"Oh, Tully, look at my cloak! You've let it fall! Hold my fan, please,
and give me the opera-glasses."
The speaker was Miss Sewell. She and an elderly lady were sitting side by
side in the stalls, about halfway down St. James's Hall. The occasion was
a popular concert, and, as Joachim was to play, every seat in the hall
was rapidly filling up.
Letty rose as she asked for the opera-glasses, and scanned the crowds
streaming in through the side-doors.
"No--no signs of him! He must have been kept at the House, after all,"
she said, with annoyance. "Really, Tully, I do think you might have got a
programme all this time! Why do you leave everything to me?"
"My dear!" said her companion, protesting, "you didn't tell me to."
"Well, I don't see why I should _tell_ you everything. Of course I want a
programme. Is that he? No! What a nuisance!"
"Sir George must have been detained," murmured her companion, timidly.
"What a very original thing to say, wasn't it, Tully?" remarked Miss
Sewell, with sarcasm, as she sat down again.
The lady addressed was silent, instinctively waiting till Letty's nerves
should have quieted down. She was a Miss Tulloch, a former governess of
the Sewells, and now often employed by Letty, when she was in town, as a
convenient chaperon. Letty was accustomed to stay with an aunt in
Cavendish Square, an old lady who did not go out in the evenings. A
chaperon therefore was indispensable, and Maria Tulloch could always be
had. She existed somewhere in West Kensington, on an income of seventy
pounds a year. Letty took her freely to the opera and the theatre, to
concerts and galleries, and occasionally gave her a dress she did not
want. Miss Tulloch clung to the connection as her only chance of relief
from the boarding-house routine she detested, and was always abjectly
ready to do as she was told. She saw nothing she was not meant to see,
and she could be shaken off at a moment's notice. For the rest, she came
of a stock of gentlefolk; and her invariable black dress, her bits of
carefully treasured lace, the weak refinement of her face, and her timid
manner did no discredit to the brilliant creature beside her.
When the first number of the programme was over, Letty got up once more,
opera-glass in hand, to search among the late-comers for her missing
lover. She nodded to many acquaintances, but George Tressady was not to
be seen; and she sat down finally in no mood either to listen or to
enjoy, though the magician of the evening was already at work.
"There's something very special, isn't there, you want to see Sir George
about to-night?" Tully inquired humbly when the next pause occurred.
"Of course there is!" said Letty, crossly. "You do ask such
foolish questions, Tully. If I don't see him to-night, he may let
that house in Brook Street slip. There are several people after
it--the agents told me."
"And he thinks it too expensive?"
"Only because of _her_. If she makes him pay her that preposterous
allowance, of course it will be too expensive. But I don't mean him
to pay it."
"Lady Tressady is terribly extravagant," murmured Miss Tulloch.
"Well, so long as she isn't extravagant with his money--_our_ money--I
don't care a rap," said Letty; "only she sha'n't spend all her own and
all ours too, which is what she has been doing. When George was away he
let her live at Ferth, and spend almost all the income, except five
hundred a year that he kept for himself. And _then_ she got so shamefully
into debt that he doesn't know when he shall ever clear her. He gave her
money at Christmas, and again, I am _sure_, just lately. Well! all I know
is that it must be _stopped_. I don't know that I shall be able to do
much till I'm married, but I mean to make him take this house."
"Is Lady Tressady nice to you? She is in town, isn't she?"
"Oh yes! she's in town. Nice?" said Letty, with a little laugh. "She
can't bear me, of course; but we're quite civil."
"I thought she tried to bring it on?" said the confidante, anxious, above
all things, to be sympathetic.
"Well, she brought him to the Corfields, and let me know she had. I don't
know why she did it. I suppose she wanted to get something out of him.
Ah! _there_ he is!"
And Letty stood up, smiling and beckoning, while Tressady's tall thin
figure made its way along the central passage.
"Horrid House! What made you so late?" she said, as he sat down between
her and Miss Tulloch.
George Tressady looked at her with delight. The shrewish contractions in
the face, which had been very evident to Tully a few minutes before, had
all disappeared, and the sharp slight lines of it seemed to George the
height of delicacy. At sight of him colour and eyes had brightened. Yet
at the same time there was not a trace of the raw girl about her. She
knew very well that he had no taste for _ingénues_, and she was neither
nervous nor sentimental in his company.
