IN TOWN
Lord Danesbury had arrived at Bruton Street to confer with certain members
of the Cabinet who remained in town after the session, chiefly to consult
with him. He was accompanied by his niece, Lady Maude, and by Walpole, the
latter continuing to reside under his roof, rather from old habit than from
any strong wish on either side.
Walpole had obtained a short extension of his leave, and employed the
time in endeavouring to make up his mind about a certain letter to Nina
Kostalergi, which he had written nearly fifty times in different versions
and destroyed. Neither his lordship nor his niece ever saw him. They knew
he had a room or two somewhere, a servant was occasionally encountered on
the way to him with a breakfast-tray and an urn; his letters were seen on
the hall-table; but, except these, he gave no signs of life--never appeared
at luncheon or at dinner--and as much dropped out of all memory or interest
as though he had ceased to be.
It was one evening, yet early--scarcely eleven o’clock--as Lord Danesbury’s
little party of four Cabinet chiefs had just departed, that he sat at
the drawing-room fire with Lady Maude, chatting over the events of the
evening’s conversation, and discussing, as men will do at times, the
characters of their guests.
‘It has been nearly as tiresome as a Cabinet Council, Maude!’ said he, with
a sigh, ‘and not unlike it in one thing--it was almost always the men who
knew least of any matter who discussed it most exhaustively.’
‘I conclude you know what you are going out to do, my lord, and do not care
to hear the desultory notions of people who know nothing.’
‘Just so. What could a First Lord tell me about those Russian intrigues
in Albania, or is it likely that a Home Secretary is aware of what is
preparing in Montenegro? They get hold of some crotchet in the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, and assuming it all to be true, they ask defiantly, “How
are you going to deal with that? Why did you not foresee the other?” and
such like. How little they know, as that fellow Atlee says, that a man
evolves his Turkey out of the necessities of his pocket, and captures his
Constantinople to pay for a dinner at the “Frères.” What fleets of Russian
gunboats have I seen launched to procure a few bottles of champagne! I
remember a chasse of Kersch, with the café, costing a whole battery of
Krupp’s breech-loaders!’
‘Are our own journals more correct?’
‘They are more cautious, Maude--far more cautious. Nine days’ wonders with
us would be too costly. Nothing must be risked that can affect the funds.
The share-list is too solemn a thing for joking.’
‘The Premier was very silent to-night,’ said she, after a pause.
‘He generally is in company: he looks like a man bored at being obliged to
listen to people saying the things that he knows as well, and could tell
better, than they do.’
‘How completely he appears to have forgiven or forgotten the Irish fiasco.’
‘Of course he has. An extra blunder in the conduct of Irish affairs is only
like an additional mask in a fancy ball--the whole thing is motley; and
asking for consistency would be like requesting the company to behave like
arch-deacons.’
‘And so the mischief has blown over?’
‘In a measure it has. The Opposition quarrelled amongst themselves; and
such as were not ready to take office if we were beaten, declined to press
the motion. The irresponsibles went on, as they always do, to their own
destruction. They became violent, and, of course, our people appealed
against the violence, and with such temperate language and good-breeding
that we carried the House with us.’
‘I see there was quite a sensation about the word “villain.”’
‘No; miscreant. It was miscreant--a word very popular in O’Connell’s day,
but rather obsolete now. When the Speaker called on the member for an
apology, we had won the day! These rash utterances in debate are the
explosive balls that no one must use in battle; and if we only discover one
in a fellow’s pouch, we discredit the whole army.’
‘I forget; did they press for a division?’
‘No; we stopped them. We agreed to give them a “special committee to
inquire.” Of all devices for secrecy invented, I know of none like a
“special committee of inquiry.” Whatever people have known beforehand,
their faith will now be shaken in, and every possible or accidental
contingency assume a shape, a size, and a stability beyond all belief. They
have got their committee, and I wish them luck of it! The only men who
could tell them anything will take care not to criminate themselves, and
the report will be a plaintive cry over a country where so few people
can be persuaded to tell the truth, and nobody should seem any worse in
consequence.’
