The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes Part 11

"Only Lady Chelmer," Amber yawned, as she broke the seal.

"Didn't I see the scrawl of the Honourable Tolly?"

"Yes, poor dear. I do so want to know if he is happy in British Honduras. But he must take his turn."

"If he had taken his turn," Walter laughed, "he never would have got the appointment there."

"No, poor dear; it was very good of you."

"Of me?" Walter's tone was even more amused. His eyes roved round the vast drawing-room, as if with the thought that he had as little to do with its dignified grandeur. Then his gaze rested once more on his wife; she seemed a delicious harmony of silks and flowers and creamy flesh-tones.

"Mrs. Ba.s.sett," he said softly, lingering on the proprietorial term.

"Yes, Walter," she said, not looking up from her letter.

"Do you realise this is the first time we have been alone together this month?"

"No? Really?" She glanced up absently.

"Never mind that muddle-headed old Chelmer. I dare say she only wants another hundred or two." He came over, took the letter and her hand with it. "I have a great secret to tell you."

Now he had captured her attention as well as her hand. Her eyes sparkled. "A Cabinet Secret?" she said.

"Yes. At this moment every newspaper office is in a fever--to-morrow all England will be ringing with the news. It is a thunderbolt."

She started up, s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away, every nerve a-quiver with excitement. "And you kept this from me all through dinner?"

"I hadn't a chance, darling--I came straight from the scrimmage."

"You won't gloss it over by calling me novel names. I hate stale thunderbolts. You might have breathed a word in my ear."

"I shall make amends by beginning with the part that is only for your ear. Do you know what next Monday is?"

"The day you address your const.i.tuents, of course. Oh, I see, this thunderbolt is going to change your speech."

"Is going to change my speech altogether. Next Monday is the seventh anniversary of our wedding."

"Is it? But what has that to do with your speech at Highmead?"

"Everything." He smiled mysteriously, then went on softly, "Amber, do you remember our honeymoon?"

She smiled faintly. "Oh, I haven't quite forgotten."

"If you had quite forgotten the misery of it, I should be glad."

"I have quite forgotten."

"You are kinder than I deserve. But I was so startled to find my career was less to you than a kiss that I was more churlish than I need have been. I even wished that you might have a child, so that you might be taken up with it instead of with me."

She blushed. "Yes, I dare say I showed my hand clumsily as soon as it held all the aces."

"Ah, Amber, you were an angel and I was a beast. How gallantly you swallowed your disappointment in your bargain, how loyally you worked heart and soul that I might gain my one ideal--Power!"

"It was a labour of love," she said deprecatingly.

"My n.o.ble Amber. But did you think, selfishly engrossed though I have been with the Fight for Power, that this love-labour of yours was lost on me? No, 'terrible ambitious' as I was, I could still see I got the blackberries and you little more than the scratches, and the less you began to press your claim upon my heart, the more my heart was opening out with an answering pa.s.sion. I began to watch the play of your eyes, the s.h.i.+mmer of light across your cheek, the roguish pout of your lips, the lock that strayed across your temple--as it is straying now."

She pushed it back impatiently. "But what has all this to do with the Cabinet Secret?"

"Patience, darling! How much nicer to listen to you than to the Opposition."

"I shall be in the Opposition unless you get along faster."

"That is what I want--your face opposite me always, instead of bald-headed babblers. Ah, if you knew how often, of late, it has floated before me in the House, reducing historic wrangles to the rocking of children's boats in stormy ponds, accentuating the ponderous futility." He took her hand again, and a great joy filled him as he felt its gentle responsive pressure.

"Ponderous, perhaps," she said, smiling faintly; "but not futile, Walter."

"Futile, so far as I am concerned, dearest. Ah, you are right. Love is the only reality--everything else a game played with counters. What are our winnings? A few cheers drowned in the roar that greets the winning jockey, a few leading articles, stale as yesterday's newspaper."

"But the good to the ma.s.ses--" she reminded him.

"Don't mock me with my own phrases, darling. The ma.s.ses have done me more good than I can ever do them. Next Monday, dear Amber Roan, we'll try our honeymoon over again." And his lips sought hers.

She drew back. "Yes, yes, after the Speech. But now--the Secret!"

"There will be no speech--that is the secret."

She drew away from him altogether. "No speech!" she gasped.

"None save to your adorable ear--and the moonlit waters. Woodham has lent us his yacht--"

"In the middle of a Cabinet Crisis?"

"Which concerns me less than anybody." And he beamed happily.

"Less than anybody?" she repeated.

"Yes--since it is my resignation that makes the crisis."

She fell back into a chair, white and trembling. "You have resigned!"

"For ever. And now, hey for the great round, wonderful world! Don't you hear our keel cutting the s.h.i.+mmering waters?"

"No," she said savagely. "I hear only Woodham's mocking laughter!... And it sounds like a goat bleating."

"Darling!" he cried in amaze.

"I told you not to 'darling' me. How dared you change our lives without a word of consultation?"