The Turnstile Part 39

Colonel Challoner was not aware that it was just the weight of the little daughter in Jim's arms which had made his journey across the Andes possible and profitable. Cynthia left him all the comfort of his delusion, and all its remorse, since the remorse was so completely outweighed by the comfort.

"That's the last I have been able to find out," Colonel Challoner resumed. "They disappeared up into the mountains together, and years after Jim--died--in the Argentine. As for the daughter, I have come upon no trace of her. She may have lived. She may have died. Had she lived she would have been just about your age, Mrs. Rames."

"Indeed?"

"I suppose that you never heard of her?"

"What was her name?"

"Even that I can't tell you. There was a daughter. That's all I know."

Colonel Challoner waited with his eyes upon Cynthia's face. He longed, yet he hardly dared to hope for an answer. It would be such a wonderful thing for him if the girl facing him in his trim brick-walled garden had when a child eighteen years ago been carried in Jim's arms over the stupendous pa.s.ses of the Andes. Surely if it were so, she must admit it now out of grat.i.tude for Jim's devotion.

But Cynthia made no reply and he moved slowly to the door of the garden and held it open for her to pa.s.s out. She went from Bramling with her secret still her own, though some remorse was now her penalty for keeping it. She could not quite get rid of the picture of the old man at the open door in the high red-brick wall waiting wistfully for an answer to a question which he could only suggest. But she had made her plan and with a certain stubbornness--almost a hardness which marked this phase of her life--she had abided by it. If Colonel Challoner had said clearly and formally that he made no claim upon her, that he did not ask her to take her place in the family of Challoners, then she would have acknowledged what he plainly suspected. But he had imposed upon himself no such condition. On the contrary she had been led to believe that he would claim her; and that was intolerable to her thoughts. She did not argue or reason; she recollected. And what she recollected was a night of horror when her father had claimed her for the ruin of her body and her soul. When she stepped into the train she made a silent vow that she would never come to Bramling again.

"It's a strange thing," said Harry Rames as they were travelling across the country, "that two strangers to Bramling, Devenish and myself, noticed your extraordinary likeness to that picture on the wall, and Challoner who has sat beneath it most nights of the week for years didn't. It had become so familiar to him, I suppose, that it had ceased to have definite features."

"That's how things happen," said Cynthia, and this time she uttered the phrase with relief. "When you know people very well, you cease to notice the changes, you lose count of how they look. But when we first met at Ludsey he did claim to recognize me, though he could not fix upon the place or time. I have no doubt it was because of that picture."

Harry Rames agreed. None of Colonel Challoner's suspicions had even occurred to him. He drifted off to the great subject.

"Devenish won't be idle, Cynthia," he said.

"No," answered Cynthia. "He gives me the impression that even on his death-bed he would be quick about it."

And on the Tuesday morning, the very day after they had reached home, the _Times_ brought Harry Rames news which sent him out of his study in search of his wife.

"Look, Cynthia," he said and he handed to her the paper. Cynthia read the paragraph at which he pointed.

"Mr. Devenish returned to London on Sunday evening and putting off two deputations which had been arranged for Tuesday left London hurriedly on Monday afternoon to join the Prime-Minister in Scotland."

Cynthia laid down the paper with a genuine sense of consternation. She was astonished to realize how much she now longed for the success of Harry's rather dingy plot. Fear was written upon her face.

"That means--?" she said.

"That we must look out," replied Rames. He laughed a little as a man will when the joy of battle is upon him. "Lucky Devenish can't get at my const.i.tuency. I don't know that he would try to in any case. But he can't.

"You have Arthur Pynes with you."

"Yes. And I pledged myself before I was elected to resign at once if any responsible number of my supporters objected to any action I thought it my duty to take in the House. Do you see, Cynthia?" and he laughed again. "That pledge is my safeguard. I thought it would be when I made it. If any one tries to put pressure upon me, I can always point to that pledge. I can always ask whether they would like me to resign."

"Suppose they said yes," cried Cynthia in alarm.

Harry Rames grinned.

