OPEN EYES.
It is a matter of common observation that the local influences and
peculiarities which loom so large before the eyes of both parties during
such a struggle as that at Henstead seem to be entirely forgotten after
the declaration of the poll, at least by the victorious faction and their
friends in the Press and the country. Out of a congeries of conflicting
views, fancies, fads, interests, quarrels, and misunderstandings a
reasoned and single political verdict is considered to emerge, and great
is the credit of the advocate who extracts it from the multitudinous
jury. When Quisanté had won Henstead, little more was heard of the
gentleman with a deceased wife's sister, of the butcher in trouble about
slaughter-houses, of Japhet Williams' conscience or Tom Sinnett's affair.
The result was taken as an augury of triumph for the party all over the
country, where these things had never been heard of and the voices of
Henstead did not reach. Unhappily however, as events proved, the victory
of Henstead had in the end to be regarded not as the inauguration of a
triumphant campaign but as a brilliant exploit performed in face of an
overwhelming enemy. To be brief, the Government was beaten, somewhat
badly beaten, the great cry was a failure, and there were many casualties
in the ranks. Marchmont kept his seat by virtue of personal and
hereditary popularity; but Dick Benyon, who had been considered quite
safe, lost his, a fate shared by many who had deemed themselves no less
secure.
"I suppose you preached your miserable Crusade, as you call it?" said
Constantine Blair. They were at dinner at Marchmont's, Morewood and the
Dean also being of the company.
"I did, and without it I should have got a worse thrashing," said Dick
stoutly; it would be unkind to scrutinise too closely the sincerity of
this statement.
"Quisanté had the sense to throw it over," growled Constantine; his
equanimity was not up to its usual standard.
"It's wisdom to lighten the ship in a storm," smiled Marchmont.
"Yes, and to jettison other people's heavy luggage first," said Morewood.
"The duty of a captain, I suppose," murmured the Dean with a smile.
"You needn't begin with your best guns," argued Dick, a little hotly.
"We can't let Dick appropriate our metaphor to his own purposes," said
Marchmont. "As a matter of fact now, had the Crusade much to do with it?"
Morewood interposed before Dick could answer.
"Oh, only as a Crusade. 'Causes' of any kind are properly suspected,"
said he. "For my part I should imitate the noble simplicity of municipal
election bills. 'Down with the rates!' Quite enough, you know. The end is
indisputably attractive, and you aren't such an ass as to try to indicate
the means. So you get in."
"And don't do it?" The question was Marchmont's.
"Of course not--or what would you have to say next time?"
"The other side has always prevented your doing it?" the Dean suggested.
"Mostly, yes--by factious opposition."
"You fellows don't seem to care," observed Constantine Blair moodily,
"but I tell you we're out for four or five years at least."
There was a pause; the accused persons looked at one another; then
Marchmont had the courage to observe that the country would perhaps live
through the period of calamity before it.
"The country, yes, but how about some of the party?" asked Morewood. "How
about that, Blair? You're supposed to be the man who feeds the ravens and
providently caters for the sparrows, you know. You'll have your hands
full, I should think."
Blair's look expressed the opinion that they trenched on mysteries; he
had these little traits of self-importance, sitting funnily on a round
and merry face. Marchmont laughed as he turned to Dick and enquired after
Jimmy.
"He was helping you, I suppose?"
"Yes, after Quisanté was in. He's all right." Dick's tone was slightly
reserved.
"Did Quisanté help you? He seems to have helped everybody; the man ran
about like an electric current."
"I didn't ask him to come to me. I felt, you know----"
"Yes, I see. But Jimmy didn't?"
Dick looked rather puzzled. "I don't quite make Jimmy out about Quisanté,"
he remarked. "He worked for him like a horse all the time, and wrote me
letters praising him to the skies. Then when he was in and everybody was
cracking him up Jimmy wouldn't open his mouth about him--seemed not to
like the subject, you know."
Nobody spoke; they had heard rumours of an event which would bring Jimmy
into new relations with Quisanté, and they waited for possible information.
But Dick did not go on, so it was left to Morewood to make the necessary
intrusion into private affairs; he did it willingly, with a malicious
grin.
"Thinking him over in the light of a relation, perhaps?" he suggested.
"It would only be a connection anyhow," Dick corrected rather sharply.