"Do you suppose I should have stayed a second longer than I was obliged?"
he asked her, smiling, pressing her little hand under pretence of taking
her programme.
The first notes of a new Brahms quartette mounted, thin and sweet, into
the air. The musical portion of the audience, having come for this
particular morsel, prepared themselves eagerly for the tasting and trying
of it. George and Letty tried to say a few things more to each other
before yielding to the general silence, but an old gentleman in front
turned upon them a face of such disdain and fury they must needs laugh
and desist.
Not that George was unwilling. He was tired; and silence with Letty
beside him was not only repose, but pleasure. Moreover, he derived a
certain honest pleasure of a mixed sort from music. It suggested literary
or pictorial ideas to him which stirred him, and gave him a sense of
enjoyment. Now, as the playing flowed on, it called up delightful images
in his brain: of woody places, of whirling forms, of quiet rivers, of
thin trees Corot-like against the sky--scenes of pleading, of frolic,
reproachful pain, dissolving joy. With it all mingled his own story, his
own feeling; his pride of possession in this white creature touching him;
his sense of youth, of opening life, of a crowded stage whereon his "cue"
had just been given, his "call" sounded. He listened with eagerness,
welcoming each fancy as it floated past, conscious of a grain of
self-abandonment even--a rare mood with him. He was not absorbed in love
by any means; the music spoke to him of a hundred other kindling or
enchanting things. Nevertheless it made it doubly pleasant to be there,
with Letty beside him. He was quite satisfied with himself and her; quite
certain that he had done everything for the best. All this the music in
some way emphasised--made clear.
When it was over, and the applause was subsiding, Letty said in his ear:
"Have you settled about the house?"
He smiled down upon her, not hearing what she said, but admiring her
dress, its little complication and subtleties, the violets that perfumed
every movement, the slim fingers holding the fan. Her mere ways of
personal adornment were to him like pleasant talk. They surprised and
amused him--stood between him and ennui.
She repeated her question.
A frown crossed his brow, and the face changed wholly.
"Ah!--it is so difficult to see one's way," he said, with a little sigh
of annoyance.
Letty played with her fan, and was silent.
"Do you so much prefer it to the others?" he asked her.
Letty looked up with astonishment.
"Why, it is a house!" she said, lifting her eyebrows; "and the others--"
"Hovels? Well, you are about right. The small London house is an
abomination. Perhaps I can make them take less premium."
Letty shook her head.
"It is not at all a dear house," she said decidedly.
He still frowned, with the look of one recalled to an annoyance he had
shaken off.
"Well, darling, if you wish it so much, that settles it. Promise to be
still nice to me when we go through the Bankruptcy Court!"
"We will let lodgings, and I will do the waiting," said Letty, just
laying her hand lightly against his for an instant. "Just think! That
house would draw like anything. Of course, we will only take the eldest
sons of peers. By the way, do you see Lord Fontenoy?"
They were in the middle of the "interval," and almost everyone about
them, including Miss Tulloch, was standing up, talking or examining their
neighbours.
George craned his neck round Miss Tulloch, and saw Fontenoy sitting
beside a lady, on the other side of the middle gangway.
"Who is the lady?" Letty inquired. "I saw her with him the other night at
the Foreign Office."
George smiled.
"_That_--if you want to know--is Fontenoy's story!"
"Oh, but tell me at once!" said Letty, imperiously. "But he hasn't got a
story, or a heart. He's only stuffed with blue-book."
"So I thought till a few weeks ago. But I know a good deal more now about
Master Fontenoy than I did."
"But who is she?"
"She is a Mrs. Allison. Isn't that white hair beautiful? And her
face--half saint, I always think--you might take her for a
mother-abbess--and half princess. Did you ever see such diamonds?"
George pulled his moustaches, and grinned as he looked across at
Fontenoy.
"Tell me quick!" said Letty, tapping him on the arm--"Is she a
widow?--and is he going to marry her? Why didn't you tell me before?--why
didn't you tell me at Malford?"
"Because I didn't know," said George, laughing. "Oh! it's a strange
story--too long to tell now. She is a widow, but he is not going to marry
her, apparently. She has a grown-up son, who hasn't yet found himself a
wife, and thinks it isn't fair to him. If Fontenoy wants to introduce
her, don't refuse. She is the mistress of Castle Luton, and has
delightful parties. Yes!--if I'd known at Malford what I know now!"
