CHAPTER V
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
I
THE flight of time had affected Beaconsfield Villas surprisingly little. Laxton itself had deferred to Anno Domini in many subtle ways; it had its electric trams and motor-buses, and the suburb had doubled in size, but no epoch-making changes were visible in the front sitting-room of Number Five. In that homely interior the cosmic march and profluence was simply revealed by a gramophone, the gift of Mary, on the top of the sewing machine in the corner, and by the accession to the walls of lithograph portraits of the son and grandson of the august lady who still held pride of place over the chimney-piece.
The afternoon was stifling even for South London in the middle of June. And Joseph Kelly, who had attained the rank of sergeant in the Metropolitan Police Force, not having to go on duty until six o’clock that evening, was seated coatless and solemn, spectacles on nose, smoking a well-colored clay and reading the Daily Mail. At the level of his eyes, in portentous type was, “Laxton Bye-Election. A Sharp Contest. New Home Secretary’s Chances.” Joe was a shade stouter than of yore, his face was even redder, a thinning thatch had turned gray, but in all essentials the man himself was still the genial cockney of one-and-twenty years ago.
The outer door of the sitting-room, which was next the street, was wide open to invite the air. But ever and again there rose such a fierce medley of noises from a mysterious cause a little distance off, that at last Joe got up from his chair, and waddling across the room in a pair of worn list slippers, banged the door against the sounds from the street which had the power to annoy him considerably.
Hardly had Joe shuffled back to his chair and his newspaper when the door was flung open again and an excited urchin thrust a tousled head into the room.
“‘Vote for Maclean an’ a free breakfast-table’!”
The law in the person of Sergeant Kelly rose from its chair majestically.
“If you ain’t off—my word!”
Headlong flight of the urchin. Joe closed the door with violence and sat down again. But the incident had unsettled him. He seemed unable to fix his mind on the newspaper. And the noises in the street waxed ever louder. Now they took the form of cheers and counter cheers, now of hoots, cat-calls and shouts of derision. At last the tumult rose to such a pitch that it drew Eliza from an inner room.
The years had changed her rather more than her husband. But she was still the active, capable, bustling housewife, with a keen eye for the world and all that was passing in it.
“They are making noise enough to wake the dead.” Eliza looked eagerly through the window.
“I wish that durned Scotchman hadn’t set his committee-room plumb oppersite Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas,” was Joe’s sour comment.
At that moment the all-embracing eye of a relentless housewife swooped down upon a card lying innocently on the linoleum. It had been flung there by the recent visitor. Eliza picked it up and read:
Vote for Maclean, thus:
MACLEAN X
WHITLEY.
On the back of the card was a portrait of Sir Dugald Maclean, M.P.
Eliza gazed at it in astonishment mingled with awe.
“I am bound to say he is a better-favored jockey than when he came a-courting our Harriet. Look, Joe!”
With scornful vehemence, Joe declined the invitation.
Eliza was sternly advised to tear up the card, but instead she chose to set it on the chimney-piece. The rash act was too much for her lord. Once more he rose from his chair, tore the card into little pieces and flung them into a grate artistically decorated with colored paper.
“You are jealous!” said Eliza, laughing.
“Of the likes of him! Holy smoke! But if you think we are going to have such trash in the same room as the Marquis, you make an error.”
The words had hardly been uttered when shouts yet more piercing came from the street. Eliza made a hasty return to the window.
“Come and look, Joe!” she cried breathlessly. “Here he is with his top hat and eyeglass. He’s that dossy you wouldn’t know him. He’s dressed up like a tailor’s dummy.”
But Joe declined to budge.
“It fairly makes me sick to think of the feller,” he said.
A little later, when the tumult in the street had died down a bit, Joe settled himself in his chair for an afternoon nap. Eliza, duly noting the symptoms, retired on tiptoe to another room, closing the door after her gently. But today, alas, the skyey influences were adverse. Joe had barely entered oblivion when a smart tap at the street door shattered this precarious peace. With a grudge against society he rose once more, shambled across the room and flung open the door, half expecting to find that the urchin had returned to torment him. A dramatic surprise was in store. On the threshold was a creature so stylishly trim that even the blasé eye of the Metropolitan Force was sensibly thrilled in beholding her. “A bit of class” without a doubt, although adorned by the colors of the People’s Candidate, and surprisingly cool in sheer defiance of the thermometer.
