Marcella Part 27

"Who pays the keepers?" interrupted Leven.

"I do," said Wharton, smiling again. "Mayn't I--for the present--do what I will with mine own? I return in their wages some of my ill-gotten gains as a landowner. It is all makes.h.i.+ft, of course."

"I understand!" exclaimed Marcella, nodding to him--"you could not be a Venturist and keep up game-preserving?"

Wharton met her bright eye with a half deprecating, reserved air.

"You are right, of course," he said drily. "For a Socialist to be letting his keepers run in a man earning twelve s.h.i.+llings a week for knocking over a rabbit would have been a little strong. No one can be consistent in my position--in any landowner's position--it is impossible; still, thank Heaven, one can deal with the most glaring matters. As Mr. Raeburn said, however, all this game business is, of course, a mere incident of the general land and property system, as you will hear me expound when you come to that meeting you promised me to honour."

He stooped forward, scanning her with smiling deference. Marcella felt the man's hand that held her own suddenly tighten an instant. Then Aldous released her, and rising walked towards the fire.

"You're _not_ going to one of his meetings, Miss Boyce!" cried Frank, in angry incredulity.

Marcella hesitated an instant, half angry with Wharton. Then she reddened and threw back her dark head with the pa.s.sionate gesture Hallin had already noticed as characteristic.

"Mayn't I go where I belong?" she said--"where my convictions lead me?"

There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Hallin got up.

"Miss Boyce, may we see the house? Aldous has told me much of it."

Presently, in the midst of their straggling progress through the half-furnished rooms of the garden front, preceded by the shy footman carrying a lamp, which served for little more than to make darkness visible, Marcella found herself left behind with Aldous. As soon as she felt that they were alone, she realised a jar between herself and him.

His manner was much as usual, but there was an underlying effort and difficulty which her sensitiveness caught at once. A sudden wave of girlish trouble--remorse--swept over her. In her impulsiveness she moved close to him as they were pa.s.sing through her mother's little sitting-room, and put her hand on his arm.

"I don't think I was nice just now," she said, stammering. "I didn't mean it. I seem to be always driven into opposition--into a feeling of war--when you are so good to me--so much too good to me!"

Aldous had turned at her first word. With a long breath, as it were of unspeakable relief, he caught her in his arms vehemently, pa.s.sionately.

So far she had been very shrinking and maidenly with him in their solitary moments, and he had been all delicate chivalry and respect, tasting to the full the exquisiteness of each fresh advance towards intimacy, towards lover's privilege, adoring her, perhaps, all the more for her reserve, her sudden flights, and stiffenings. But to-night he asked no leave, and in her astonishment she was almost pa.s.sive.

"Oh, do let me go!" she cried at last, trying to disengage herself completely.

"No!" he said with emphasis, still holding her hand firmly. "Come and sit down here. They will look after themselves."

He put her, whether she would or no, into an arm-chair and knelt beside her.

"Did you think it was hardly kind," he said with a quiver of voice he could not repress, "to let me hear for the first time, in public, that you had promised to go to one of that man's meetings after refusing again and again to come to any of mine?"

"Do you want to forbid me to go?" she said quickly. There was a feeling in her which would have been almost relieved, for the moment, if he had said yes.

"By no means," he said steadily. "That was not our compact. But--guess for yourself what I want! Do you think"--he paused a moment--"do you think I put nothing of myself into my public life--into these meetings among the people who have known me from a boy? Do you think it is all a convention--that my feeling, my conscience, remain outside? You can't think that! But if not, how can I bear to live what is to be so large a part of my life out of your ken and sight? I know--I know--you warned me amply--you can't agree with me. But there is much besides intellectual agreement possible--much that would help and teach us both--if only we are together--not separated--not holding aloof--"

He stopped, watching all the changes of her face. She was gulfed in a deep wave of half-repentant feeling, remembering all his generosity, his forbearance, his devotion.