And he laughed again, remembering Fontenoy's nocturnal incursion upon
him, and its apparent object. Who would have imagined that the preacher
of that occasion had ever given one serious thought to woman and woman's
arts--least of all that he was the creation and slave of a woman!
Letty's curiosity was piqued, and she would have plied George with
questions, but that she suddenly perceived that Fontenoy had risen, and
was coming across to them.
"Gracious!" she said; "here he comes. I can't think why; he
doesn't like me."
Fontenoy, however, when he had made his way to them, greeted Miss Sewell
with as much apparent cordiality as he showed to anyone else. He had
received George's news of the marriage with all decorum, and had since
sent a handsome wedding-present to the bride-elect. Letty, however, was
never at ease with him, which, indeed, was the case with most women.
He stood beside the _fiances_ for a minute or two, exchanging a few
commonplaces with Letty on the performers and the audience; then he
turned to George with a change of look.
"No need for us to go back to-night, I think?"
"What, to the House? Dear, no! Grooby and Havershon may be trusted to
drone the evening out, I should hope, with no trouble to anybody but
themselves. The Government are just keeping a house, that's all. Have you
been grinding at your speech all day?"
Fontenoy shrugged his shoulders.
"I sha'n't get anything out that I want to say. Are you coming to the
House on Friday, Miss Sewell?"
"Friday?" said Letty, looking puzzled.
George laughed.
"I told you. You must plead trousseau if you want to save yourself!"
Amusement shone in his blue eyes as they passed from Letty to Fontenoy.
He had long ago discovered that Letty was incapable of any serious
interest in his public life. It did not disturb him at all. But it
tickled his sense of humour that Letty would have to talk politics all
the same, and to talk them with people like Fontenoy.
"Oh! you mean your Resolution!" cried Letty. "Isn't it a Resolution? Yes,
of course I'm coming. It's very absurd, for I don't know anything about
it. But George says I must, and till I promise to obey, you see, I don't
mind being obedient!"
Archness, however, was thrown away on Fontenoy. He stood beside her,
awkward and irresponsive. Not being allowed to be womanish, she could
only try once more to be political.
"It's to be a great attack on Mr. Dowson, isn't it?" she asked him. "You
and George are mad about some things he has been doing? He's Home
Secretary, isn't he? Yes, of _course_! And he's been driving trade away,
and tyrannising over the manufacturers? I _wish_ you'd explain it to me!
I ask George, and he tells me not to talk shop."
"Oh, for goodness' sake," groaned George, "let it alone! I came to meet
you and hear Joachim. However, I may as well warn you, Letty, that I
sha'n't have time to be married once Fontenoy's anti-Maxwell campaign
begins; and it will go on till the Day of Judgment."
"Why anti-Maxwell," said Letty, puzzled. "I thought it was Mr. Dowson you
are going to attack?"
George, a little vexed that she should require it, began to explain that
as Maxwell was "only a miserable peer," he could have nothing to do with
the House of Commons, and that Dowson was the official mouthpiece of the
Maxwell group and policy in the Lower House. "The hands were the hands of
Esau," etc. Letty meanwhile, conscious that she was not showing to
advantage, flushed, began to play nervously with her fan, and wished that
George would leave off.
Fontenoy did nothing to assist George's political lesson. He stood
impassive, till suddenly he tried to look across his immediate
neighbours, and then said, turning to Letty:
"The Maxwells, I see, are here to-night." He nodded towards a group on
the left, some two or three benches behind them. "Are you an admirer of
Lady Maxwell's, Miss Sewell?--you've seen her, of course?"
"Oh yes, _often_!" said Letty, annoyed by the question, standing,
however, eagerly on tiptoe. "I know her, too, a little; but she never
remembers me. She was at the Foreign Office on Saturday, with such a
_hideous_ dress on--it spoilt her completely."
"Hideous!" said Fontenoy, with a puzzled look. "Some artist--I forget
who--came and raved to me about it; said it was like some Florentine
picture--I forget what--don't think I ever heard of it."
Letty looked contemptuous. Her expression said that in this matter, at
any rate, she knew what she was talking about. Nevertheless her eyes
followed the dark head Fontenoy had pointed out to her.
