The Testing of Diana Mallory - Mrs. Humphry Ward (novels to read for beginners txt) 📗

him into Parliament, and has been Lucy's quasi-husband for twenty years!"

"Oh, you think he _is_ in the plot?"

"Of course, Lucy swears he isn't. But if not--why isn't Ferrier here? His own election was over a week ago. In the natural course of things he would have been staying here since then, and speaking for Oliver. Not a word of it! I'm glad he's shown a little spirit at last! He's put up with it about enough."

"And Lady Lucy's fretting?"

"She don't like it--particularly when he comes to stay with Sir James Chide and not at Tallyn. Such a thing has never happened before."

"Poor old Ferrier!" said Bobbie, with a shrug of the shoulders.

Lady Niton drew herself up fiercely.

"Don't pity your betters, sir! It's disrespectful."

Bobbie smiled. "You know the Ministry's resigned?"

"About time! What have they been hanging on for so long?"

"Well, it's done at last. I found a wire from the club waiting for me here. The Queen has sent for Broadstone, and the fat's all in the fire."

The two fell into an excited discussion of the situation. The two rival heroes of the electoral six weeks on the Liberal side had been, of course, Ferrier and Lord Philip. Lord Philip had conducted an astonishing campaign in the Midlands, through a series of speeches of almost revolutionary violence, containing many veiled, or scarcely veiled, attacks on Ferrier. Ferrier, on the whole held the North; but the candidates in the Midlands had been greatly affected by Lord Philip and Lord Philip's speeches, and a contagious enthusiasm had spread through whole districts, carrying in the Liberal candidates with a rush. In the West and South, too, where the Darcy family had many friends and large estates, the Liberal nominees had shown a strong tendency to adopt Lord Philip's programme and profess enthusiastic admiration for its author. So that there were now two kings of Brentford. Lord Philip's fortunes had risen to a threatening height, and the whole interest of the Cabinet-making just beginning lay in the contest which it inevitably implied between Ferrier and his new but formidable lieutenant. It was said that Lord Philip had retired to his tent--alias, his Northamptonshire house--and did not mean to budge thence till he had got all he wanted out of the veteran Premier.

"As for the papers," said Bobbie, "you see they're already at it hammer and tongs. However, so long as the _Herald_ sticks to Ferrier, he has very much the best of it. This new editor Barrington is an awfully clever fellow."

"Barrington!--Barrington!" said Lady Niton, looking up, "That's the man who's coming to-night."

"Coming here?--Barrington? Hullo, I wonder what's up?"

"He proposed himself, Oliver says; he's an old friend."

"They were at Trinity together. But he doesn't really care much about Oliver. I'm certain he's not coming here for Oliver's _beaux yeux_, or Lady Lucy's."

"What does it matter?" cried Lady Niton, disdainfully.

"H'm!--you think 'em all a poor lot?"

"Well, when you've known Dizzy and Peel, Palmerston and Melbourne, you're not going to stay awake nights worriting about John Ferrier. In any other house but this I should back Lord Philip. But I like to make Oliver uncomfortable."

"Upon my word! I have heard you say that Lord Philip's speeches were abominable."

"So they are. But he ought to have credit for the number of 'em he can turn out in a week."

"He'll be heard, in fact, for his much speaking?"

Bobbie looked at his companion with a smile. Suddenly his cheek flushed. He sat down beside her and tried to take her hand.

"Look here," he said, with vivacity, "I think you were an awful brick to stick up for Miss Mallory as you did."

Lady Niton withdrew her hand.

"I haven't an idea what you're driving at."

"You really thought that Oliver should have given up all that money?"

His companion looked at him rather puzzled.

"He wouldn't have been a pauper," she said, dryly; "the girl had some."

"Oh, but not much. No!--you took a dear, unworldly generous view of it!--a view which has encouraged me immensely!"

"You!" Lady Niton drew back, and drew up, as though scenting battle, while her wig and cap slipped more astray.

"Yes--me. It's made me think--well, that I ought to have told you a secret of mine weeks ago."

And with a resolute and combative air, Bobbie suddenly unburdened himself of the story of his engagement--to a clergyman's daughter, without a farthing, his distant cousin on his mother's side, and quite unknown to Lady Niton.

His listener emitted a few stifled cries--asked a few furious questions--and then sat rigid.

"Well?" said Bobbie, masking his real anxiety under a smiling appearance.

With a great effort, Lady Niton composed herself. She stretched out a claw and resumed her work, two red spots on her cheeks.

"Marry her, if you like," she said, with delusive calm. "I sha'n't ever speak to you again. A scheming minx without a penny!--that ought never to have been allowed out of the school-room."

Bobbie leaped from his chair.

"Is that the way you mean to take it?"

Lady Niton nodded.

"That is the way I mean to take it!"

"What a fool I was to believe your fine speeches about Oliver!"

"Oliver may go to the devil!" cried Lady Niton.

"Very well!" Bobbie's dignity was tremendous. "Then I don't mean to be allowed less liberty than Oliver. It's no good continuing this conversation. Why, I declare! some fool has been meddling with those books!"