"I'd get in again if they did. I'd keep nine-tenths of my own people and get a good lot of the other fellow's because of my independence.

But they won't! No one wants a by-election at Ludsey. Ludsey is too busy."

"I suppose that's true," said Cynthia with a smile of relief. Once more she had occasion to recognize the accuracy of her husband's foresight. But there was a little change. The recognition was no longer accompanied with regret that the foresight was not being used in a higher cause. She was simply relieved that on this side at all events the great career was not open to attack.

Rames took a turn across the room and stopped at the window.

"But I wonder what his next move will be," he said.

In a month he knew. The movement was swift and dramatic. Rames was summoned to London by a letter from the Prime-Minister. He travelled up from Ludsey in the morning; he reached home again in time for dinner.

"They are raising Lamson to the peerage," he said to Cynthia. "That means the Under Secretarys.h.i.+p of the Local Government Board will be vacant. It was offered to me."

Cynthia was radiant.

"That's splendid," she cried.

"I refused it," said Harry Rames.

Cynthia stared at him. Here was a definite step onward, a step refused.

"Why?" she asked in her perplexity.

"It would have meant the end of me, had I accepted it. It was offered to me to make an end of me, to break up the opposition to Devenish's bill, to show me a traitor to my friends, and an enemy who could be silenced by a bribe. If I had taken it, not merely the government, but the House, the whole House, would have despised me. I should have been done for. I should be an Under Secretary for a year, two years, three years--after that nothing and never anything so long as I lived. I refused it, Cynthia;" and he bent over the table toward her.

"You mustn't blame me. I am not failing you. I was thinking of you, my dear, when I refused office. An Under Secretarys.h.i.+p? You remember Challoner's question to Bradley? I should have failed you had I taken it."

Cynthia was almost conscious of disappointment. She liked definite things and here was a tangible sign of Harry Rames's advancement. But she received confirmation very soon that he had been right in refusing it.

It was at the reception at the Foreign Office in January which marked the beginning of the session. Mr. Devenish himself came up to her with a smile. For a moment Cynthia felt an awkwardness at meeting him, but he was quick to put her at her ease.

"Captain Rames did well to refuse office," he said. "I congratulate you, for I suppose that you had some share in the decision."

"No," she replied honestly. "To tell you the truth I was a trifle disappointed."

Mr. Devenish shook his head.

"His whole reputation was at stake. It's character which counts in the House of Commons. If he had taken that Under Secretarys.h.i.+p, he would have been pigeon-holed. We should have had the measure of him. We should not have troubled our heads about him again. For once, Mrs.

Rames, you were wrong; he was right."

Cynthia looked at him, her great eyes full of a gentle reproach.

"Wasn't it a little unkind of you to offer it then. You are a friend of mine, aren't you, Mr. Devenish?"

There was no anger in her voice, only a wondering melancholy, a kind of piteous despair that she was living in so graceless a world. Mr.

Devenish stared, then he smiled, and he looked at Cynthia with enjoyment.

"It wants a woman to use that argument, Mrs. Rames. No man alive would have the nerve. You are out for a fight with me. Yes, but I am a friend of yours, so I mustn't defend myself." He shook his head. "The House of Commons isn't a nursery, Mrs. Rames. You have got to stand by yourself if you're going to stand, neither being kind nor expecting kindness. Captain Rames stands--and he stands to fight me. Very well--but you can't expect me to prop him up."

"I quite understand," said Cynthia in her iciest manner. "I am not at all hurt or offended. You mustn't think that, Mr. Devenish," she bowed to him distantly and sailed off with great dignity. But she had humor enough to appreciate her discomfiture, and, even as she turned her back, her lips were twitching into a smile which she did not mean him to see. But ten minutes later in another of the rooms she came face to face with him again. He looked at her whimsically, and with a blush and a laugh she made friends with him again.

"Tell me," he said. "Your husband refused the post with decision after the merest pause for thought, though the offer surprised him. I know that. Was he troubled about his decision afterward?"

"Not at all," said Cynthia. "He slept perfectly; he ate his dinner with absolute contentment."