Lady Maxwell was at the moment the centre of a large group of people,
mostly men, all of whom seemed to be eager to get a word with her, and
she was talking with great animation, appealing from time to time to a
tall, broad-shouldered gentleman, with greyish hair, who stood, smiling
and silent, at the edge of the group. Letty noticed that many glasses
from the balcony were directed to this particular knot of persons; that
everybody near them, or rather every woman, was watching Lady Maxwell, or
trying to get a better view of her. The girl felt a secret pang of envy
and dislike.
The figure of a well-known accompanist appeared suddenly at the head of
the staircase leading from the artists' room. The interval was over, and
the audience began to subside into attention.
Fontenoy bowed and took his leave.
"You see, he _didn't_ introduce me," said Letty, not without chagrin,
as she settled down. "And how plain he is! I think him uglier every
time I see him."
George made a vague sound of assent, but did not really agree with her in
the least. Fontenoy's air of overwork was more decided than ever; his
eyes had almost sunk out of sight; the complexion of his broad strong
face had reddened and coarsened from lack of exercise and sleep; his
brown hair was thinning and grizzling fast. Nevertheless a man saw much
to admire in the ungainly head and long-limbed frame, and did not think
any the better of a woman's intelligence for failing to perceive it.
After the concert, as George and Letty stood together in the crowded
vestibule, he said to her, with a smile:
"So I take that house?"
"If you want to do anything disagreeable," she retorted, quickly, "don't
_ask_ me. Do it, and then wait till I am good-tempered again!"
"What a tempting prospect! Do you know that when you put on that
particular hood that I would take Buckingham Palace to please you? Do you
know also that my mother will think us very extravagant?"
"Ah, we can't all be economical!" said Letty.
He saw the little toss of the head and sharpening of the lips. They only
amused him. Though he had never, so far, discussed his mother and her
affairs with Letty in any detail, he understood perfectly well that her
feeling about this particular house in some way concerned his mother, and
that Letty and Lady Tressady were rapidly coming to dislike each other.
Well, why should Letty pretend? He liked her the better for not
pretending.
There was a movement in the crowd about them, and Letty, looking up,
suddenly found herself close to a tall lady, whose dark eyes were
bent upon her.
"How do you do, Miss Sewell?"
Letty, a little fluttered, gave her hand and replied. Lady Maxwell
glanced across her at the tall young man, with the fair, irregular face.
George bowed involuntarily, and she slightly responded. Then she was
swept on by her own party.
"Have you sent for your carriage?" George heard someone say to her.
"No; I am going home in a hansom. I've tired out both the horses
to-day. Aldous is going down to the club to see if he can hear anything
about Devizes."
"Oh! the election?"
She nodded, then caught sight of her husband at the door beckoning, and
hurried on.
"What a head!" said George, looking after her with admiration.
"Yes," said Letty, unwillingly. "It's the hair that's so splendid, the
long black waves of it. How ridiculous to talk of tiring out her
horses--that's just like her! As though she mightn't have fifty horses if
she liked! Oh, George, there's our man! Quick, Tully!"
They made their way out. In the press George put his arm half round
Letty, shielding her. The touch of her light form, the nearness of her
delicate face, enchanted him. When their carriage had rolled away, and he
turned homewards along Piccadilly, he walked absently for a time,
conscious only of pulsing pleasure.
It was a mild February night. After a long frost, and a grudging thaw,
westerly winds were setting in, and Spring could be foreseen. It had been
pouring with rain during the concert, but was now fair, the rushing
clouds leaving behind them, as they passed, great torn spaces of blue,
where the stars shone.
