Scarlet and Hyssop Part 21

The word she was afraid she would not be able to speak was spoken. The operation was over; she had only to keep quiet and recuperate. But she had betrayed herself to him: both knew it. A barrier had been broken down between them; each soul in its secret place was visible to the other, and in the awe and amazement of that the cries and strivings of the debatable were for the moment stilled. There was no satisfaction in the world that could equal the self-surrender that each had already made; there was nothing that either could do or say which would not spoil and degrade that which had pa.s.sed between them. Jim, on his part, though he knew why he had asked to change his mind and stop, could not yet regret it, so tremendous and soul-filling was that which lay behind her refusal; and she could not find it in her heart to blame him, since his weakness had ended so gloriously. Thus in silence for a long moment each looked at the other, unashamed, acknowledging by that look, without fear or regret, the great bond that bound them indissolubly together, the great renunciation that irrevocably divided them.

Marie reached out her hand for her ivory silver-handled stick, which had fallen by her chair.

"Come and stroll for half an hour before dinner," she said. "See whether I am not right about the antidote to people which one can find in the country."

He rose, too.

"But who has been poisoning you in town?" he asked.

"Who? The six million people who live there. No, I will except you. I do not find you are poisonous here, at least."

"Thank you. But what have you done with yourself these three days?"

"Ah, that is the secret of the country! In town one has to do things one's self; the country does them all for you. You sit and you walk; you pick long feathery pieces of gra.s.s, and chew them like a cow; you think very intently for long periods, and at the end find that you have been thinking about nothing whatever. There is nothing so restful; and I have been wanting rest. I was a good deal worried about a certain matter before I left town."

He looked at her.

"I will subscribe to any inst.i.tution that will guarantee you freedom from worry," he said.

"That is very kind of you, but the only way your inst.i.tution could be of use would be by giving me a painless death; and I do not wish to die at all. No, you must spend your money some other way. Talking of that, have you made up your mind to stand for Parliament? It looks as if I accused you prospectively of bribery and corruption. I do not mean to."

"I wanted to talk to you about that. That was--one of the reasons why I came down to-day. I have been asked to stand for East Surrey, but by the Liberals."

She stopped suddenly.

"By the Liberals?" she said. "That will come as a great surprise to your friends, will it not?"

"Possibly. Of course, rich people are as a rule Conservative; in fact, it seems sufficient for a man that he should acquire a large fortune to make a Conservative of him. Personally I detest party politics, though no doubt they are a necessity. For myself, I only recognise one party just now, whose sole object is efficiency, not effectiveness."

She resumed walking again, with a quicker pace.

"Have you told Jack?" she asked.

"Yes. He approves warmly. He added, however, that he couldn't do anything for me, that he was bound to do all he could against me, in fact, during the election. That must be so. He is the land-owner here and a Conservative, and he does not see sufficient reason for ratting.

There is nowhere to rat to, he says."

"I know Jack's view. He thinks both parties are in a hopeless state, but, belonging to one, he has no reason to join the other. Dear me, Jim, this is news! You have a subject in South Africa; so if the Conservatives get in, you will, I suppose, be among those who make it warm for them."

"I have no intention of taking politics up as a recreation," he said; "it is to be my profession, you understand." He paused a moment. "That is, given I get in."

Instantly her woman's pride in the man awoke.

"Of course you will get in!" she said; and not till she had said it did she know what she said, for no sense of his political fitness had prompted it, only her love for him.

They walked on a little way in silence, past the end of the riband bed, and into the rose-garden beyond.

"Yes, there is a cry for efficiency," he said. "John Bull is touched in his tender point, which is his purse. The tax-payer wants to know what he is getting for his increased income-tax, and the fact that he puts only one lump of sugar instead of two into his two instead of three cups of tea. He accepts the necessity, I believe, quite willingly; but as a shareholder in that very large concern, the British Empire, he wishes to see the balance-sheet, with explanations. So many millions for the South African War seem to him a large item. He does not dispute it, but he wants to have details given him, and through the mouths of his representatives he proposes to see that he gets them."

