THE PICTURE AT BRAMLING
Bramling is the very house for a conspiracy. It lies in Dorsetshire,
hidden away at the back of the grass-walled town of Wareham on the
road to no where. A stream runs past its door down to Poole Harbor,
and its windows look across grass meadows to where the sea-cliffs lift
against the sky. Hither through one October day came in old-fashioned
flies and private motor-cars the inhabitants of the Cave--Cynthia
amongst the last of them with a foot which hesitated to cross the
threshold. There were thirty in all assembled in the drawing-room when
the dinner-gong sounded, eighteen men and twelve women. Colonel
Challoner, to Cynthia's satisfaction, had to give his arm to Lady
Lorme, the wife of an ex-Under Secretary of the home office who had
quarreled with his chief and resigned. She herself was taken in by
Robert Brook. Reluctance and curiosity struggled for mastery within
her as she entered the dining-room, and took her seat. She would not
look up at the walls, yet she could hardly but look up, and she sought
furtively around the dinner-table whether any noticed the picture and
her resemblance to it. But no one was looking at any picture at all.
Not a remark was made or a glance thrown to show her where it hung.
She looked more boldly at her companions, and coming to a greater ease
began with enjoyment to laugh at herself. Not one person at the table
was devoting a thought to her at all. They were all very busy,
drinking their soup and talking rapidly like uncomfortable people who
fear that if once their speech flags they will never find anything
more to say. They were in truth an uncongenial company, held together
by a single link, their eagerness to harass their own government. Even
Robert Brook, who knew Cynthia well, was talking to her with
incoherence in his agitation lest the gathering at Bramling should
fail. She heard Sir Faraday Lorme, a big red-faced man of sixty with a
bull-neck, say across the table to Charles Payne, one of the eight who
genuinely thought Fanshawe's bill a bad experiment:
"Of course, as a rule, you know I don't act with you, but--" and the
rest of the sentence was lost to her ears, but it seemed to her that
fully half of those present might have said as much to their
neighbors. Further along the table she caught sight of Mr. Andrew
Fallon, a dark white-faced man who had only joined them because his
wife had been signally and publicly snubbed by the wife of a Cabinet
Minister. Cynthia could see the wife on the opposite side of the
table, a portly over-dressed woman with an overbearing voice; and on
behalf of all her sex she felt grateful to the Cabinet Minister's
wife.
A singularly gentle voice drew her attention. She turned away from
Robert Brook, to find at her other side Mr. Howard Fall.
"We have spoken in the lobby, Mrs. Rames," said Howard Fall timidly.
"Captain Rames was kind enough to introduce me."
"Yes, indeed," said Cynthia. "Oh, I am glad that you are here."
To her Howard Fall was, with the exception of her husband, the
most interesting man in the room. She welcomed his presence
whole-heartedly. He was intellect, he was modesty. Even now at her
implied compliment he was blushing like a young girl and his eyes
shone with dog-like gratitude. Howard Fall was then about fifty years
of age; and though he was but a contemporary of Harry Rames in the
House of Commons, he had already acquired there a special place of
high distinction. Of too acute and logical a mind to be a good
party-man, he harried with a pleasant voice and most destructive
criticism, now his own party, now his opponents. He had one great
quality in common with Cynthia, he was quite without affectation. He
would make a brilliant speech with extraordinary diffidence. But he
made it, and a genuine word of praise or thanks delighted him, as a
schoolboy is delighted with a sovereign. With the mild manners of a
curate he combined the courage of a soldier. If he had ideas to
express--and he generally had--no thought of prudence could hinder him
from expressing them. Indeed, he drew a gentle contentment from the
knowledge that as a rule they were troublesome to those whom he
nominally supported. Cynthia had heard him more than once from the
ladies' gallery, and had admired his honesty and his courage. For the
moment she was enheartened by his presence. It put confidence into
her. With him to help, Harry might indeed put up a fight against Mr.
Devenish.
"I didn't know," said Howard Fall, "that Captain Rames was going to
speak against Fanshawe's bill. Otherwise, of course, I should have
been in the House to support him;" and the "of course" struck all
Cynthia's comfort from her. It was so significant of the man. He was
born predestined always to revolt. Any party of two had him for a
third. Cynthia glanced disconsolately to where her husband sat at the
end of the table. But he showed no sign of misgiving. He was talking
energetically to the four people nearest to him, and he only paused
when her eyes rested upon his face. She turned away again and there
above the head of Colonel Challoner, who was sitting exactly opposite
to her, she saw at last the portrait glowing upon the wall.