“Good afternoon!” The tone of half-confidential intimacy was quite irresistible. “May I have a little talk with you?”
“Certainly, miss.” The unconscious gallantry of an impressionable policeman was more than equal to the occasion. “Step inside and make yourself at home.”
When Joe came to review the incident afterwards, it seemed very surprising that he should have yielded so easily to the impact of this elegant miss. For instinctively he knew her business. Moreover, the last thing he desired at that moment was to be troubled by her or by it. But he had been taken by surprise, and in all circumstances he would have needed ample notice to deny a lady. He had a great but impersonal regard for a lady, as some people have for a Rembrandt or a Corot or a Jan van Steen. And although the fact was not important, perhaps his sense of humor was a little touched by such a young woman taking the trouble to come and talk to such a man as himself.
“I am here,” said the voice of the dove, as soon as its owner had subsided gracefully upon a chair covered with horsehair, “to ask your vote and interest for Sir Dugald Maclean, the People’s Candidate.”
The prophetic soul of Joe had told him that already. But again the sense of humor, the fatal gift, may have intervened. Had the elegant miss had any nous, she would have known that a sergeant of the X Division has not a vote to bestow. In justice to the fair democrat, Joe might have reflected that in the absence of his tunic there was nothing to show his status. However, he didn’t trouble to do that. It was enough for him that she was on a fool’s errand. But Joe was a man of the world as well as a connoisseur of the human female. A picturesque personality intrigued him. Moreover, it was working for a cause that Joe despised from the depths of his soul. So much was she “the real thing” that she had even turned on a melodious lisp for his benefit; yet he had no particular wish, even under these flattering auspices, to discuss the people and their champion. He had quite made up his mind about both. But, the Machiavellian thought occurred to him, here was a dangerous implement in the hands of the foe, therefore it would be the part of wisdom to waste a little of her time.
“‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people,’” lisped the siren, “that, of course, as you may know, is what Sir Dugald stands for.”
“Does he!” reflected Joe. With a roguish smile he looked the speaker over from her expensive top to her equally expensive toe.
“You do believe in the people?” said the siren with a rather dubious air.
“Since you ask the question, miss,” said Joe, “I am bound to say I don’t, and never have done.”
“Not believe in the people!” It didn’t seem possible.
“If you’d seen as much of the people as I have, miss,” said Joe grimly, “I’m thinking you’d not be quite so set up with ’em.”
The tone of conviction disconcerted the fair canvasser. Somehow she had not expected it. In the course of her present ministrations it was the first time she had met that point of view. Laxton’s working-class, which for several days had been honored by her delicate flatteries, had shown such a robust faith in itself and had purred so responsively to her blandishments that she now took for granted that in all circumstances it would fully share her own enthusiasm for it. But this rubicund, coatless Briton, with eyes of half truculent humor, was a little beyond her. Gloves were needed to handle him; otherwise fingers of such flowerlike delicacy stood a chance of being bruised.
“May one ask what you have against them?” lisped the people’s champion, opening large round eyes.
“Nothing particular, miss,” said Joe urbanely. “But you ask me whether I believe in ’em and I say I don’t. Mind you, the people are all right in their place. I’ve not a word to say against ’em personally. Of a Monday morning at Vine Street, when the Court has been swep’ an’ dusted and his Worship has returned from his Sunday in the country, we always try to make ’em welcome. ‘Let ’em all come,’ that’s the motto of the Metropolitan Force. But as for believing in ’em, that’s another story.”
This was rather baffling for the people’s champion. She was at a loss. But her faith was sublime. This odd, crass, heavy-witted plebeian who denied his kind was a sore problem even for the bringer of the light. Still, she stuck to her guns gallantly.
“‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people.’” Lisping the battle cry of Demos she returned stoutly to the charge. Sacred formulas flowed from her lips in a stream of charming pellucidity.
“Ah, you don’t know ’em, miss,” ejaculated Joe, at intervals.
It was a pretty joust; vicarious enthusiasm on the one side, first-hand experience on the other. But Joe was a rock. The fair canvasser took forth every weapon of an elegantly-furnished armory, yet without avail.
“I don’t hold with the people, miss, not in no shape nor form.”
The tone was so final that at last a sense of defeat came upon this Amazon. She was still seated, however, without having quite made up her mind to the inevitable, on her grand chair in the front sitting-room of Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas, when Fate intervened in quite a remarkable way.