"That is called an unpatriotic att.i.tude," remarked Marie with singular acidity.

"Ah, you are a Liberal, too! Of course Jack is."

"Certainly, if you take the utterance of the Conservative leaders as official. Jack, for instance, looks upon the Boer War as a war with a Power that was no Power at all, but the Government officially alludes to it as 'the great Boer War.' There is the party note. Oh, there is no such strong Conservative as the man who has once been a Radical!

Conversion is always followed by exaggeration."

Marie stopped, plucked a couple of tea-roses and pinned them into the front of her dress. Then, looking up, she saw his eyes fixed on her face, and though they both had been speaking honestly about a subject that honestly interested them, she knew how superficial their talk had been; speeches had been made correctly, but automatically--no more. She was glad to know about his future plans; he, on his side, liked to speak of them, for, as he said, he was going to make a profession of politics.

But they had both been talking "shop"; and as she raised her eyes to his, "shop" became suddenly impossible.

"Another rose," he said, "and give it me."

She did not answer. Then she drew one from the two she had fastened in her dress.

"Flowers to a friend," she said, holding it out to him. "It is an Italian proverb, Jim. Do you know the response?"

"You will tell it me."

"And honour from the friend," she replied.

He was cut to the quick, yet a phantom of self-justification was up in arms.

"When did I not give you that?" he said.

"You have always given it me," she answered. "Give it me every hour, Jim, until I cease entirely to deserve it."

Thereat he bent and kissed her hand.

CHAPTER XII

In the course of the next week or so Lady Brereton began to almost believe the slander that she had herself sown over the very congenial soil of London drawing-rooms; but though the town was soon as thick with it as is a cornfield in May with the green springing spears, she was afraid that her amiable object of revenging herself on Marie for the ill turn she had done her in the matter of Maud's marriage had not been blessed with the success which that masterly design deserved. Indeed, had she not known from Jack that he had told his wife what he had overheard at the "Deuce of Spades," Mildred could not have believed that Marie knew anything at all about it, so utterly unaltered was her demeanour to the world at large, and in particular to Jim Spencer. They were constantly together, but, somehow, Marie's att.i.tude to him and his to her seemed in the eyes of people in general to contradict every moment the possibility of there being any _dessous des cartes_ at all; in fact, Mildred's springing blades had rather the appearance of having been sown on stony ground: they seemed to her eye to look curiously without stamina. Yet, as already stated, although in less than the traditional nine days the world in general had ceased to concern itself with so misbegotten a scandal, Lady Brereton almost began to believe it herself. Her own invention, in fact, appeared probable to her; but its effect on Marie, from which she had hoped so much, was entirely unfruitful.

Lady Ardingly about this time, like an old war-horse now turned out to gra.s.s, had begun to p.r.i.c.k up her ears at the trumpets which resounded through the land on the approach of the General Election. She, like many other people, had a great belief in Jack's powers of awakening the Government from the self-congratulatory torpor which had fallen on them.

"They sit in a somnolent circle," she said to him one day, "and awake at intervals to shake hands with each other; then they go to sleep again.

Ardingly, perhaps, is the most sensible. He sleeps as soundly as anybody, but he doesn't congratulate his n.o.ble colleagues."

Jack laughed.

"I almost wish I had always been a Liberal," he said.

"You always have been," said she; "but now is not the time to say so.

Get your seat in the Cabinet, Jack; the Conservative Cabinet is the only opening for a Liberal nowadays. That is where Mr. Spencer makes his mistake. To be a Liberal, however prominent, is nowadays to be perfectly ineffective. You are put in a box and locked up, and the key is put in the key-basket at--well, at a certain country-house. But if you are a Conservative you are let out and given your own key. That is your chance."

"And if they don't give me a seat in the Cabinet?"

"There will be no question about that. They do not like you, but they are afraid of you. The country, on the other hand, likes you a good deal. You have a way with plebeians. I don't know how you manage it.