Gusts of warm moist air swept through the street. As George's moment of
intoxication gradually subsided, he felt the physical charm of the soft
buffeting wind. How good seemed all living!--youth and capacity--this
roaring multitudinous London--the future with its chances! This common
pleasant chance of marriage amongst them--he was glad he had put out his
hand to it. His wife that was to be was no saint and no philosopher. He
thanked the fates! He at least asked for neither--on the hearth. "Praise,
blame, love, kisses"--for all of those, life with Letty would give scope;
yet for none of them in excess. There would be plenty of room left for
other things, other passions--the passion of political power, for
instance, the art of dealing with and commanding other men. He, the
novice, the beginner, to talk of "commanding!" Yet already he felt his
foot upon the ladder. Fontenoy consulted him, and confided in him more
and more. In spite of his engagement, he was informing himself rapidly on
a hundred questions, and the mental wrestle of every day was
exhilarating. Their small group in the House, compact, tireless,
audacious, was growing in importance and in the attention it extorted
from the public. Never had the whole tribe of factory inspectors shown a
more hawk-like, a more inquisitorial, a more intolerable vigilance than
during the past twelve months. All the persons concerned with matches and
white-lead, with certain chemical or metal-working industries, with
"season" dressmaking or tailoring, were up in arms, rallying to
Fontenoy's support with loud wrath and lamentations, claiming to speak
not only for themselves, but for their "hands," in the angry protest
that things had gone and were going a great deal too far, that trade was
simply being harassed out of the country. A Whiggish group of
manufacturers on the Liberal side were all with Fontenoy; while the
Socialists, on whom the Government should have been able in such a matter
to count to the death, had a special grievance against the Cabinet at the
moment, and were sulking in their tents. The attack and defence would
probably take two nights; for the Government, admitting the gravity of
the assault, had agreed, in case the debate should not be concluded on
Friday, to give up Monday to it. Altogether the affair would make a
noise. George would probably get in his maiden speech on the second
night, and was, in truth, devoting a great deal of his mind to the
prospect; though to Letty he had persistently laughed at it and belittled
it, refusing altogether to let her come and hear him.
Then, after Easter would come Maxwell's Bill, and the fat in the fire!
Poor little Letty!--she would get but few of the bridal observances due
to her when _that_ struggle began. But first would come Easter and their
wedding; that one short fortnight, when he would carry her off--soft,
willing prey!--to the country, draw a "wind-warm space" about himself and
her, and minister to all her whims.
He turned down St. James's Street, passed Marlborough House, and
entered the Mall, on the way to Warwick Square, where he was living
with his mother.
Suddenly he became aware of a crowd, immediately in front of him, in the
direction of Buckingham Palace. A hansom and horse were standing in the
roadway; the driver, crimson and hatless, was bandying words with one of
the policemen, who had his notebook open, and from the middle of the
crowd came a sound of wailing.
He walked up to the edge of the circle.
"Anybody hurt?" he said to the policeman, as the man shut his notebook.
"Little girl run over, sir."
"Can I be of any assistance? Is there an ambulance coming?"
"No, sir. There was a lady in the hansom. She's just now bandaging the
child's leg, and says she'll take it to the hospital."
George mounted on one of the seats under the trees that stood handy, and
looked over the heads of the crowd to the space in the centre which the
other policeman was keeping clear. A little girl lay on the ground, or
rather on a heap of coats; another girl, apparently about sixteen, stood
near her, crying bitterly, and a lady--
"Goodness!" said Tressady; and, jumping down, he touched the policeman on
the shoulder.
"Can you get me through? I think I could be some help. That lady"--he
spoke a word in the policeman's ear.
The man touched his hat.
"Stand back, please!" he said, addressing the crowd, "and let this
gentleman through."
The crowd divided unwillingly. But at the same moment it parted from the
inside, and a little procession came through, both policemen joining
their energies to make a free passage for it. In front walked the
policeman carrying the little girl, a child apparently of about twelve
years old. Her right foot lay stiffly across his arm, held straight and
still in an impromptu splint of umbrellas and handkerchiefs. Immediately
behind came the lady whom George had caught sight of, holding the other
girl's hand in hers. She was bareheaded and in evening dress. Her
opera-cloak, with its heavy sable collar, showed beneath it a dress of
some light-coloured satin, which had already suffered deplorably from the
puddles of the road, and, as she neared the lamp beneath which the cab
had stopped, the diamonds on her wrists sparkled in the light. During her
passage through the crowd, George perceived that one or two people
recognised her, and that a murmur ran from mouth to mouth.
Of anything of the sort she herself was totally unconscious. George saw
at once that she, not the policeman, was in command. She gave him
directions, as they approached the cab, in a quick, imperative voice
which left no room for hesitation.
"The driver is drunk," he heard her say; "who will drive?"
"One of us will drive, ma'am."
"What--the other man? Ask him to take the reins at once, please, before I
get in. The horse is fresh, and might start. That's right. Now, when I
say the word, give me the child."
She settled herself in the cab. George saw the policeman somewhat
embarrassed, for a moment, with his burden. He came forward to his help,
and between them they handed in the child, placing her carefully on her
protector's knee.