All of a sudden, there appeared on the threshold of the open door a figure tall, fine and unheralded. It was that of Harriet Sanderson.
“Anybody at home?” she inquired gayly.
The unexpected visitor was looking very handsome and distinguished in a well-cut black coat and skirt, and a large hat too plain for fashion, but very far from démodé. She came into the room with that almost proprietary air she was never without in her intercourse with her own people. But it was about to suffer an eclipse.
Harriet just had time to greet her brother-in-law with a happy mingling of the bon camarade and the woman of the world, her fixed attitude towards such an Original, whom somehow she could not help liking and respecting, when her eyes met suddenly those of the fair canvasser.
For a moment an intense surprise forbade either to speak. But the people’s champion was the first to overcome the shock.
“Mrs. Sanderson!” she exclaimed.
The change in Harriet was immediate and dramatic.
“Lady Muriel!” A slight flush of a fine face accompanied the tone of awe.
The visitor rose. And in the act of so doing an accession of great ladyhood, almost entirely absent a few minutes ago, seemed automatically to enter her manner.
“What a small world it is!” she laughed. “Fancy meeting you here!”
By now the iron will of the secretly annoyed and oddly discomposed Harriet was able to reassert itself.
“It is a small world, my lady.” The tone was a very delicate mingling of aloofness and respect.
Brief explanations followed. These quickly culminated in the presentation of Joe, who then became the most embarrassed of the three. Unawares and in his shirt sleeves, he had been entertaining an angel. And to one of Conservative views, with a profound reverence for law, order and all established things, this seemed to verge upon indecency. A mere “one of Scotchie’s lady canvassers” had been magically transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, into Lady Muriel Dinneford, the third daughter of one whom Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas, always alluded to as “his Grace.”
II
It was the work of a few tactful minutes for Lady Muriel to effect a discreet retirement from the scene. Yet so deeply had she been engaged by Joe’s contumacy, and at the back of a mind which was making the most heroic efforts to be “broad” was such a sense of amusement, that she declared her intention of returning anon with the People’s Candidate, if he could possibly spare a few minutes from his multifarious duties, in order that the coup de grâce might be given to Mr. Kelly’s dangerous heresies.
The withdrawal of the distinguished visitor across the street to the Candidate’s committee room left a void which for a few tense moments only wonder could fill.
It was Joe who broke the silence which, like a pall, had suddenly descended upon the front parlor of Number Five.
“If that don’t beat Banagher,” he said. “Fancy one of the Fam’ly taking the trouble to come a canvassin’ for Scotchie!”
Keen humor and acute annoyance contended now in the eloquent face of Harriet.
“Pray, why shouldn’t she canvass for Sir Dugald Maclean”—the level voice was pitched in a very quiet key—“if she really believes in his principles?”
“How can she believe in ’em, gal?”
“Why not?”
“How can a blue blood believe in that sort of a feller?”
“Sir Dugald is a remarkably clever man. One of the cleverest men in England, some people think.”
“That’s nothing to do with the matter. It’s character that counts.”
“There’s nothing against his character, I believe. At any rate, Lady Muriel is going to marry him.”
The state of Joe’s feelings forbade an immediate reply. And when reply he did, it was in a tone of scorn. Said he: “‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people!’ Harriet, for a dead beat fool give me a blue blood aristocrat.”
“Joe,” came the answer, with a gleam of humor and malice, “I really think you should learn to speak of our governing class a little more respectfully.”
This was rather hard. She ought to have realized that it was because Joe respected them so much that he now desired to chasten them.
“Scotchie of all people!” he muttered.
“There’s no accounting for taste, you know.” There was a sudden flash of a very handsome pair of eyes.
“O’ course there ain’t,” said Joe, sorrowfully malicious. “You may have forgot there was a time when Scotchie came a-courtin’ you.”
“Do you suppose I am ever likely to forget it!” said Harriet, with a cool cynicism which took the simple Joseph completely out of his depth.
“Well, it’s a queer world, I must say.”
“It is,” his sister-in-law agreed.
