Читать книгу The Marriage of William Ashe - Mrs. Humphry Ward - Страница 8

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"He ought to be here," said Lady Tranmore, as she turned away from the window.

Mary Lyster laid down her work. It was a fine piece of church embroidery, which, seeing that it had been designed for her by no less a person than young Mr. Burne Jones himself, made her the envy of her pre-Raphaelite friends.

"Yes, indeed. You made out there was a train about twelve."

"Certainly. They can't have taken more than an hour to speechify after the declaration of the poll. And I know William meant to catch that train if he possibly could."

"And take his seat this evening?"

Lady Tranmore nodded. She moved restlessly about the room, fidgeting with a book here and there, and evidently full of thoughts. Mary Lyster watched her a little longer, then quietly took up her work again. Her air of well-bred sympathy, the measured ease of her movements, contrasted with Lady Tranmore's impatience. Yet in truth she was listening no less sharply than her companion to the sounds in the street outside.

Lady Tranmore made her way to the window, and stood there looking out on the park. It was the week before Easter, and the plane-trees were not yet in leaf. But a few thorns inside the park railings were already lavishly green and there was a glitter of spring flowers beside the park walks, not showing, however, in such glorious abundance as became the fashion a few years later. It was a mild afternoon and the drive was full of carriages. From the bow-window of the old irregular house in which she stood, Lady Tranmore could watch the throng passing and repassing, could see also the traffic in Park Lane on either side. London, from this point of sight, wore a cheerful, friendly air. The dim sunshine, the white-clouded sky, the touches of reviving green and flowers, the soft air blowing in from a farther window which was open, brought with them impressions of spring, of promise, and rebirth, which insensibly affected Lady Tranmore.

"Well, I wonder what William will do, this time, in Parliament!" she said, as she dropped again into her seat by the fire and began to cut the pages of a new book.

"He is sure to do extremely well," said Miss Lyster.

Lady Tranmore shrugged her shoulders. "My dear—do you know that William has been for eight years—since he left Trinity—one of the idlest young men alive?"

"He had one brief!"

"Yes—somewhere in the country, where all the juniors get one in turn," said Lady Tranmore. "That was the year he was so keen and went on circuit, and never missed a sessions. Next year nothing would induce him to stir out of town. What has he done with himself all these eight years? I can't imagine."

"He has grown—uncommonly handsome," said Mary Lyster, with a momentary hesitation as she threaded her needle afresh.

"I never remember him anything else," said Lady Tranmore. "All the artists who came here and to Narroways wanted to paint him. I used to think it would make him a spoiled little ape. But nothing spoiled him."

Miss Lyster smiled. "You know, Cousin Elizabeth—and you may as well confess it at once!—that you think him the ablest, handsomest, and charmingest of men!"

"Of course I do," said Lady Tranmore, calmly. "I am certain, moreover—now—that he will be Prime Minister. And as for idleness, that, of course, is only a façon de parler. He has worked hard enough at the things which please him."

"There—you see!" said Mary Lyster, laughing.

"Not politics, anyway," said the elder lady, reflectively. "He went into the House to please me, because I was a fool and wanted to see him there. But I must say when his constituents turned him out last year I thought they would have been a mean-spirited set if they hadn't. They knew very well he'd never done a stroke for them. Attendances—divisions—perfectly scandalous!"

"Well, here he is, in triumphantly for somewhere else—with all sorts of delightful prospects!"

Lady Tranmore sighed. Her white fingers paused in their task.

"That, of course, is because—now—he's a personage. Everything'll be made easy for him now. My dear Mary, they talk of England's being a democracy!"

The speaker raised her handsome shoulders; then, as though to shake off thoughts of loss and grief which had suddenly assailed her, she abruptly changed the subject.

"Well—work or no work—the first thing we've got to do is to marry him."

She looked up sharply. But not the smallest tremor could she detect in Mary Lyster's gently moving hand. There was, however, no reply to her remark.

"Don't you agree, Polly?" said Lady Tranmore, smiling.

Her smile—which still gave great beauty to her face—was charming, but a little sly, as she observed her companion.

"Why, of course," said Miss Lyster, inclining her head to one side that she might judge the effect of some green shades she had just put in. "But that surely will be made easy for him, too."

"Well, after all, the girls can't propose! And I never saw him take any interest in a girl yet—outside his own family, of course," added Lady Tranmore, hastily.

