"Oh, depend upon it," said Mrs. Tenterden, in her heavy, consequential
way, "there's more behind than _we_ shall ever know! 'Unsound mind,'
indeed She was no more of unsound mind than _I_ am!"
It was after church, and Mrs. Mumbray, alone this morning, had offered
the heavy lady a place in her brougham. The whole congregation had but
one topic as they streamed into the unconsecrated daylight. Never was
such eagerness for the strains of the voluntary which allowed them to
start up from attitudes of profound meditation, and look round for
their acquaintances. Yesterday's paper--the _Polterham Examiner_
unfortunately--reported the inquest, and people had to make the most of
those meagre paragraphs--until the _Mercury_ came out, when fuller and
less considerate details might be hoped for. The whispering, the
nodding, the screwing up of lips, the portentous frowning and the
shaking of heads--no such excitement was on record!
"To me," remarked Mrs. Mumbray, with an air of great responsibility,
"the mystery is too plain. I don't hint at _the worst_--it would be
uncharitable--but the poor creature had undoubtedly made some discovery
in that woman's house which drove her to despair."
Mrs. Tenterden gave a start.
"You really think so? That has occurred to me. Mrs. Wade's fainting
when she gave her evidence--oh dear, oh dear! I'm afraid there can be
only one explanation."
"That is our _honourable_ member, my dear!" threw out Mrs. Mumbray.
"These are Radical principles--in man and woman. Why, I am told that
scarcely a day passed without Mrs. Wade calling at the house."
"And they tell me that _he_ was frequently at _hers_!"
"That poor young wife! Oh, it is shameful! The matter oughtn't to end
here. Something ought to be done. If that man is allowed to keep his
seat"----
Many were the conjectures put forward and discussed throughout the day,
but this of Mrs. Mumbray's--started of course in several
quarters--found readiest acceptance in Conservative circles. Mrs. Wade
was obviously the cause of what had happened--no wonder she fainted at
the inquest; no wonder she hid herself in her cottage! When she
ventured to come out, virtuous Polterham would let her know its mind.
Quarrier shared in the condemnation, but not even political animosity
dealt so severely with him as social opinion did with Mrs. Wade.
Mr. Chown--who would on no account have been seen in a place of
worship--went about all day among his congenial gossips, and scornfully
contested the rumour that Quarrier's relations with Mrs. Wade would not
bear looking into. At the house of Mr. Murgatroyd, the Radical dentist,
he found two or three friends who were very anxious not to think evil
of their victorious leader, but felt wholly at a loss for satisfactory
explanations. Mr. Vawdrey, the coal-merchant, talked with gruff
discontent.
"I don't believe there's been anything wrong; I couldn't think
it--neither of him nor her. But I do say it's a lesson to you men who
go in for Female Suffrage. Now, this is just the kind of thing that 'ud
always be happening. If there isn't wrong-doing, there'll be
wrong-speaking. Women have no business in politics, that's the plain
moral of it. Let them keep at home and do their duty."
"Humbug!" cried Mr. Chown, who cared little for the graces of dialogue.
"A political principle is not to be at the mercy of party scandal. I,
for my part, have never maintained that women were ripe for public
duties but Radicalism involves the certainty that they some day will
be. The fact of the matter is that Mrs. Quarrier was a woman of
unusually feeble physique. We all know--those of us, at all events, who
keep up with the science of the day--that the mind is entirely
dependent upon the body--entirely!" He looked round, daring his friends
to contradict this. "Mrs. Quarrier had overtaxed her strength, and it's
just possible--I say its just possible--that her husband was not very
prudent in sending her for necessary repose to the house of a woman so
active-minded and so excitable as Mrs. Wade. We must remember the
peculiar state of her health. As far as _I_ am concerned, Dr. Jenkins's
evidence is final, and entirely satisfactory. As for the dirty
calumnies of dirty-minded reactionists, _I_ am not the man to give ear
to them!"