"Oh, if that comforts you!" said Morewood, laughing.
"She's a charming girl and I'm awfully glad it's come off."
"Oh, it has?" asked Marchmont.
"Yes, the other day."
"And you're glad in spite of----?"
"Yes, I am. Besides I don't mean anything of that sort. I suppose I know
as well as anybody what Quisanté is."
"As far as I'm concerned I'll admit you do, and still feel you don't know
much," remarked the Dean.
"Well, I wish there were more men like him," said Blair, nodding
vigorously.
"Some men would sacrifice anything for their party," remarked Morewood.
Marchmont took no part in the talk about Quisanté; he could not praise;
for reasons very plain to himself he would not say a word in blame or
depreciation. Not only had he been Quisanté's rival, but ever since his
talk with May he had felt himself the repository of special information,
imperfect indeed and shadowy, yet beyond that which the outside world
possessed. Besides he had received two letters from her, one written in
the course of the fight, gay in tone, expressing an eager interest in her
husband's fortunes, keenly appreciative of her husband's brilliancy and
bravery. The second, in reply to his telegram of congratulation, had run
in another key; an utter weariness and an almost disgusted satiety seemed
to have superseded her former interest. Side by side with these he had
discovered in the repressed but eloquent words of her greeting to him an
intense desire to see him. "I want a change so badly," she wrote. "I want
somebody unpractical, unpushing. You must come directly we're back in
town." They had been back in town ten days, he knew, but he had not yet
obeyed her summons. The thought crossed his mind that the contrast
between her two letters was an odd parallel to Dick's description of the
puzzling demeanour of his brother Jimmy. Was it a characteristic of the
man's to produce these sudden and startling changes of mood towards
himself? Marchmont was puzzled at the notion; he was too little able to
sympathise with the attraction to find himself capable of understanding
the force and extent of the revulsion. "At all events she must be pretty
well prepared for what he is by now," he said to himself with the mixture
of pity and resentment which his love for her and her rejection of him in
Quisanté's favour had bred in his mind. For her he was very sorry; it was
harder to be quite simply and sincerely sorry that her blindness to what
had been so obvious was working out its inevitable result; he would like
to console her in any way short of refraining from pointing out how wrong
she had been proved.
When, in obedience to another note, he went, he did not at first find May
alone. Although he knew Sir Winterton Mildmay, he was not acquainted with
his wife, and was surprised when the kind-looking woman who sat with May
was introduced to him as Lady Mildmay. This was a quick and thorough
burying of the hatchet indeed. "Would you see this in any country except
England?" he asked jokingly. Lady Mildmay declared not, adding that there
was no bitterness in England because there was only upstanding fighting
which left no rancour and indeed bred personal liking. Marchmont thought
to himself that Quisanté must have been very clever--or that this dear
woman (he gave her the epithet at once as everybody did) was not very
clever, no cleverer than he had long known handsome Sir Winterton to be.
Glancing across at May, he seemed to see an expression of absolute pain
on her face, as Lady Mildmay developed these amiable theories.
"I don't believe my husband will ever stand against yours again," she
said.
May looked at Marchmont. "They really have taken quite a fancy to one
another," she said with a laugh that sounded rather forced. "Funny, isn't
it?"
"The speech you invite me to would be a very unfortunate one to address
to the wives of the two gentlemen," he answered, smiling. "Funny indeed!
I prefer to call it inevitable, don't you, Lady Mildmay?"
May made the slightest gesture of impatience, but a moment later smiled
again at Lady Mildmay, saying, "Yes, I suppose that's what I ought to
have said."
The visitor rose to go; approaching May, she first shook hands and then
stood for a moment with a half-expectant half-imploring air. It was plain
that she suggested a kiss. Marchmont looked on rather amused; he knew
that May Quisanté was not given to effusiveness. It would, however, have
been cruel not to kiss Lady Mildmay, and May kissed her with an excellent
grace.
"Well," said Marchmont when the door was shut, "she takes defeat
prettily. Evidently you've made a conquest, as well as your husband."
"I wish she wouldn't come here," said May, wandering to the window and
speaking in a disconsolate voice.
"You don't like her?"
"Like her? Oh, of course I like the dear creature! Who wouldn't? And I
like him too." She turned round, smiling a little. "He's so nice, and
large, and clean, and direct, and obvious, and simple, you know. I like
him just as I like a great rosy apple."