At that moment, Eliza came into the room. The visit of Harriet was so unexpected as to take her by surprise. But the cause of it was soon disclosed. Harriet was troubled about Mary. Ever since the girl, against the wishes and advice of her friends, had taken what they felt to be a fatal step, there had been a gradual drifting apart. Harriet had kept in touch with her as well as she could, but she had not been able to stifle her own private fears. The peril of such a career, even when crowned by success, was in her opinion, difficult to exaggerate. She disapproved of the friendship with the Wrens, and had strongly opposed Mary’s living with them. But as the girl rose in her profession, Harriet’s hold upon her grew still less. And now at second and third hand had come news which had greatly upset her.
With the tact for which she was famous, Harriet did not speak of this in the presence of Joe. She accompanied Eliza to the privacy of the best bedroom, ostensibly to “take off her things,” but really to discuss a matter which for the past week had filled her with misgiving.
In the meantime, Joe in the parlor set himself doggedly to compass the nap that so far had been denied him. In spite of the noises in the street and romantic appearance of a real live member of the Family in his humble abode, he had just begun to doze when the ban of Fate fell once more upon him.
From the strange welter in the amazing world outside there now emerged a large open motor. And royally it drew up before the magic door of Number Five. Two persons were seated in the car. One was no less than Princess Bedalia. The other was the humblest and yet the boldest of her adorers.
III
The idea itself had been Mary’s that they should use a fine afternoon in motoring into Laxton, in order to see her parents. Behind this simple plan was fell design. A week had passed since that conversation under the trees in the Park in which she had sought in vain for her release. But so shallow had her reasoning appeared that Jack declined to take it seriously. He had her promise, and he felt he had every right to hold her to it. Unless she could show a real cause for revoking it, he was fully determined not to give her up.
In desperation, therefore, she had hit on the expedient, a poor and vain one, no doubt, of taking him to see those humble people whom she called father and mother. In the course of her twenty odd years up and down the world she had had intimations from various side winds and divers little birds that she was an adopted child. Her real parentage and the circumstances of her birth were an impenetrable mystery and must always be so, no doubt, but her feeling for the Kellys was one of true affection and perfect loyalty. Not by word or deed had she hinted at the possession of knowledge which had come to her from other sources.
In the circumstances of the case she now allowed herself to imagine that a visit to her home people in their native habit as they dwelt might help to cure Jack of his infatuation. An insight into things and men told her that Beaconsfield Villas must be whole worlds away from any sphere in which he had moved hitherto. Nor would he be likely to suspect, as she was shrewdly aware, that a creature so sophisticated as herself had risen from such humble beginnings. She had a ferocious pride of her own, but it was not of the kind that meanly denies its origin.
“Father,” was her gay greeting to the astonished and still coatless Joe, “I’ve brought somebody to see you.”
Jack, wearing a dustcoat and other appurtenances of the chauffeur’s craft, had followed upon the heels of Princess Bedalia into the front parlor of Number Five. In response to the young man’s bow, Kelly offered a rather dubious hand. As became a symbol of law and order and a member of the straitest sect of the Pharisees, he didn’t feel inclined to encourage Mary in gallivanting up and down the land. Nor did he feel inclined to give countenance to any promiscuous young man she might bring to the house.
“Mr. Dinneford—my father, Police-Sergeant Kelly.” It was a delightfully formal introduction, but rather wickedly contrived.
Jack was so taken aback that he felt as if a feather might have downed him. But even to the lynx eyes of Mary, which were covertly upon him, not a trace of his feelings was visible. He merely bowed a second time, perhaps a little more gravely than the first.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Sergeant Kelly, in a voice which showed pretty clearly that he was overstating the truth.
Mary could not repress the rogue’s laugh that sprang to her lips.
“Where’s my old mumsie?” she gayly demanded, partly in the hope of concealing her wicked merriment.
“Upstairs with your Aunty Harriet.”
“Aunt Harriet here!” The tone was full of surprise. And then the charming voice took a turn affectionately non-committal. “What luck! It seems an age since I saw her.”
In spite of himself, Joe could not help being a little in awe of the girl. She was so remarkably striking that every time he saw her it became harder to keep up the pretense of blood relationship. She had developed into the finest young woman he had ever met. Her official father was very proud of her, the affection she inspired in him was true and real, but at the moment he was more than a little embarrassed by the impact of an immensely distinguished personality.
However, in spite of such beauty and charm, he was determined to do his duty by her; as became a father and a man he felt bound to admonish her.
“Since you took up with those people, none of us have been seeing much of you,” he forced himself to say, in his most magisterial manner.
“Old story!”