‘Cecil certainly did it,’ said she, with a certain bitterness. ‘I suppose
he did. These young players are always thinking of scoring eight or ten on
a single hazard: one should never back them!’
‘Mr. Atlee said there was some female influence at work. He would not tell
what nor whom. Possibly he did not know.’
‘I rather suspect he _did_ know. They were people, if I mistake not,
belonging to that Irish castle--Kil--Kil-somebody, or Kil-something.’
‘Was Walpole flirting there? was he going to marry one of them?’
‘Flirting, I take it, must have been the extent of the folly. Cecil often
said he could not marry Irish. I have known men do it! You are aware,
Maude,’ and here he looked with uncommon gravity, ‘the penal laws have all
been repealed.’
‘I was speaking of society, my lord, not the statutes,’ said she
resentfully, and half suspicious of a sly jest.
‘Had she money?’ asked he curtly.
‘I cannot tell; I know nothing of these people whatever! I remember
something--it was a newspaper story--of a girl that saved Cecil’s life
by throwing herself before him--a very pretty incident it was; but these
things make no figure in a settlement; and a woman may be as bold as Joan
of Arc, and not have sixpence. Atlee says you can always settle the courage
on the younger children.’
‘Atlee’s an arrant scamp,’ said my lord, laughing. ‘He should have written
some days since.’
‘I suppose he is too late for the borough: the Cradford election comes on
next week?’ Though there could not be anything more languidly indifferent
than her voice in this question, a faint pinkish tinge flitted across her
cheek, and left it colourless as before.
‘Yes, he has his address out, and there is a sort of committee--certain
licensed-victualler people--to whom he has been promising some especial
Sabbath-breaking that they yearn after. I have not read it.’
‘I have; and it is cleverly written, and there is little more radical in
it than we heard this very day at dinner. He tells the electors, “You are
no more bound to the support of an army or a navy, if you do not wish to
fight, than to maintain the College of Surgeons or Physicians, if you
object to take physic.” He says, “To tell _me_ that I, with eight shillings
a week, have an equal interest in resisting invasion as your Lord Dido,
with eighty thousand per annum, is simply nonsense. If you,” cries he to
one of his supporters, “were to be offered your life by a highwayman on
surrendering some few pence or halfpence you carried in _your_ pocket, you
do not mean to dictate what my Lord Marquis might do, who has got a gold
watch and a pocketful of notes in _his_. And so I say once more, let the
rich pay for the defence of what they value. You and I have nothing worth
fighting for, and we will not fight. Then as to religion--“’
‘Oh, spare me his theology! I can almost imagine it, Maude. I had no
conception he was such a Radical.’
‘He is not really, my lord; but he tells me that we must all go through
this stage. It is, as he says, like a course of those waters whose benefit
is exactly in proportion to the way they disagree with you at first. He
even said, one evening before he went away, “Take my word for it, Lady
Maude, we shall be burning these apostles of ballot and universal suffrage
in effigy one day; but I intend to go beyond every one else in the
meanwhile, else the rebound will lose half its excellence.”’
‘What is this?’ cried he, as the servant entered with a telegram. ‘This is
from Athens, Maude, and in cipher, too. How are we to make it out.’
‘Cecil has the key, my lord. It is the diplomatic cipher.’
‘Do you think you could find it in his room, Maude? It is possible this
might be imminent.’
‘I shall see if he is at home,’ said she, rising to ring the bell. The
servant sent to inquire returned, saying that Mr. Walpole had dined abroad,
and not returned since dinner.
‘I’m sure you could find the book, Maude, and it is a small square-shaped
volume, bound in dark Russia leather, marked with F. O. on the cover.’
‘I know the look of it well enough; but I do not fancy ransacking Cecil’s
chamber.’
‘I do not know that I should like to await his return to read my despatch.
I can just make out that it comes from Atlee.’
‘I suppose I had better go, then,’ said she reluctantly, as she rose and
left the room.