"Hum! I don't eat many of those, do you?"
She laughed, but rather reluctantly. "Perhaps that's more your fault than
the apple's. Still I agree. A bite now and then. But they're mostly only
to dress the table."
"Why don't you want her to come?"
May sat down and fidgeted with a nick-nack on the table.
"Don't you think being forgiven's rather tiresome work?" she asked. "They
don't mean that, I know, but I can't help feeling as if they did."
"I don't see why you should."
She looked full at him for a moment. "No, I didn't suppose you would see
it," she said. "Don't stand there, come and sit here,--near me. I've
written you three letters, but you don't seem to understand yet that I
want to see you." He took the chair near her to which she had pointed;
she looked at him, evidently with both pleasure and amusement. "You don't
look the least as if you'd been electioneering," she told him in an
admiring congratulatory tone.
"I've had the egg-marks brushed off," he explained with the insincere
gravity that he knew she liked.
"Will they brush off? Will they always brush off?" she asked, her voice
low, her hands nursing her knee, her eyes on his.
"Parables, my lady?"
"Yes. Do you know that we won the election because rosy Sir Winterton was
supposed to have flirted with his keeper's daughter, and wouldn't say he
hadn't, and wouldn't bring that dear soul where anybody was likely to say
he had?"
"No, I hadn't heard that. I thought your husband's----"
"Oh, yes, all that helped. He was splendid. But we shouldn't have done it
without the keeper's daughter."
"_Vox populi, vox Dei_; they're both so hard to understand."
"I've been longing for you," she said, seeming to awake suddenly from her
half-dreamy half-playful account of the life she had been living. The
speech, with its cruel frankness and its more cruel affection, embittered
him.
"When you're tired of a rosy apple, you like a bite at a bitter cherry?
One bite; the rest of me, I suppose, is only to dress the table."
She understood him.
"Well, then, you shouldn't come," she protested. "I've been fair about
it."
"No, not always; what you write and say now and then isn't fair unless it
means something more."
"Oh, I don't know what it means."
Her misery drove away his resentment, and pity filled its place.
"You seem more than usually down on your luck," he said with a smile.
"Yes, a little," she confessed. "It's the Mildmays and--and--the general
sham of it, you know." She glanced across at him, smiling. "That's why I
longed for you," she said.
It seemed to him that never had fate and never had woman been so cruel.
The one so nearly had given what he wanted, the other tantalised with the
exhibition of a feeling only just short of what he hoped for, but the
more merciless because it seemed not to understand by how narrow an inch
it failed of his desires. He spoke to her hardly and coldly.
"You seem to me to choose to try a bit of everything and a bit of
everybody," he said. "That's your affair. But I'm not surprised that you
don't find it satisfactory."
"I have to try more than I like of some things and some people," she
replied. She went on quickly, "I know, oh, I know! Now you're calling me
disloyal!"
A curious vexation laid hold of him. Once he had liked her to speak of
him in this strain, even as once he had loved to see in her the type of
the pure, calm, gracious maiden. Now he knew better both her and himself.
The impulse was on him to say that he cared nothing for her disloyalty so
that he himself was the cause of it and he himself to reap the benefit.
He was quick to read her, and he read in her restless misery some sore
discontent with the lot that she had chosen. But he refrained from the
words, not in his turn from any loyalty, but rather still from
bitterness, from a perverse desire to give her nothing of what she had
refused, to leave her in the solitude of spirit which came of her own
action. Besides his fastidiousness revolted from plunging him into a
position which was so common, and which he, with his dislike of things
common, had always counted vulgar. Thus he was silent, and she also sat
silent, looking straight before her. At last, however, she spoke.
"Alexander's gone to the city," she said, "to see his stockbroker. The
stockbroker's a cousin of--ours." She smiled for a moment. "His name's
Mandeville. Since the party's out, we've got to see if we can make some
money."
His pity revived; whatever she deserved, it was not this horrible
common-place lot of wanting money; that sat so ill on his still stately,
no longer faultless, image of her.
"To make some money?" he repeated, half-scornful, half-puzzled.
