due from anyone who knew him. She smiled
to think that she could write and tell Aunt Maria that Sandro was
improving, that even his manners grew better and better as success gave
him confidence, and confidence produced simplicity. Making a friendly
group with their rivals in the ante-room, they were able to forget the
little fretful man who paced up and down, carefully avoiding Sir
Winterton's eye, but asserting by the obstinate pose of his head and the
fierce pucker on his brow that he had done no more than his duty in
asking a plain answer to a plain question, and that on Sir Winterton's
head, not on his, lay the consequences of evasion.
Presently the group separated. The little heaps of paper on the long
table in the inner room had grown from tens to hundreds; the end was
near. Quisanté's agent stood motionless behind the clerks who counted,
Jimmy Benyon looking over his shoulder eagerly. Smiley regarded the
heaps for a moment or two and then walked across to Sir Winterton.
Through the doorway May saw Sir Winterton bend his head, listen, nod,
smile, and turn and whisper to his friends. At the next moment Jimmy
Benyon came to the door, caught her eye, smiled, and nodded
energetically. The presiding officer looked down the row of men counting
to right and left. "Are you all agreed on your figures?" he asked. They
exchanged papers, counted, whispered a little, recovered their own
papers. "Yes," ran along the row, and the presiding officer pushed back
his chair. In a single instant Quisanté was the centre of a throng of
people shaking his hand, and everybody crowded into the inner room.
"How many?" asked Sir Winterton Mildmay.
"Forty-seven, Sir Winterton," answered Smiley.
So it was over, and Alexander Quisanté was again Member for Henstead.
"Send somebody to tell Foster," May heard him say before he followed to
the window from which the announcement was to be made. He was very pale
and walked rather unsteadily. "Stay by Mr. Quisanté; I think he's not
very well," she whispered to the agent. The next moment two of Sir
Winterton's prominent supporters passed her; one spoke to the other half
in a whisper. "That damned Sinnett business has done us," he said.
Her cheek flushed suddenly; it was horrible to think that. Still they
had played fair, and it was no fault of theirs.
"Let me be the first to congratulate you," said a gentle voice.
She turned and found Lady Mildmay beside her; Sir Winterton's wife was
smiling, but there were tears in her eyes.
"And do get your husband home to bed; he looks terribly, terribly tired.
I'm afraid he's not nearly as strong as Winterton; but I'm sure you take
great care of him."
"Not so much as I ought to." Lady Mildmay, accustomed to straightforward
emotions, was puzzled at the half-bitter half-merry tone. "I mean I egg
him on when perhaps I ought to hold him back. I know he ought to rest,
but I never want him to--never really want it, you know." Lady Mildmay
still looked puzzled. "He's at his best working," said May.
"Well, but you must want him to yourself sometimes anyhow, and that's a
rest for him."
Oh, the differences of people and fates! That was May's not original but
irresistible reflection when Lady Mildmay left her. Want him to herself!
Never--or never as Lady Mildmay meant, anyhow. She only wanted a good
place whence to look at him.
She had one more encounter before Jimmy Benyon came to take her home.
Japhet Williams came up to her and made her shake hands.
"We have got a representative in whom we can have confidence," he said.
"I hope so, Mr. Williams." She smiled to think how exactly she was
speaking the truth--a rare privilege in social intercourse.
"Don't think that I resent in any way the distant attitude which Mr.
Quisanté thought it desirable to take up in regard to my action,"
pursued Japhet; it seemed odd that such a coil of words could be
unrolled from so small a body. "My course was incumbent on me. I
recognise that his attitude was proper for him."
"I'm so glad, Mr. Williams," May murmured vaguely.
"I could take the course I did because I had nothing to gain by it,
nothing personally. Being personally interested, he could not have moved
in the matter. I hope you see my point of view as well as his, Lady
May?"
"Oh, perfectly. I--I'm sure you're both right."
"My conscience doesn't blame me," said Japhet solemnly; and something in
his manner made May remark to Jimmy, when he came to take her home,
"What a lot of excellent people are spoilt by their consciences!"
Quisanté had disappeared, engulfed in a vortex of triumphant supporters,
carried off by arms linked in his, or perhaps hoisted in uncomfortable
grandeur on enthusiastic but unsteady shoulders. The street was densely
packed, and Jimmy's apparently simple course of returning straight to
the hotel proved to be a work of much time and difficulty. But the stir
of life was there, all around them, and May's eyes grew bright as she
felt it. Now at least it could not seem a difficult question whether the
result were worth the effort; triumph drove out such doubts.