One man there was who might have been expected to credit such charges,
yet surprised his acquaintances by what seemed an unwonted exercise of
charity. Mr. Scatchard Vialls, hitherto active in defamation of
Quarrier, with amiable inconsistency refused to believe him guilty of
conduct which had driven his wife to suicide. It was some days before
the rumour reached his ears. Since the passage of arms with Serena, he
had held aloof from Mrs. Mumbray's drawing-room, and his personality
did not invite the confidence of ordinary scandal-mongers. When at
length his curate hinted to him what was being said, he had so clearly
formulated his own theory of Mrs. Quarrier's death that only the
strongest evidence would have led him to reconsider it. Obstinacy and
intellectual conceit forbade him to indulge his disposition to paint an
enemy's character in the darkest colours.
"No, Mr. Blenkinsop," he replied to the submissive curate, standing on
his hearth-rug at full height and regarding the cornice as his habit
was when he began to monologize--"no, I find it impossible to entertain
such an accusation. I have little reason to think well of Mr. Quarrier;
he is intemperate, in many senses of the word, and intemperance, it is
true, connects closely with the most odious crimes. But in this case
censure has been too quick to interpret suspicious
circumstances--suspicious, I admit. Far be it from me to speak in
defence of such a person as Mrs. Wade; I think she is a source of
incalculable harm to all who are on friendly terms with her--especially
young and impressionable women; but you must trust my judgment in this
instance: I am convinced she is not guilty. Her agitation in the
coroner's court has no special significance. No; the solution of the
mystery is not so simple; it involves wider issues--calls for a more
profound interpretation of character and motives. Mrs. Quarrier--pray
attend to this, Mr. Blenkinsop--represents a type of woman becoming, I
have reason to think, only too common in our time, women who cultivate
the intellect at the expense of the moral nature, who abandon religion
and think they have found a substitute for it in the so-called
humanitarianism of the day. Strong-minded women, you will hear them
called; in truth, they are the weakest of their sex. Let their energies
be submitted to any unusual strain, let their nerves (they are always
morbid) be overwrought, and they snap!" He illustrated the catastrophe
with his hands. "Unaided by religion, the female nature is
irresponsible, unaccountable." Mr. Vialls had been severe of late in
his judgment of women. "Mrs. Quarrier, poor creature, was the victim of
immoderate zeal for worldly ends. She was abetted by her husband and by
Mrs. Wade; they excited her to the point of frenzy, and in the last
moment she--snapped! Mrs. Wade's hysterical display is but another
illustration of the same thing. These women have no support outside
themselves--they have deliberately cast away everything of the kind."
"Let me exhibit my meaning from another point of view. Consider, Mr.
Blenkinsop"----
Quarrier, in the meantime, was very far from suspecting the accusation
which hostile ingenuity had brought against him. Decency would in any
case have necessitated his withdrawal for the present from public
affairs, and, in truth, he was stricken down by his calamity. The
Liversedges had brought him to their house; he transacted no business,
and saw no one beyond the family circle. At the funeral people had
thought him strangely unmoved; pride forbade him to make an exhibition
of grief, but in secret he suffered as only a strong man can. His love
for Lilian was the deepest his life would know. Till now, he had not
understood how unspeakably precious she was to him; for the most part
he had treated her with playful good-humour, seldom, if ever, striking
the note of passion in his speech. With this defect he reproached
himself. Lilian had not learnt to trust him sufficiently; she feared
the result upon him of such a blow as Northway had it in his power to
inflict. It was thus he interpreted her suicide, for Mrs. Wade had told
him that Lilian believed disaster to be imminent. Surely he was to
blame for it that, at such a pass, she had fled _away_ from him instead
of hastening to his side. How perfectly had their characters
harmonized! He could recall no moment of mutual dissatisfaction, and
that in spite of conditions which, with most women, would have made
life very difficult. He revered her purity; her intellect he esteemed
far subtler and nobler than his own. With such a woman for companion,
he might have done great things; robbed for ever of her beloved
presence, he felt lame, purposeless, indifferent to all but the
irrecoverable past.