Then, standing at the open door of the cab, George raised his hat. "Can I
be of any further assistance to you, Lady Maxwell? I saw you just now at
the concert."
She turned in some astonishment as she heard her name, and looked at the
speaker. Then, very quickly, she seemed to understand.
"I don't know," she said, pondering. "Yes! you could help me. I am going
to take the child to hospital. But there is this other girl. Could you
take her home--she is very much upset? No!--first, could you bring her
after me to St. George's? She wants to see where we put her sister."
"I will call another cab, and be there as soon as you."
"Thank you. Just let me speak to the sister a moment, please."
He put the weeping girl forward, and Lady Maxwell bent across the burden
on her knee to say a few words to her--soft, quick words in another
voice. The girl understood, her face cleared a little, and she let
Tressady take charge of her.
One of the policemen mounted the box of the hansom, amid the "chaff" of
the crowd, and the cab started. A few hats were raised in George's
neighbourhood, and there was something of a cheer.
"I tell yer," said a voice, "I knowed her fust sight--seed her picture
lots o' times in the papers, and in the winders too. My word, ain't she
good-lookin! And did yer see all them diamonds?"
"Come along!" said George, impatiently, hurrying his charge into the
four-wheeler the other policeman had just stopped for them.
In a few more seconds he, the girl, and the policeman were pursuing Lady
Maxwell's hansom at the best speed of an indifferent horse. George tried
to say a few consoling things to his neighbour; and the girl, reassured
by his kind manner, found her tongue, and began to chatter in a tearful
voice about the how and when of the accident: about the elder sister in a
lodging in Crawford Street, Tottenham Court Road, whom she and the little
one had been visiting; the grandmother in Westminster with whom they
lived; poor Lizzie's place in a laundry, which now she must lose; how the
lady had begged handkerchiefs and umbrellas from the crowd to tie up
Lizzie's leg with--and so on through a number of other details incoherent
or plaintive.
George heard her absently. His mind all the time was absorbed in the
dramatic or ironic aspects of what he had just seen. For dramatic they
were--though perhaps a little cheap. Could he, could anyone, have made
acquaintance with this particular woman in more characteristic fashion?
He laughed to think how he would tell the story to Fontenoy. The
beautiful creature in her diamonds, kneeling on her satin dress in the
mud, to bind up a little laundrymaid's leg--it was so extravagantly in
keeping with Marcella Maxwell that it amused one like an overdone
coincidence in a clumsy play.
What made her so beautiful? The face had marked defects; but in colour,
expression, subtlety of line incomparable! On the other hand, the
manner--no!--he shrugged his shoulders. The remembrance of its
mannish--or should it be, rather, boyish?--energy and assurance somehow
set him on edge.
In the end, they were not much behind the hansom; for the hospital porter
was only just in the act of taking the injured child from Lady Maxwell as
Tressady dismounted and went forward again to see what he could do.
But, somewhat to his chagrin, he was not wanted. Lady Maxwell and the
porter did everything. As they went into the hospital, George caught a
few of the things she was saying to the porter as she supported the
child's leg. She spoke in a rapid, professional way, and the man
answered, as the policeman had done, with a deference and understanding
which were clearly not due only to her "grand air" and her evening dress.
George was puzzled.
He and the elder sister followed her into the waiting-room. The
house-surgeon and a nurse were summoned, and the injured leg was put into
a splint there and then. The patient moaned and cried most of the time,
and Tressady had hard work to keep the sister quiet. Then nurse and
doctor lifted the child.
"They are going to put her to bed," said Lady Maxwell, turning to George.
"I am going up with them. Would you kindly wait? The sister"--she dropped
her business tone, and, smiling, touched the elder girl on the arm--"can
come up when the little one is undressed."
The little procession swept away, and George was left with his charge. As
soon as the small sister was out of sight, the elder one began to
chatter again out of sheer excitement, crying at intervals. George did
not heed her much. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets,
conscious of a curious irritability. He did not think a woman should take
a strange man's service quite so coolly.
At the end of another quarter of an hour a nurse appeared to summon the
sister. Tressady was told he might come too if he would, and his charge
threw him a quick, timid look, as though asking him not to desert her in
this unknown and formidable place. So they followed the nurse up white
stone stairs, and through half-lit corridors, where all was silent, save
that once a sound of delirious shrieking and talking reached them
through a closed door, and made the sister's consumptive little face
turn whiter still.