Ordering the butler to precede and show her the way, Lady Maude ascended
to a storey above that she usually inhabited, and found herself in a very
spacious chamber, with an alcove, into which a bed fitted, the remaining
space being arranged like an ordinary sitting-room. There were numerous
chairs and sofas of comfortable form, a well-cushioned ottoman, smelling,
indeed, villainously of tobacco, and a neat writing-table, with a most
luxurious arrangement of shaded wax-lights above it.
A singularly well-executed photograph of a young and very lovely woman,
with masses of loose hair flowing over her neck and shoulders, stood on
a little easel on the desk, and it was, strange enough, with a sense of
actual relief, Maude read the word Titian on the frame. It was a copy of
the great master’s picture in the Dresden Gallery, and of which there is a
replica in the Barberini Palace at Rome; but still the portrait had another
memory for Lady Maude, who quickly recalled the girl she had once seen
in a crowded assembly, passing through a murmur of admiration that no
conventionality could repress, and whose marvellous beauty seemed to glow
with the homage it inspired.
Scraps of poetry, copies of verses, changed and blotted couplets, were
scrawled on loose sheets of paper on the desk; but Maude minded none of
these, as she pushed them away to rest her arm on the table, while she sat
gazing on the picture.
The face had so completely absorbed her attention--so, to say, fascinated
her--that when the servant had found the volume he was in search of, and
presented it to her, she merely said, ‘Take it to my lord,’ and sat still,
with her head resting on her hands, and her eyes fixed on the portrait.
‘There may be some resemblance, there may be, at least, what might remind
people of “the Laura “--so was it called; but who will pretend that _she_
carried her head with that swing of lofty pride, or that _her_ look could
rival the blended majesty and womanhood we see here! I do not--I cannot
believe it!’
‘What is it, Maude, that you will not or cannot believe?’ said a low voice,
and she saw Walpole standing beside her.
‘Let me first excuse myself for being here,’ said she, blushing. ‘I came
in search of that little cipher-book to interpret a despatch that has just
come. When Fenton found it, I was so engrossed by this pretty face that I
have done nothing but gaze at it.’
‘And what was it that seemed so incredible as I came in?’
‘Simply this, then, that any one should be so beautiful.’
‘Titian seems to have solved that point; at least, Vasari tells us this was
a portrait of a lady of the Guicciardini family.’
‘I know--I know that,’ said she impatiently; ‘and we do see faces in
which Titian or Velasquez have stamped nobility and birth as palpably as
they have printed loveliness and expression. And such were these women,
daughters in a long line of the proud Patricians who once ruled Rome.’
‘And yet,’ said he slowly, ‘that portrait has its living counterpart.’
‘I am aware of whom you speak: the awkward angular girl we all saw at Rome,
whom young gentlemen called the Tizziana.’
‘She is certainly no longer awkward, nor angular, now, if she were once so,
which I do not remember. She is a model of grace and symmetry, and as much
more beautiful than that picture as colour, expression, and movement are
better than a lifeless image.’
‘There is the fervour of a lover in your words, Cecil,’ said she, smiling
faintly.
‘It is not often I am so forgetful,’ muttered he; ‘but so it is, our
cousinship has done it all, Maude. One revels in expansiveness with his
own, and I can speak to you as I cannot speak to another.’
‘It is a great flattery to me.’
‘In fact, I feel that at last I have a sister--a dear and loving spirit
who will give to true friendship those delightful traits of pity and
tenderness, and even forgiveness, of which only the woman’s nature can know
the needs.’
Lady Maude rose slowly, without a word. Nothing of heightened colour or
movement of her features indicated anger or indignation, and though Walpole
stood with an affected submissiveness before her, he marked her closely.
‘I am sure, Maude,’ continued he, ‘you must often have wished to have a
brother.’
‘Never so much as at this moment!’ said she calmly--and now she had reached
the door. ‘If I had had a brother, Cecil Walpole, it is possible I might
have been spared this insult!’
The next moment the door closed, and Walpole was alone.