For the moment she had forgotten it. Now it caught away her breath.
She sat and stared at it. It was the portrait of a girl of seventeen,
dressed in white from the big straw hat with its flapping brim to the
shoes upon her feet. There was but one touch of color, a broad shining
ribbon of bright blue looped about the crown of the hat, and thus
dressed, the girl stood in a field of sunlight and corn, looking
straight out from the picture, with a great curiosity and eagerness in
her dark-blue eyes. She seemed to be looking upon the gates of a world
of wonder--gates which with a most tantalizing tardiness were slowly
opening to let her through.
Was she herself indeed like that? The question rushed into Cynthia's
mind. As pretty as that? It was impossible. Yet she had been
recognized because of it. Just so then she must have looked that
morning when, after sending her neglected telegram to Captain Rames,
she had stood at the edge of the wheat on the Daventry estancia. Yet
nobody recognized her now. She had the features of the girl in the
portrait, the broad forehead, the straight, delicate nose, the fair
hair, the big dark-blue eyes. Yet nobody recognized her. Perhaps,
however, she had gone off. She was getting old. A gentle melancholy
descended upon Cynthia. The fear lest her likeness to the girl in the
picture should be remarked had quite gone since she had seen the
picture. She was now rather hurt and indignant that no one had noticed
it.
Lady Lorme gave the signal a little while afterward, and the ladies
rose and left the men to their cigars and their discussion. Colonel
Challoner opened the proceedings with a pompous, unnecessary little
speech. He welcomed his guests, and he reminded them at considerable
length of the object of the gathering. He concluded with a question as
to whether any honorable member present had any views as to the best
procedure to be adopted.
"Yes," said Harry Rames, "if I may make a suggestion. There are
eighteen of us here. I propose that we now go carefully through the
list of members and consider how many more we can get to join us, upon
whom we can count. I have Vacher's list here;" and he drew out from
his pocket the familiar little paper-covered book with the names and
addresses of the members.
"I think that's the first thing to be done," a man agreed from the
other end of the table. He was a Mr. Edgington, a little, square, bald
man with short side-whiskers, who seemed a cross between an attorney
and a stable-boy. He was one of the many men in the House who have a
subject. He had mastered the Housing question; he really knew the
facts, he had the figures at his fingers' ends, and he had counted
upon his knowledge to take him straight through the doors of the Local
Government Board. But the doors had remained closed, and he had turned
gadfly in consequence--a gadfly that trumpeted but had no sting. "To
be sure about the men who will stand out against the pressure of the
Whips, who will not be frightened into line by their local
associations, who retain, in a word, some self-respect and some
veneration for the independence of the House of Commons--that is our
first requisite," he said floridly.
The company then went carefully through the list and marked off twenty
fresh names as the names of men who might be inclined to join the
revolt. It was arranged that discreet letters should be written to
them on the following day, and Robert Brook was appointed secretary by
an unanimous vote.
"Of course we shan't get them all," said Lorme.
"And of those we do get, some will shirk when the division bell
rings," added Howard Fall.
"No doubt," said Rames. "But if we can carry thirty men into the
opposition lobby on the second reading, we shall have made a
demonstration which will go far to kill the bill. It will mean sixty
on a division. It will leave the government with a comfortable
majority. We all want that of course,"--a chorus of approval, more or
less sincere, greeted the remark--"But it will also mean that the
government will hardly be able to force the bill through its committee
stages by a drastic use of the closure."
"Exactly," said a tall, bearded man with a strong Scotch accent, who
up to this moment had held his tongue. He represented a northern town
of Scotland, and was one of the eight who were opposed to the measure
first and last because they believed it harmful to the country.
"Exactly. The demonstration is very well, but if the bill is to be
killed, we will have to kill it in committee. And to prepare for that
must be our chief work here, Colonel Challoner."
"Yes," said Rames. "Mr. Monro is right. We must go word by word
through those clauses of Fanshawe's bill, which we are fairly certain
Devenish will incorporate in his measure. We must formulate
amendments, and we ought, I think, to agree, to some extent, upon the
speakers to move them. It will, of course, have to be a provisional
arrangement--" and he was interrupted by a strident voice which
belonged to a sandy-haired hunting-man with a broad red face who would
have seemed totally out of place in any conspiracy.