“It’s true and you know it.” Joe declined on principle to be softened by her blandishments.
“Wicked old story!” She took him by the shoulders and shook him; and then she sighed as a mother might have done, and gazed into his solemn face. “Father,” she said, “you are an old and great dear.”
“Get along with you!” said Joe sternly, but in spite of himself he couldn’t help laughing.
“I’ll leave you and Mr. Dinneford to have a little crack while I take this to my mumsie.” Brandishing an important-looking milliner’s box, she left the room in a laughing search of Eliza.
As soon as Jack found himself alone with Mary’s father a period of constraint ensued. It would have been wrong to deny that his reception had been the reverse of cordial. The sensitiveness of a lover, in duty bound to walk delicately, made no secret of that. Moreover, he was still so astonished at Mary’s paternity that he felt quite at a loss. Nature had played an amazing trick. Somehow this serio-comic London copper in half-mufti, was going to make it very difficult to exercise the deference due to a prospective father-in-law.
An acute silence was terminated by Joe’s “Won’t you sit down, sir?”
Jack sat down; and then Mary’s father, torn between stern disapproval and the humane feelings of a host, invited the young man solemnly to a glass of beer.
“Thank you very much,” said Jack, with admirable gravity.
Murmuring “excuse me a minute,” Joe went to draw the beer. Left alone the young man tried to arrange his thoughts; also he took further stock of his surroundings. He had yet to overcome a powerful feeling of surprise. It was hard to believe that Princess Bedalia, in the view of her fiancé, the very last word in modern young women, should have sprung from such a milieu as Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. It was a facer. Yet somehow the chasm between Mary and her male parent seemed almost to enhance her value. She was so superb an original that she defied the laws of nature.
The young man was engulfed in an odd train of speculation when Mary’s father returned with the beer. He poured out two glasses, gave one to the visitor, took one himself, and after a solemn “Good health, sir!” solemnly drank it.
Jack returned the “Good health!” and followed the rest of the ritual. And then feeling rather more his own man, he made an effort to come to business. But it was only possible to do that by means of a directness verging upon the indelicate.
“Sergeant Kelly,” he said, “have you any objection to my marrying Mary?”
No doubt the form of the question was a little unwise. At least it exposed the young man to the prompt rejoinder:
“I know nothing whatever about you, sir.”
“My name is Dinneford”—he could not refrain from laughing a little at the portentous gravity of a prospective father-in-law. “And I think I can claim that I have always passed as respectable.”
“Glad to hear it, sir,” said Joe, the light of a respectful humor breaking upon him. And then measuring the young man with the eye of professional experience. “May I ask your occupation?”
“No occupation.”
“I don’t like the sound o’ that.” Sergeant Kelly sagely shook his head.
“Perhaps it isn’t quite so bad as it sounds,” said the young man. “At present, you see, I am a kind of understudy to a sort of uncle I have. I am in training as you might say, so that one day I may follow in his footsteps.”
“An actor,” said the dubious Joe. He didn’t mind actors personally, but impersonally he didn’t quite hold with the stage.
“Not exactly,” said the young man coolly, but with a smile. “And yet he is in his way. In fact, you might call him a prince of comedians.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Sergeant Kelly measured each word carefully. “But I’m afraid that’s only a very little in his favor.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Jack. “My uncle is a duke, and the deuce of it is, I have to succeed him.”
“A duke!” Sergeant Kelly’s tone of rather pained surprise made it clear that such a romantic circumstance greatly altered the aspect of the case. It also implied that he was far from approving an ill-timed jest on a sacred subject. His brow knitted to a heavy frown. “Well, sir, I can only say that if such is the case you have no right to come a-courting our Mary.”
“For why not, Sergeant Kelly?”
“You know why not, sir, as well as I do. She’s a fine gal, although I say it who ought not, but that will not put her right with your friends. They will expect you to take a wife of your own sort.”
“But that’s rather my look-out, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” said Joe, with the air of a warrior, “but as you have asked me, there’s my opinion. The aristocracy’s the aristocracy, the middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower orders are the lower orders—there they are and you can’t alter ’em. At least, that’s my view of the matter.”
Jack forced a wry smile. Mary was a chip of the old block. Such an uncompromising statement seemed at any rate to explain the force of her conviction upon this vexed subject.