"I'm so glad we've won; I'm so glad we've won," she kept repeating in
simple girlish enthusiasm as Jimmy steered her through the crowd,
heading towards the Bull whenever he could make a yard or two. "Though
I'm awfully sorry for Lady Mildmay," she added once.
So long were they in getting through that on their arrival they found
that Quisanté had reached home before them. His journey had been
hurried; he had been taken faint and the rejoicings were of necessity
interrupted; he was upstairs now on the sofa. May ran up, followed by
Fanny and Jimmy, passing many groups of anxious friends on the way.
Quisanté was stretched in a sort of stupor; he was quite white, his eyes
were closed. She knelt down by him and called him by his name.
"He's quite done up," said Jimmy, and he went to the sideboard and got
hold of the brandy.
"Do keep everybody out," called May, and Fanny shut the door oh
half-a-dozen inquisitive people. Both she and Jimmy were looking very
serious; May grew frightened when she turned and saw their faces.
"He's only tired; he'll be all right again soon," she protested. "Give
me a little brandy and water, Jimmy."
They stood looking at her while she did her best for him; a slight
surprise was in their faces; they had never seen her minister to him
before. Did she really love him? The question escaped from Jimmy's eyes,
and Fanny's acknowledged without answering it. Presently Quisanté sighed
and opened his eyes.
"Drink some of this," said his wife low and tenderly. "Do drink some."
She was kneeling by him, one arm under his shoulder, the other offering
the glass.
"We've done it, haven't we?" he murmured, as she tilted the glass to his
lips. The drink revived him; with her help he hoisted himself higher on
the sofa and looked at her. A smile came on his face; they heard him
whisper, "My darling!" Again it struck them both as a little strange
that he should call her that. But she smiled in answer and made him
drink again.
"Yes, you've won; you always win," they heard her whisper softly. She
had forgotten all now, except that he had won, that her faith stood
justified, and he lay half-dead from the work of vindicating it. At that
moment she would have been no man's if she could not be Alexander
Quisanté's.
There was a knock at the door; Jimmy Benyon went and opened it; he came
back holding a note, and gave it to May; it was addressed to her husband
in a pencil scrawl. "A congratulation for you," she said to Quisanté. He
glanced carelessly and languidly at it, murmuring, "Read it to me,
please," and she broke open the sealed envelope. Inside the writing was
as negligent a scribble as on the outside, the writing of a man in bed,
with a stump of pencil. Old Mr. Foster wrote better when he was up and
abroad, so much better that Quisanté's tired eyes had not marked the
hand for his. "Read it out to me," said Quisanté, his eyes now dwelling
gratefully on his wife's face, his brain at last resting from the long
strain of weeks of effort.
"Yes, I'll read it," she said cheerfully, almost merrily. "We shall be
full of congratulations for days now, shan't we?"
She smoothed out the sheet of paper; there were but two or three lines
of writing, and she read them aloud. She read aloud the simple
indiscreet little hymn of triumph which victory and the safety of a
private note lured from old Mr. Foster's usually diplomatic lips:--
"Just done it, thank God. Shouldn't have without Tom Sinnett, and we've
got you to thank for that idea too."
She read it all before she seemed to put any meaning into it. A silence
followed her reading. She knelt there by him, holding the sheet of
note-paper in her hands. Fanny and Jimmy stood without moving, their
eyes on her and Quisanté. Slowly May rose to her feet. Quisanté closed
his eyes and moved restlessly on the sofa; he sighed and put his hand up
to his head. The slightest of smiles came on May's lips as she stood
looking at him for a minute; then she turned to Fanny, saying, "I think
he'd better have a little more brandy-and-water." She walked across to
the mantelpiece, the crumpled sheet of paper in her hand. She looked at
Fanny with the little smile still on her lips as she lit a candle and
burnt the note in its flame, dropping the ashes into the grate. Quisanté
lay as though unconscious, taking no heed of his sister-in-law's
proffered services. Jimmy Benyon stood in awkward stillness, looking at
May. Suddenly May broke into a laugh.
"Just as well to burn it; it might be misunderstood," said she. Jimmy
moved towards her quickly and impulsively. "No, no, I'm all right," she
went on. "And we've won, haven't we? I'm going to my room. Look after
him." She paused and added, smiling still, "His head's very bad, you
know." And so, pale and smiling, she left her husband to their care.
The ashes of Mr. Foster's note seemed to crinkle into a sour grin where
they lay on the black-leaded floor of the fire-grate.