"Oh, you're rich--you don't know. We spent a lot at Henstead. We must
have money: I spend a lot, so does Alexander." She glanced at him, and he
saw that something had nearly escaped her lips of which she repented. "Do
you ever feel," she went on, apparently by way of amendment, "as if you
might be dishonest--under stress of circumstances, you know?"
"I suppose I might. I've never thought about it."
"So dishonest as--as to get into trouble and be sent to prison and so
on?"
"Oh, I should hope to be skilful enough to avoid that," he laughed.
"Fools ought never to be dishonest; so they invented the 'best policy'
proverb to keep themselves straight."
May nodded. "That's it, I think," she said, and fell into silence again.
This time he spoke.
"I don't like your wanting money," he said in a low voice.
"No, I know," she smiled. "It's not like what you've always chosen to
think I'm like. I ought to live in gilded halls and scatter largesse,
oughtn't I?" She laughed a little bitterly. "Perhaps I will, if cousin
Mandeville does his duty."
"Meanwhile you feel the temptation to dishonesty?" He paused, but then
went on deliberately, "Or, to follow your rule of complete
identification, shall I say 'we feel a temptation to dishonesty, do we?'"
"Oh, but we should be clever enough not to be found out, shouldn't we?"
"I think you would."
"You've not half such good reason to think it as I have." She rose,
walked to the hearth-rug, and stood facing the grate, her back turned to
him. She seemed to him to be looking at a photograph which he noticed now
for the first time on the mantelpiece, the picture of a stout elderly man
with large clean-shaven face and an expression of tolerant shrewdness.
Marchmont moved close to her shoulder and looked also. Perceiving him,
she half turned her head towards him. "That's my husband's right-hand man
at Henstead," she said. "They understand each other perfectly."
"He looks a sharp fellow."
"So he may be able to understand Alexander? Thank you. I like to have his
picture here." Suddenly she turned round full on him, stretching out her
hand. "I wish you'd go now," she said. "Have you turned stupid, or don't
you see that you must leave me alone, or--or I shall say all sorts of
things I mustn't? That man on the mantelpiece there typifies it all.
Bless his dear old fat face! I like him so much--and he's such a humbug,
and I don't think he knows that he's in the least a humbug. Is sincerity
just stupidity?" Her mirth broke out. "Alexander hates my having him
there," she whispered; then she drew away, crying, "Go, go."
"I'm off," said he. "But why doesn't Quisanté like the old gentleman's
picture, and why do you keep it there if he doesn't?"
"And why are none of us perfect--except perhaps the Mildmays? Good-bye."
She gave him her hand. "Oh, by the way," she went on, calling him back
after he had turned, "have you ever had anything to do with promoting
companies or anything of that kind?"
"Well, no, I can't say I have."
"Is it necessarily disreputable?"
"Oh, no," he smiled. "Not necessarily. In fact it's an essential feature
in the life of a commercial nation." He was mockingly grave again.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Marchmont. An essential feature of the life in
a commercial nation! That's very good." She broke into a laugh. "Now I've
got something agreeable to say," she said. He did not move till she shook
her head violently at him and pointed to the door. As he went out, she
turned back to Mr. Foster's picture, murmuring, "It's no use my setting
up for a martyr. Martyrs don't giggle half the time." Had Marchmont heard
her, the word "giggle" would have stirred him to real indignation; it was
so inappropriate to that low reluctant mirth-laden laugh of hers, which
seemed to reveal the feeling that it mocked and extorted the pity that it
could not but deride. It sounded again as she stood looking at old Foster
the maltster's picture there on the mantelpiece where Quisanté did not
like to see it.
For what was the meaning of it to her, declared by her perverse
determination to keep it there and plain enough to her husband's quick
wit? It was the outward sign that her malicious fancy chose of the new
state of feeling and the new relation between them which had emerged from
the tempest of emotion that Foster's congratulatory note had thrown her
into. The tempest had raged in solitude and silence; she had not spoken a
word to her sister, or to Jimmy Benyon, hardly a word to Quisanté
himself. He had his case of course, and she was obliged to hear it, to
hear also Foster's own account of how he came to express himself so
awkwardly and to write as though Mr. Quisanté had originally set the
story afloat, whereas he meant only to applaud the tact with which his
leader had regulated their conduct towards it after it was started. May
said she was quite sure he had meant only this, thanked him for all his
services, and begged the photograph. Quisanté approved this bearing
towards the third party but was not deceived by it himself. When the
picture was set on the mantelpiece, he understood that his case was not
convincing, that the episode would not fall into the oblivion which he
had suggested for it; it would not be forgotten and could not be
forgiven. Deeply resentful of this treatment--for he saw nothing very bad
in his manoeuvre--he had been moved to protest passionately, to explain
volubly, and to offer pledge on pledge. Protests, plaints, and promises
broke uselessly against the cool, composed, indulgent friendliness of her
bearing. She gave him to understand that no pretences were longer
possible between them, but that they would get along without them. She
allowed him to see that the one fear left to her on his account was the
apprehension that some day he would be found out by other people. Here
her terror was as great as it had ever been, for her pride was unbroken;
but she did not show him the full extent of her anxiety.