"Yes. Devenish may sell us a pup. He's a deuce of a clever fellow is
Devenish. Let him get wind of your partridges, Challoner, and he'll
sell us a pup for a sure thing."
"All the more reason we should keep our gathering quiet," said
Challoner. He looked round the table with an impatience which had been
growing upon him during the last half-hour. "I think that's all we can
do to-night."
"About all," said Monro. "There is just this suggestion I would like
to make. I know a man whose business is land, and he is most
experienced in it; and I thought that if you would like, I would send
him a telegram to-morrow, and we could employ him to help us in
framing these amendments. He is a partner in Beevis and Beevis, the
land-agents in Piccadilly."
"By all means, do," said Challoner. "We all agree to that, don't we?
And now let us join the ladies."
He sprang up and opened the door like a man in a great hurry. When he
entered the drawing-room, he crossed it at once to Cynthia's side.
"I was sorry, Mrs. Rames, that I couldn't take you in to dinner
to-night. I would have liked very much that on your first evening at
Bramling you should have come in with me. For, as you know, I somehow
associate you with this house."
He looked at her with a very direct inquiry in his eyes. But Cynthia
would not respond to it; and he sat at her side with a wistfulness in
his voice and his words against which she had a little trouble to
protect her heart. But she did, for she was alarmed. When she had met
him before he had spoken rather as though he wished that they were
related. To-night he spoke as if he suspected that they were.
Mr. Beevis arrived the next afternoon, and for the rest of the week,
while the morning was given to the partridges and the amusements of
the country, the afternoon and the evening found the Cave busy upon
the bill. Amendments were formulated and shared out amongst them,
whilst it was by general consent left to Rames to raise the question,
first of all, on the Address at the beginning of the session and then
to move the rejection of the bill later on when it came before the
House upon its second reading. Good progress, in a word, was made,
and, to the delight of all, no whisper of this conspiracy crept into
any of the daily papers. They were examined anxiously every day upon
their arrival at eleven, and laid down with relief. Cynthia could not
but laugh.
"I never would have believed that you could have found so many members
of Parliament reluctant to see their names in the papers," she said to
her husband.
"Yes, it's astonishing what modesty they can develop," he replied.
But though Cynthia laughed, the work, the concealments, the sort of
restrained excitement which was diffused through the house, began to
have their effect upon her. She was getting color into her life at
last, she assured herself, even if it was only a dingy color.
Moreover, she had the opportunity to compare her husband with his
rivals in the career. Indeed, he had but one real rival in that House,
Howard Fall. And though he lacked the subtlety of his intellect, he
had a swifter initiative, a more telling vigor of phrase. As for the
rest he stood head and shoulders above them all, and they knew it and
looked to him to lead them. If he did not share the strong convictions
of the honest men, he overtopped them by sheer ability, and as to the
others he knew nothing either of their malice or their fear. Thus they
all came hopefully to the last day of their visit; and then at one
o'clock in the day the thunderbolt fell.
It was a Sunday and the whole party had just settled down to luncheon
when the whir of a motor-car floated into the room. It was followed by
the sound of a door opening and shutting, a pleasant and familiar
voice was heard to inquire for Colonel Challoner, and the next moment,
ushered in by the butler, Mr. Devenish entered the room. Consternation
ran round that luncheon table like a wind across a field of corn.
Colonel Challoner sprang up hastily with every sign of discomfort.
"My dear Devenish, I am delighted to see you, I am sure. You are just
in time for luncheon." He called to the butler to lay another place at
his side. "I didn't know you were in the neighborhood. You should have
let me know."
"I didn't mean to do that," said Devenish dryly. He ran his eye from
face to face with a twinkling glance. Cynthia herself could hardly
restrain a laugh. The independent members of the nation's Parliament
looked so singularly like a set of school-boys' caught by a master in
the planning of a rebellion.
"Quite a large party, eh, Challoner?" he said with a smile.
"Yes, yes," replied the colonel. "The partridges, you know."
"Ah, the partridges, to be sure. But I didn't know that Howard Fall
shot at anything but ministers. And even they only get winged, eh,
Fall?"
Mr. Devenish strolled round the table and shook hands with Fall. Fall,
however, was one of the few who was quite undisturbed.
"Yes, but I am looking to practice to improve my shooting," he said.
A place was now laid for Devenish. Colonel Challoner called to him.
"Will you come and sit here, Devenish?"