"No—he does certainly devote himself to the married women," replied Miss Lyster, in the half-absent tone of one more truly interested in her embroidery than in the conversation.

"He would sooner have an hour with Madame d'Estrées than a week with the prettiest miss in London. That's quite true, but I vow it's the girls' own fault! They should stand on their dignity—snub the creatures more! In my young days—"

LADY TRANMORE AND MARY LYSTER

"Ah, there wasn't a glut of us then," said Mary, calmly. "Listen!"—she held up her hand.

"Yes," said Lady Tranmore, springing up. "There he is."

She stood waiting. The door flew open, and in came a tall young man.

"William, how late you are!" said Lady Tranmore, as she flew into his arms.

"Well, mother, are you pleased?"

Her son held her at arm's-length, smiling kindly upon her.

"Of course I am," said Lady Tranmore. "And you—are you horribly tired?"

"Not a bit. Ah, Mary!—how do you do?"

Miss Lyster had risen, and the cousins shook hands.

"But I don't deny it's very jolly to come back—out of all that beastly scrimmage," said the new member, as he threw himself into an arm-chair by the fire with his hands behind his head, while Lady Tranmore prepared him a cup of tea.

"I expect you've enjoyed it," said Miss Lyster, also moving towards the fire.

"Well, when you're in it there's a certain excitement in wondering how you're going to come out of it! But one might say that, of course, of the infernal regions."

"Not quite," said Mary Lyster, smiling demurely.

"Polly! you are a Tory. Everybody else's hell has moved—but yours! Thank you, mother," as Lady Tranmore gave him tea. Then, stretching out his great frame in lazy satisfaction, he turned his brown eyes from one lady to the other. "I say, mother, I haven't seen anything as good-looking as you—or Polly there, if she'll forgive me—for weeks."

"Hold your tongue, goose," said his mother, as she replenished the teapot. "What—there were no pretty girls—not one?"

"Well, they didn't come my way," said William, contentedly munching at bread-and-butter. "I have gone through all the usual humbug—and perjured my soul in all the usual ways—without any consolation worth speaking of."

"Don't talk nonsense, sir," said Lady Tranmore. "You know you like speaking—and you like compliments—and you've had plenty of both."

"You didn't read me, mother!"

"Didn't I?" she said, smiling. He groaned, and took another piece of tea-cake.

"My own family at least, don't you think, might omit that?"

"H'm, sir—So you didn't believe a word of your own speeches?" said Lady Tranmore, as she stood behind him and smoothed his hair back from his forehead.

"Well, who does?" He looked up gayly and kissed the tips of her fingers.

"And it's in that spirit you're going back into the House?" Mary Lyster threw him the question—with a slight pinching of the lips—as she resumed her work.

"Spirit? What do you mean, Polly? One plays the game, of course—and it has its moments—its hot corners, so to speak—or I suppose no one would play it!"

"And the goal?" She lifted a gently disapproving face, in a movement which showed anew the large comeliness of head and neck.

"Why—to keep the other fellows out, of course!" He lifted an arm and drew his mother down to sit on the edge of his chair.

"William, you're not to talk like that," said Lady Tranmore, decidedly, laying her cheek, however, against his hand the while. "It was all very well when you were quite a free-lance—but now—Oh! never mind Mary—she's discreet—and she knows all about it."

"What—that they're thinking of giving me Hickson's place? Parham has just written to me—I found the letter down-stairs—to ask me to go and see him."

"Oh! it's come?" said Lady Tranmore, with a start of pleasure. Lord Parham was the Prime Minister. "Now don't be a humbug, William, and pretend you're not pleased. But you'll have to work, mind!" She held up an admonishing finger. "You'll have to answer letters, mind!—you'll have to keep appointments, mind!"

"Shall I? … Ah!—Hudson—"

He turned. The butler was in the room.

"His lordship, my lady, would like to see Mr. William before dinner if he could make it convenient."

"Certainly, Hudson, certainly," said the young man. "Tell his lordship I'll be with him in ten minutes."

Then, as the butler departed—"How's father, mother?"

"Oh! much as usual," said Lady Tranmore, sadly.

"And you?"

He laid his arm boyishly round her waist, and looked up at her, his handsome face all affection and life. Mary Lyster, observing them, thought them a remarkable pair—he in the very prime and heyday of brilliant youth, she so beautiful still, in spite of the filling-out of middle life—which, indeed, was at the moment somewhat toned and disguised by the deep mourning, the sweeping crape and dull silk in which she was dressed.