At last the nurse, putting her finger on her lip, turned a handle, and
George was conscious of a sudden feeling of pleasure.
They were standing on the threshold of a children's ward. On either hand
was a range of beds, bluish-white between the yellow picture-covered
walls and the middle-way of spotless floor. Far away, at the other end, a
great fire glowed. On a bare table in the centre, laden with bottles and
various surgical necessaries, stood a shaded lamp, and beside it the
chair where the night-nurse had been sitting. In the beds were sleeping
children of various ages, some burrowing, face downward, animal-like,
into their pillows; others lying on their backs, painfully straight and
still. The air was warm, yet light, and there was the inevitable smell of
antiseptics. Something in the fire-lit space and comfort of the great
room, its ordered lines and colours, the gentleness of the shaded light
as contrasted with the dim figures in the beds, seemed to make a poem of
it--a poem of human tenderness.
Two or three beds away to the right, Lady Maxwell was standing with the
night-nurse of the ward. The little girl had been undressed, and was
lying quiet, with a drawn, piteous face that turned eagerly as her sister
came in. The whole scene was new and touching to Tressady. Yet, after the
first impression, his attention was perforce held by Lady Maxwell, and he
saw the rest only in relation to her. She had slipped off her heavy
cloak, in order, perhaps, that she might help in the undressing of the
child. Beneath, she wore a little shawl or cape of some delicate lace
over her low dress. The dress itself was of a pale shade of green; the
mire and mud with which it was bedabbled no longer showed in the half
light; and the satin folds glistened dimly as she moved. The poetic
dignity of the head, so finely wreathed with its black hair, of the full
throat and falling shoulders, received a sort of special emphasis from
the wide spaces, the pale colours and level lines of the ward. Tressady
was conscious again of the dramatic significant note as he watched her,
yet without any softening of his nascent feeling of antagonism.
She turned and beckoned to the sister as they entered:
"Come and see how comfortable she is! And then you must give this lady
your name and address."
The girl timidly approached. Whilst she was occupied with her sister and
with the nurse, Lady Maxwell suddenly looked round, and saw Tressady
standing by the table a yard or two from her.
A momentary expression of astonishment crossed her face. He saw that, in
her absorption with the case and the two sisters, she had clean forgotten
all about him. But in a flash she remembered, and smiled.
"So you are really going to take her home? That is very kind of you. It
will make all the difference to the grandmother that somebody should go
and explain. You see, they leave her in the splint for the night, and
to-morrow they will put the leg in plaster. Probably they won't keep her
in hospital more than about three weeks, for they are very full."
"You seem to know all about it!"
"I was a nurse myself once, for a time," she said, but with a certain
stiffness which seemed to mark the transition from the professional to
the great lady.
"Ah! I should have remembered that. I had heard it from Edward Watton."
She looked up quickly. He felt that for the first time she took notice of
him as an individual.
"You know Mr. Watton? I think you are Sir George Tressady, are you not?
You got in for Market Malford in November? I recollect. I didn't like
your speeches."
She laughed. So did he.
"Yes, I got in just in time for a fighting session."
Her laugh disappeared.
"An odious fight!" she said gravely.
"I am not so sure. That depends on whether you like fighting, and how
certain you are of your cause!"
She hesitated a moment; then she said:
"How can Lord Fontenoy be certain of his cause!"
The slight note of scorn roused him.
"Isn't that what all parties say of their opponents?"
She glanced at him again, curiously. He was evidently quite
young--younger than herself, she guessed. But his careless ease and
experience of bearing, contrasted with his thin boy's figure, attracted
her. Her lip softened reluctantly into a smile.
"Perhaps," she said. "Only sometimes, you know, it must be true! Well,
evidently we can't discuss it here at one o'clock in the morning--and
there is the nurse making signs to me. It is really very good of you. If
you are in our neighbourhood on Sunday, will you report?"
"Certainly--with the greatest pleasure. I will come and give you a full
account of my mission."
She held out a slim hand. The sister, red-eyed with crying, was handed
over to him, and he and she were soon in a cab, speeding towards the
Westminster mews whither she directed him.
Well, was Maxwell to be so greatly envied? Tressady was not sure. Such a
woman, he thought, for all her beauty, would not have greatly stirred his
own pulses.