"When are you speaking next?" she half whispered. In the dim light her softened pose, the gentle sudden relaxation of every line, were an intoxication.

"Next week--Friday--at Gairsly. Hallin and Aunt Neta are coming."

"Will Miss Raeburn take me?"

His grey eyes shone upon her, and he kissed her hand.

"Mr. Hallin won't speak for you!" she said, after the silence, with a return of mischief.

"Don't be so sure! He has given me untold help in the drafting of my Bill. If I didn't call myself a Conservative, he would vote for me to-morrow. That's the absurdity of it. Do you know, I hear them coming back?"

"One thing," she said hastily, drawing him towards her, and then holding him back, as though shrinking always from the feeling she could so readily evoke. "I must say it; you oughtn't to give me so much money, it is too much. Suppose I use it for things you don't like?"

"You won't," he said gaily.

She tried to push the subject further, but he would not have it.

"I am all for free discussion," he said in the same tone; "but sometimes debate must be stifled. I am going to stifle it!"

And stooping, he kissed her, lightly, tremulously. His manner showed her once more what she was to him--how sacred, how beloved. First it touched and shook her; then she sprang up with a sudden disagreeable sense of moral disadvantage--inferiority--coming she knew not whence, and undoing for the moment all that buoyant consciousness of playing the magnanimous, disinterested part which had possessed her throughout the talk in the drawing-room.

The others reappeared, headed by their lamp: Wharton first, scanning the two who had lingered behind, with his curious eyes, so blue and brilliant under the white forehead and the curls.

"We have been making the wildest shots at your ancestors, Miss Boyce,"

he said. "Frank professed to know everything about the pictures, and turned out to know nothing. I shall ask for some special coaching to-morrow morning. May I engage you--ten o'clock?"

Marcella made some evasive answer, and they all sauntered back to the drawing-room.

"Shall you be at work to-morrow, Raeburn?" said Wharton.

"Probably," said Aldous drily. Marcella, struck by the tone, looked back, and caught an expression and bearing which were as yet new to her in the speaker. She supposed they represented the haughtiness natural in the man of birth and power towards the intruder, who is also the opponent.

Instantly the combative critical mood returned upon her, and the impulse to a.s.sert herself by protecting Wharton. His manner throughout the talk in the drawing-room had been, she declared to herself, excellent--modest, and self-restrained, comparing curiously with the boyish egotism and self-abandonment he had shown in their _tete-a-tete_.

"Why, there is Mr. Boyce," exclaimed Wharton, hurrying forward as they entered the drawing-room.

There, indeed, on the sofa was the master of the house, more ghastly black and white than ever, and prepared to claim to the utmost the tragic pre-eminence of illness. He shook hands coldly with Aldous, who asked after his health with the kindly brevity natural to the man who wants no effusions for himself in public or personal matters, and concludes therefore that other people desire none.

"You _are_ better, papa?" said Marcella, taking his hand.

"Certainly, my dear--better for morphia. Don't talk of me. I have got my death warrant, but I hope I can take it quietly. Evelyn, I _specially_ asked to have that thin cus.h.i.+on brought down from my dressing-room. It is strange that no one pays any attention to my wants."

Mrs. Boyce, almost as white, Marcella now saw, as her husband, moved forward from the fire, where she had been speaking to Hallin, took a cus.h.i.+on from a chair near, exactly similar to the one he missed, and changed his position a little.

"It is just the feather's weight of change that makes the difference, isn't it?" said Wharton, softly, sitting down beside the invalid.

Mr. Boyce turned a mollified countenance upon the speaker, and being now free from pain, gave himself up to the amus.e.m.e.nt of hearing his guest talk. Wharton devoted himself, employing all his best arts.

"Dr. Clarke is not anxious about him," Mrs. Boyce said in a low voice to Marcella as they moved away. "He does not think the attack will return for a long while, and he has given me the means of stopping it if it does come back."