"I'm all right, dear," she said, quietly, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Now, go on with your tea. Mary—feed him! I'll go and talk to father till you come."

She disappeared, and William Ashe approached his cousin.

"She is better?" he said, with an anxiety that became him.

"Oh yes! Your election has been everything to her—and your letters. You know how she adores you, William."

Ashe drew a long breath.

"Yes—isn't it bad luck?"

"William!"

"For her, I mean. Because, you know—I can't live up to it. I know it's her doing—bless her!—that old Parham's going to give me this thing. And it's a perfect scandal!"

"What nonsense, William!"

"It is!" he maintained, springing up and standing before her, with his hands in his pockets. "They're going to offer me the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, and I shall take it, I suppose, and be thankful. And do you know"—he dropped out the words with emphasis—"that I don't know a word of German—and I can't talk to a Frenchman for half an hour without disgracing myself. There—that's how we're governed!"

He stood staring at her with his bright large eyes—amused, yet strangely detached—as though he had very little to do with what he was talking about.

Mary Lyster met his look in some bewilderment, conscious all the time that his neighborhood was very agreeable and stirring.

"But every one says—you speak so well on foreign subjects."

"Well, any fool can get up a Blue Book. Only—luckily for me—all the fools don't. That's how I've scored sometimes. Oh! I don't deny that—I've scored!" He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, his whole tall frame vibrant, as it seemed to her, with will and good-humor.

"And you'll score again," she said, smiling. "You've got a wonderful opportunity, William. That's what the Bishop says."

"Much obliged to him!"

Ashe looked down upon her rather oddly.

"He told me he had never believed you were such an idler as other people thought you—that he felt sure you had great endowments, and that you would use them for the good of your country, and"—she hesitated slightly—"of the Church. I wish you'd talk to him sometimes, William. He sees so clearly."

"Oh! does he?" said Ashe.

Mary had dropped her work, and her face—a little too broad, with features a trifle too strongly marked—was raised towards him. Its pale color had passed into a slight blush. But the more strenuous expression had somehow not added to her charm, and her voice had taken a slightly nasal tone.

Through the mind of William Ashe, as he stood looking down upon her, passed a multitude of flying impressions. He knew perfectly well that Mary Lyster was one of the maidens whom it would be possible for him to marry. His mother had never pressed her upon him, but she would certainly acquiesce. It would have been mere mock modesty on his part not to guess that Mary would probably not refuse him. And she was handsome, well provided, well connected—oppressively so, indeed; a man might quail a little before her relations. Moreover, she and he had always been good friends, even when as a boy he could not refrain from teasing her for a slow-coach. During his electoral weeks in the country the thought of "Polly" had often stolen kindly upon his rare moments of peace. He must marry, of course. There was no particular excitement or romance about it. Now that his elder brother was dead and he had become the heir, it simply had to be done. And Polly was very nice—quite sweet-tempered and intelligent. She looked well, moved well, would fill the position admirably.

Then, suddenly, as these half-thoughts rushed through his brain, a breath of something cold and distracting—a wind from the land of ennui—seemed to blow upon them and scatter them. Was it the mention of the Bishop—tiresome, pompous fellow—or her slightly pedantic tone—or the infinitesimal hint of "management" that her speech implied? Who knows? But in that moment perhaps the scales of life inclined.

"Much obliged to the Bishop," he repeated, walking up and down. "I am afraid, however, I don't take things as seriously as he does. Oh, I hope I shall behave decently—but, good Lord, what a comedy it is! You know the sort of articles"—he turned towards her—"our papers will be writing to-morrow on my appointment. They'll make me out no end of a fine fellow—you'll see! And, of course, the real truth is, as you and I know perfectly well, that if it hadn't been for poor Freddy's death—and mother—and her dinners—and the chaps who come here—I might have whistled for anything of the sort. And then I go down to Ledmenham and stand as a Liberal, and get all the pious Radicals to work for me! It's a humbugging world—isn't it?"

He returned to the fireplace, and stood looking down upon her—grinning.

Mary had resumed her embroidery. She, too, was dimly conscious of something disappointing.

"Of course, if you choose to take it like that, you can," she said, rather tartly. "Of course, everything can be made ridiculous."

"Well, that's a blessing, anyway!" said Ashe, with his merry laugh. "But look here, Mary, tell me about yourself. What have you been doing?—dancing—riding, eh?"

He threw himself down beside her, and began an elder-brotherly cross-examination, which lasted till Lady Tranmore returned and begged him to go at once to his father.