In a day or two he was to leave Polterham. Whether Northway would be
satisfied with the result of his machinations remained to be seen; as
yet nothing more had been heard of him. The fellow was perhaps capable
of demanding more hush-money, of threatening the memory of the woman he
had killed. Quarrier hoped more earnestly than ever that the secret
would not be betrayed; he scorned vulgar opinion, so far as it affected
himself, but could not bear the thought of Lilian's grave being defiled
by curiosity and reprobation. The public proceedings had brought to
light nothing whatever that seemed in conflict with medical evidence
and the finding of the coroner's jury. One dangerous witness had
necessarily come forward--Mrs. Wade's servant; but the girl made no
kind of allusion to Northway's visit--didn't, in her own mind, connect
it with Mrs. Quarrier's behaviour. She was merely asked to describe in
what way the unfortunate lady had left the house. In Glazzard and Mrs.
Wade, Denzil of course reposed perfect confidence. Northway, if need
were, could and should be bought off.
Toby Liversedge got wind of the scandal in circulation, and his rage
knew no bounds. Lest his wife should somehow make the discovery, he
felt obliged to speak to her--representing the change in its mildest
form.
"There's a vile story going about that Lilian was jealous of Mrs.
Wade's influence with Denzil; that the two quarrelled that day at the
cottage, and the poor girl drowned herself in despair."
Mary looked shocked, but was silent.
"I suppose," added her husband, "we must be prepared for all sorts of
rumours. The thing is unintelligible to people in general. Any one who
knew her, and saw her those last days, can understand it only too well."
"Yes," murmured Mrs. Liversedge, with sad thoughtfulness.
She would not speak further on the subject, and Toby concluded that the
mere suggestion gave her offence.
On the day after Denzil departed, leaving by a night train for London.
He was in town for a week, then took a voyage to Madeira, where he
remained until there was only time enough to get back for the opening
of Parliament. The natural plea of shaken health excused him to his
constituents, many of whom favoured him with their unsolicited
correspondence. (He had three or four long letters from Mr. Chown, who
thought it necessary to keep the borough member posted in the course of
English politics.) From Glazzard he heard twice, with cheerful news.
"How it happened," he had written to his newly-married friend, in
telling of Lilian's death, "I will explain some day; I cannot speak of
it yet." Glazzard's response was full of manly sympathy. "I don't
pretend," wrote the connoisseur, "that I am ideally mated, but my wife
is a good girl, and I understand enough of happiness in marriage to
appreciate to the full how terrible is your loss. Let confidences be
for the future; if they do not come naturally, be assured I shall never
pain you by a question."
Denzil's book had now been for several weeks before the public; it
would evidently excite little attention. "A capital present for a
schoolboy," was one of the best things the critics had yet found to say
of it. He suffered disappointment, but did not seriously resent the
world's indifference. Honestly speaking, was the book worth much? The
writing had at first amused him; in the end it had grown a task.
Literature was not his field.
Back, then, to politics! There he knew his force. He was looking to the
first taste of Parliament with decided eagerness.
In Madeira he chanced to make acquaintance with an oldish man who had
been in Parliament for a good many years; a Radical, an idealist, sore
beset with physical ailments. This gentleman found pleasure in Denzil's
society, talked politics to him with contagious fervour, and greatly
aided the natural process whereby Quarrier was recovering his interest
in the career before him.
"My misfortune is," Denzil one day confided to this friend, "that I
detest the town and the people that have elected me."
"Indeed?" returned the other, with a laugh. "Then lay yourself out to
become my successor at----when a general election comes round again. I
hope to live out this Parliament, but sha'n't try for another."
About the same time he had a letter from Mrs. Wade, now in London,
wherein, oddly enough, was a passage running thus:
"You say that the thought of representing Polterham spoils your
pleasure in looking forward to a political life. Statesmen (and you
will become one) have to be trained to bear many disagreeable things.
But you are not bound to Polterham for ever--the gods forbid! Serve
them in this Parliament, and in the meantime try to find another
borough."
It was his second letter from Mrs. Wade; the first had been a mere
note, asking if he could bear to hear from her, and if he would let her
know of his health. He replied rather formally, considering the terms
on which they stood; and, indeed, it did not gratify him much to be
assured of the widow's constant friendship.