"You ought to be particularly careful, so many people would like to see
you come to grief." This, or something like it, was what she had said, by
way of dismissing the subject for ever from their conversation with one
another. It expressed very well her new position, how she had abandoned
those mad hopes of changing him and fallen back on the resolve to see the
truth of him herself and make the best of him to others. But the very
calmness and friendliness of the warning told him how resolutely she had
chosen her path, while they concealed the shame and the fear with which
she set herself to tread it. One thing only Quisanté understood quite
clearly; it was no use acting to her any more; what she wished was that
he should cease to act to her. Yet, knowing this, he could not cease, it
was not in his nature to cease, and he went on playing his part before
eyes that he knew were not imposed on but saw through all his disguises.
His old furtiveness of manner came back now when he talked over himself
and his affairs with his wife.
But even here he had his triumph, he was not at her mercy, he wielded a
power of his own; she recognised it with a smile. Like Aunt Maria,
whatever she might think of him she was bound to think constantly of him,
to be occupied with his doings and his success, to want to know what was
in his mind, yes, although it might be what she hated to find there. For
a while he had withdrawn himself from her, ceasing to tell of his life,
aims, and doings. If he sought thus to bring her to terms, she proved an
easy conquest; she surrendered at once, laughing at herself and at him.
"We're partners," she said, "and I must hear all about what you're doing.
I can't live without that, you know." And as the price of what she must
have she gave him friendship, sympathy, and comradeship, crossing his
wishes in nothing and never allowing herself to upbraid except in that
small tacit jeer of Mr. Foster's picture on the mantelpiece. For now she
believed herself to know the worst, and yet to be able to endure.
What sort of life promised to form itself out of this state of affairs?
For after all she was at the beginning of life, and he hardly well into
the middle of his. Neither of the two obvious things seemed possible;
devotion was out of the question, alienation was forbidden by her
unconquerable interest in him and his irrepressible instinct to hold her
mind, even if he could not chain her affections. Perhaps a third thing
was more usual still, tolerance. But for her at least neither was
tolerance the mood, for that is ill to build out of a mixture of intense
admiration and scornful contempt. These seemed likely to be the
predominant features of her life with her husband, sharing it so equally
that the one could never drive out the other nor yet come to fair terms
and, dividing the territory, live at peace.
"Perhaps they will some day," she thought, "when I get old and quiet."
She was neither old nor quiet now, and her youth cried out against so
poor a consolation. Then she told herself that she had the child, only to
reproach herself, a moment later, with the insincere repetition of a
commonplace. The child was not enough; had her nature been such as to
find the child enough, she would certainly never have become Alexander
Quisanté's wife. Always when she was most strongly repelled by him, there
was in the back of her mind the feeling that it was something to be his
wife. Only--he mustn't be found out. The worst terror of all, at which
her half-jesting words to Marchmont had hinted, came back as she
murmured, "I wish we had more money." For money was necessary, as votes
had been, and--her eyes strayed to old Foster's portrait on the
mantelpiece. The election had cost a lot; no salary was to be looked for
now; both by policy and by instinct Quisanté was lavish; she herself had
no aptitude for small economies. Money was wanted very much indeed in
Grosvenor Road.
It was on the way, though. This was the news that Quisanté, in the
interval between his return from electioneering and the meeting of
Parliament, brought back day by day from his excursions to the City and
his conversations with Mandeville. He was careful to explain to his wife
that he was no "guinea-pig," that he did not approve of the animal, and
would never use his position to pick up gain in that way. But he had
leisure--at least he could make time--and some of it he proposed to
devote to starting a really legitimate and highly lucrative undertaking.