"Certainly," replied the smiling minister. "But I should first of all
like to shake hands with all my friends;" and quite slowly he walked
round the table and shook hands with each of the men present and those
of the ladies whom he knew. He was in the best of tempers, and he had
a cordial word for every one except for Captain Ramos. To him he
merely said:
"Ah!" and the accent of his voice had in it no note of surprise. It
was the ejaculation of a man establishing something which he had
suspected. Then he walked to his place and sat down.
"There are eighteen members of Parliament, Challoner," he said
pleasantly. "I hope that I have forgotten no one. Let me see!" Again
his eye ranged round the table, obviously registering in his memory
the identity of Challoner's guests. "No, eighteen members of
Parliament. Have you got a partridge left?"
Rames leaned forward and met smile with smile.
"We have just left one for next year," he said, "and we have been
making a careful note of the piece of land on which we think we shall
get him."
Howard Fall was delighted. For he loved courage. But the others of
that company were more than ever confused and disconcerted.
"He's giving us away," said one of the weak-kneed in an indignant
whisper to Andrew Fallon. Fallon's white face was twisted in a grin.
"He's cutting down the bridge behind you, my friend. And I don't think
he's a bad judge."
Meanwhile Devenish returned the direct gaze of Captain Rames. There
was no pretence between these two. Their eyes met; they challenged
each other, Rames with perfect good-humor, Devenish with a certain
grimness in his smile. He nodded his head toward Rames and tightened
his lips. There was not a man at that table who could not construe the
gesture into words.
"You are the leader here, Rames. Very well, we'll see."
Mr. Devenish turned to his neighbor. It was Cynthia, and even to her
he talked for a little while with reserve. Rames had been correct in
his diagnosis of the man. A good-humored fighter as a rule, he lost
his good-humor when the attack was made upon his flank. He had begun
his own political career with side-shots at his leaders from the
front-bench below the gangway; but he did not rejoice when the same
disposition of battle was planned against himself. However, luncheon
and the proximity of a beautiful woman appeased him as they should. He
began to talk freely; his smile lost its grimness, his natural
geniality flashed bright.
"Tell me one thing," he said suddenly.
"It depends--" said Cynthia warily.
"Very well then. Tell me another thing. Why does your portrait hang in
this house?"
Cynthia's cheeks flamed. She looked swiftly across Devenish at Colonel
Challoner. But he was giving no heed to them.
"Do you think it's like me?" she asked.
"It _is_ you," he replied.
"No one else has noticed the resemblance all this week," said Cynthia.
Mr. Devenish glanced along the table.
"Well, look at 'em," he said contemptuously, and they both laughed.
Lady Lorme rose at that moment from the table, and Mr. Devenish,
pleading the distance he had to travel, took his departure.
"I have enjoyed myself very much, Challoner," he said as the colonel
came out with him to-the doorway. "I can't tell you how glad I am that
I thought of dropping in upon you for luncheon. I am going back to
London now. Good-by."
He mounted into his car and drove gaily off. In the dining-room behind
him, the sandy-haired man was saying over and over again to the
dismayed conspirators--
"He'll sell us a pup. He'll sell us a pup. I'll bet you a monkey,
he'll sell us a pup."
That night, when the men went upstairs, Rames passing from his
dressing-room into his wife's bedroom found her still up and sitting
by her fire.
"We go back to-morrow, Cynthia. It has been a long week. I hope you
haven't been bored."
"No," she said. "I haven't."
"What do you think of them? Will they run away when the fight comes?"
"Not all," said Cynthia. "But even of those who stay with you, there's
not one who is a match for Mr. Devenish."
She spoke with some warmth in her voice.
"You like him?" said Harry Rames.
"I think he's a big man," she replied.
Rames, who was standing looking into her mirror, suddenly swung round.
"Shall I tell you why you say that, Cynthia?"
"Yes."
"Because he's the only man except myself who has noticed your likeness
to that very pretty girl on the wall of the dining-room. I heard him
mention it to you at luncheon."
He burst out into a laugh as he spoke; and in a moment or two Cynthia
joined in the laugh. So Harry Rames too had noticed the resemblance.
She laughed and her eyes laughed with her lips.
"After all," said Harry Rames, "we get some fun out of it, don't we,
Cynthia?"
"Yes," said Cynthia and her laughter died away. "We get some fun out
of it, Harry. That's just what we do get"; and her eyes turned away
from him to the fire.