When he returned to the drawing-room, Ashe found his mother alone. It was growing dark, and she was sitting idle, her hands in her lap, waiting for him.

"I must be off, dear," he said to her. "You won't come down and see me take my seat?"

She shook her head.

"I think not. What did you think of your father?"

"I don't see much change," he said, hesitating.

"No, he's much the same."

"And you?" He slid down on the sofa beside her and threw his arm round her. "Have you been fretting?"

Lady Tranmore made no reply. She was a self-contained woman, not readily moved to tears. But he felt her hand tremble as he pressed it.

"I sha'n't fret now"—she said after a moment—"now that you've come back."

Ashe's face took a very soft and tender expression.

"Mother, you know—you think a great deal too much of me—you're too ambitious for me."

She gave a sound between a laugh and a sob, and, raising her hands, she smoothed back his curly hair and held his face between them.

"When do you see Lord Parham?" she asked.

"Eight o'clock—in his room at the House. I'll send you up a note."

"You'll be home early?"

"No—don't wait for me."

She dropped her hands, after giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"I know where you're going! It's Madame d'Estrées' evening."

"Well—you don't object?"

"Object?" She shrugged her shoulders. "So long as it amuses you—You won't find one woman there to-night."

"Last time there were two," he said, smiling, as he rose from the sofa.

"I know—Lady Quantock—and Mrs. Mallory. Now they've deserted her, I hear. What fresh gossip has turned up I don't know. Of course," she sighed, "I've been out of the world. But I believe there have been developments."

"Well, I don't know anything about it—and I don't think I want to know. She's very agreeable, and one meets everybody there."

"Everybody. Ungallant creature!" she said, giving a little pull to his collar, the set of which did not please her.

"Sorry! Mother!"—his laughing eyes pursued her—"Do you want to marry me off directly?—I know you do!"

"I want nothing but what you yourself should want. Of course, you must marry."

"The young women don't care twopence about me!"

"William!—be a bear if you like, but not an idiot!"

"Perfectly true," he declared; "not the dazzlers and the high-fliers, anyway—the only ones it would be an excitement to carry off."

"You know very well," she said, slowly, "that now you might marry anybody."

He threw his head back rather haughtily.

"Oh! I wasn't thinking about money, and that kind of thing. Well, give me time, mother—don't hurry me! And now I'd better stop talking nonsense, change my clothes, and be off. Good-bye, dear—you shall hear when the job's perpetrated!"

"William, really!—don't say these things—at least to anybody but me. You understand very well"—she drew herself up rather finely—"that if I hadn't known, in spite of your apparent idleness, you would do any work they set you to do, to your own credit and the country's, I'd never have lifted a finger for you!"

William Ashe laughed out.

"Oh! intriguing mother!" he said, stooping again to kiss her. "So you admit you did it?"

He went off gayly, and she heard him flying up-stairs three steps at a time, as though he were still an untamed Eton boy, and there were no three weeks' hard political fighting behind him, and no interview which might decide his life before him.

He entered his own sitting-room on the second floor, shut the door behind him, and glanced round him with delight. It was a large room looking on a side street, and obliquely to the park. Its walls were covered with books—books which almost at first sight betrayed to the accustomed eye that they were the familiar companions of a student. Almost every volume had long paper slips inside it, and when opened would have been found to contain notes and underlinings in a somewhat reckless and destructive abundance. A large table, also loaded untidily with books and papers, stood in the centre of the room; many of them were note-books, stored with evidences of the most laborious and patient work; a Cambridge text lay beside them face downward, as he had left it on departure. His mother's housekeeper, who had been one of his best friends from babyhood, was the only person allowed to dust his room—but on the strict condition that she replaced everything as she found it.

He took up the volume, and plunged a moment headlong into the Greek chorus that met his eye. "Jolly!" he said, putting it down with a sigh of regret. "These beastly politics!"

And he went muttering to his dressing-room, summoning his valet almost with ill-temper. Yet half his library was the library of a politician, admirably chosen and exhaustively read.

The footman who answered his call understood his moods and served him at a look. Ashe complained hotly of the brushing of his dress-clothes, and worked himself into a fever over the set of his tie. Nevertheless, before he left he had managed to get from the young man the whole story of his engagement to the under-housemaid, giving him thereupon some bits of advice, jocular but trenchant, which James accepted with a readiness quite unlike his normal behavior in the circles of his class.