The Alethea Printing Press was to revolutionise a great many things
besides the condition of Quisanté's finances; it was not an ordinary
speculative company. Marchmont's phrase came in here, and May used it
neatly and graciously. Quisanté, much encouraged, plunged into an account
of the great invention; if only it worked as it was certain to work,
there was not one fortune but many fortunes in it. "And it will work?"
she asked. "If we can get the capital," he answered with a confident air.
"I shall try to interest all my friends in it," he went on. "You can help
me there." May looked doubtful, and Quisanté grew more eloquent. At last
he held up a sheaf of papers, saying triumphantly,
"Here are favourable reports from all the leading experts. We shall have
an array of them in the prospectus. Of course they're absolutely
impartial, and they really leave no room for doubt." He held them out to
her, but she leant back with her hands in her lap.
"I shouldn't understand them," she protested. "But they all agree, do
they?"
"Yes, all," he said emphatically. "Well, all except one." His brow
wrinkled a little. "Mandeville insisted on having an opinion from
Professor Maturin. I was against it. Maturin's absurdly pessimistic."
"He's a great man, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose so,--he's got a great reputation anyhow."
"And he's against you?"
"The fact is that his is only--only a draft report. So far as it goes,
it's not encouraging, but he's never had the facts really laid before
him."
"You'd better go and lay them before him," she said very gravely.
Quisanté caught eagerly at the suggestion.
"Exactly what I proposed to Mandeville!" he cried. "The prospectus won't
be out for nearly a month yet, and I shall go and see Maturin. I
know----" He rose and began to walk about. "I know Maturin is wrong, and
I know that I can show him he's wrong. I only want an hour with him to
bring him round to my view, to the true view."
"Well, why haven't you been to see him?"
"I tried to go, but he's ill and not equal to business. As soon as he
gets better I shall go. To put his report in as it stands would not only
do us infinite harm--in fact we couldn't think of it--but it wouldn't be
just to him."
"But if he won't change his opinion?"
"Oh, he must, he will. I tell you it's as plain as a pikestaff, when once
it's properly explained."
"I'm sure you'll be able to convert him, if anyone can," said May
soothingly.
"I must," said Quisanté briefly, and sat down to his papers again.
For an hour or two he worked steadily, without a pause, without an
apparent hesitation. That fine machine of his was ploughing its straight
unfaltering way through details previously unfamiliar and through
problems which he had never studied. From five to seven she sat with a
book in her hands, feigning to read, really watching her husband. He
could not fail, she said to herself; he would make the Alethea Printing
Press a success, irrespective of the actual merits of it. Was that
possible? It seemed almost possible as she looked at him.
"It's bound to go," he said at last, pushing away the papers. "I'm primed
now, and I can convince old Maturin in half an hour." He held up the
Professor's report. "He must withdraw this and give us another."
Alas, there are things before which even will and energy and brains must
bow. As he spoke the servant came in, bringing the _Evening Standard_.
May took it, glanced at the middle page, and then, with a little start,
looked across at her husband. He saw her glance. "Any news?" he asked.
"The Professor can't be convinced," she said. "His illness took a sudden
turn for the worse last night and he died this afternoon at three
o'clock."
Quisanté sat quite still for a few minutes, the dead Professor's report
on the Alethea Printing Press still in his fingers.
"What'll you do now?" she asked, with the smile of curiosity which she
always had ready for his plans. Would he pursue the Professor beyond
Charon's stream?
He hesitated a little, glancing at her rather uneasily. At last he spoke.
"One thing at all events is clear to me," he said. "This thing doesn't
represent a reasoned and well-informed opinion." He folded it up
carefully and placed it by itself in a long envelope. "We must consider
our course," he ended.
In a flash, by an instinct, May knew what their course would be and at
whose dictation it would be followed.
"Of course," said Quisanté, "all this is strictly between ourselves."
Her cheek flushed a little. "You mustn't tell me any more business
secrets. I don't like them," said she, and she turned away to escape the
quick, would-be covert glance that she knew he would direct at her.
Money was necessary; votes had been necessary; old Foster smiled in fat
shrewdness from the mantelpiece. May Quisanté was less sure that she knew
the worst.