And rapidly crossing the floor, swelling with wrath and determination, Bobbie opened the bookcase of first editions which stood in this inner drawing-room and began to replace some volumes, which had strayed from their proper shelves, with a deliberate hand.

"You resemble Oliver in one thing!" Lady Niton threw after him.

"What may that be?" he said, carelessly.

"You both find gratitude inconvenient!"

Bobbie turned and bowed. "I do!" he said, "inconvenient, and intolerable! Hullo!--I hear the carriage. I beg you to remark that what I told you was confidential. It is not to be repeated in company."

Lady Niton had only time to give him a fierce look when the door opened, and Lady Lucy came wearily in.

Bobbie hastened to meet her.

"My dear Lady Lucy!--what news?"

"Oliver is in!"

"Hurrah!" Bobbie shook her hand vehemently. "I am glad!"

Lady Niton, controlling herself with difficulty, rose from her seat, and also offered a hand. "There, you see, Lucy, you needn't have been so anxious."

Lady Lucy sank into a chair.

"What's the majority?" said Bobbie, astonished by her appearance and manner. "I say, you know, you've been working too hard."

"The majority is twenty-four," said Lady Lucy, coldly, as though she had rather not have been asked the question; and at the same time, leaning heavily back in her chair, she began feebly to untie the lace strings of her bonnet. Bobbie was shocked by her appearance. She had aged rapidly since he had last seen her, and, in particular, a gray shadow had overspread the pink-and-white complexion which had so long preserved her good looks.

On hearing the figures (the majority five years before had been fifteen hundred), Bobbie could not forbear an exclamation which produced another contraction of Lady Lucy's tired brow. Lady Niton gave a very audible "Whew!"--to which she hastened to add: "Well, Lucy, what does it matter? Twenty-four is as good as two thousand."

Lady Lucy roused herself a little.

"Of course," she said, languidly, "it is disappointing. But we may be glad it is no worse. For a little while, during the counting, we thought Oliver was out. But the last bundles to be counted were all for him, and we just saved it." A pause, and then the speaker added, with emphasis: "It has been a _horrid_ election! Such ill-feeling--and violence--such unfair placards!--some of them, I am sure, were libellous. But I am told one can do nothing."

"Well, my dear, this is what Democracy comes to," said Lady Niton, taking up her knitting again with vehemence. "'_Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin_.' You Liberals have opened the gates--and now you grumble at the deluge."

"It has been the injustice shown him by his own side that Oliver minds." The speaker's voice betrayed the bleeding of the inward wound. "Really, to hear some of our neighbors talk, you would think him a Communist. And, on the other hand, he and Alicia only just escaped being badly hurt this morning at the collieries--when they were driving round. I implored them not to go. However, they would. There was an ugly crowd, and but for a few mounted police that came up, it might have been most unpleasant."

"I suppose Alicia has been careering about with him all day?" said Lady Niton.

"Alicia--and Roland Lankester--and the chairman of Oliver's committee. Now they've gone off on the coach, to drive round some of the villages, and thank people." Lady Lucy rose as she spoke.

"Not much to thank for, according to you!" observed Lady Niton, grimly.

"Oh, well, he's in!" Lady Lucy drew a long breath. "But people have behaved so extraordinarily! That man--that clergyman--at Beechcote--Mr. Lavery. He's been working night and day against Oliver. Really, I think parsons ought to leave politics alone."

"Lavery?" said Bobbie. "I thought he was a Radical. Weren't Oliver's speeches advanced enough to please him?"

"He has been denouncing Oliver as a humbug, because of what he is pleased to call the state of the mining villages. I'm sure they're a great, great deal better than they were twenty years ago!" Lady Lucy's voice was almost piteous. "However, he very nearly persuaded the miners to run a candidate of their own, and when that fell through, he advised them to abstain from voting. And they must have done so--in several villages. That's pulled down the majority."

"Abominable!" said Bobbie, who was comfortably conservative. "I always said that man was a firebrand."

"I don't know what he expects to get by it," said Lady Lucy, slowly, as she moved toward the door. Her tone was curiously helpless; she was still stately, but it was a ghostly and pallid stateliness.

"Get by it!" sneered Lady Niton. "After all, his friends are in. They say he's eloquent. His jackasseries will get him a bishopric in time--you'll see."

"It was the unkindness--the ill-feeling--I minded," said Lady Lucy, in a low voice, leaning heavily upon her stick, and looking straight before her as though she inwardly recalled some of the incidents of the election. "I never knew anything like it before."

Lady Niton lifted her eyebrows--not finding a suitable response. Did Lucy really not understand what was the matter?--that her beloved Oliver had earned the reputation throughout the division of a man who can propose to a charming girl, and then desert her for money, at the moment when the tragic blow of her life had fallen upon her?--and she, that of the mercenary mother who had forced him into it. Precious lucky for Oliver to have got in at all!

The door closed on Lady Lucy. Forgetting for an instant what had happened before her hostess entered, Elizabeth Niton, bristling with remarks, turned impetuously toward Forbes. He had gone back to first editions, and was whistling vigorously as he worked. With a start, Lady Niton recollected herself. Her face reddened afresh; she rose, walked with as much majesty as her station admitted to the door, which she closed sharply behind her.