“Excuse the freedom, sir,” said the solemn Joe, “but you young nobs who keep on marrying out of your class are undermining the British Constitution. What’s to become of law and order if you go on mixing things up in the way you are doing?”
The young man proceeded to do battle with the Philistine. But the weapons in his armory were none of the brightest with which to meet the crushing onset of the foe.
“It’s no use, sir. As I say, the aristocracy’s the aristocracy, the middle-class is the middle-class, and the lower orders are the lower orders—there they are and you can’t alter ’em. You don’t suppose I’ve reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years not to know that.”
In the presence of such a conviction, the best of Jack’s arguments seemed vain, futile and shallow. Fate had charged Joseph Kelly with the solemn duty of maintaining the fabric of society, and in his purview, no argument however cunning, could set that fact aside.
IV
While these two were still at grips, each meeting the arguments of the other with a sense of growing impatience, the cause of the trouble intervened. Mary came into the room, leading her mother by the hand. With the face of a sphinx followed Harriet.
The blushing Eliza was adorned with a fine coat which had come in the milliner’s box. Mary had laughingly insisted on her mother appearing in it, in spite of Eliza’s firm conviction that “it was much too grand.”
“My word, mother!” roared Joe, at the sight of her splendor. “I’m thinking I’ll have to keep an eye on you.”
The visitor was promptly introduced, first to the wearer of the coat, who offered a shy and embarrassed hand, and then to Aunt Harriet, who stood mute and pale in the background.
“Why—why, Mrs. Sanderson,” said the young man, “fancy meeting you here!”
“You have met before?” said Mary, innocently.
“We meet very often.”
“Really?”
“Why, yes. Mrs. Sanderson is Uncle Albert’s right hand at Bridport House.”
A pin might have been heard to fall in the silence that followed. The blood fled from Mary’s cheeks; they grew as pale as those of her aunt. Even the knowledge that had recently come to her had not connected Jack with Bridport House. No attempt had been made to realize exactly who and what he was. It had been enough that he belonged to a world beyond her own. And now as this new and astonishing fact presented itself she saw the strongest possible justification for the attitude she had taken up.
As for Harriet, stern and unbending in the background, she was like an Antigone who abides the decree. Her fears were realized. The worst had happened. Fate had played such a subtle and unworthy trick that the instinct uppermost was to resent it bitterly.
The feelings of the girl were very similar. But her strength of character and the independence of her position enabled her to take charge of a situation delicate and embarrassing. In a rather high-pitched voice, she began to talk generalities in order to bridge if possible the arid pauses which were always threatening to submerge the conversation. But at the back of her mind was a growing sense that secret forces are always at work in this strange world we inhabit—forces which have a peculiar malice of their own.
And yet, hopeless as the position had suddenly become for these five people, the fates had one more barb in their quiver. And it was of so odd a kind that it was as if the stars in their courses were bent upon seeing what mischief they could contrive in this particular matter. A sudden sharp rap from the knocker of the front door fell into the midst of the growing embarrassment. Joe, welcoming this diversion as relief to a tension that was almost intolerable, went at once to attend the cause of it.
“As I’m a living man,” came a lusty voice from the threshold, “if it isn’t old Joe Kelly.”
The People’s Candidate, rosetted, dauntless and triumphant, accompanied by the lady of his choice, stepped heroically into the small room. Twenty-three years had wrought a very remarkable change in a very remarkable man. In that time Dugald Maclean had bent all the powers of his genius to a task that Miss Harriet Sanderson had discreetly imposed upon the author of “Urban Love, a Trilogy.” And now he came in, every inch a victor, he had not looked to find his monitress. But there she was, pale, grim, yet somehow oddly distinguished in the background of a room curiously familiar. It was to her that his eyes leapt.
“Why, Miss Sanderson!” he said, with a conqueror’s laugh, in which there was no trace of the tongue-tied youth of three and twenty years ago. Offering a conqueror’s hand, he went forward to greet her.
Harriet yielded hers with a vivid blush. And as she did so, she was suddenly aware of two swordlike orbs piercing her right through.
“I didn’t know Mrs. Sanderson was a friend of yours,” said the honeyed voice of Lady Muriel.
“A very old friend,” said Sir Dugald gayly.
At that moment, however, it was necessary for Lady Muriel to curb her curiosity. Since her exit from that room half-an-hour ago other people had gathered in it. She had hardly spoken when her astonished eyes fell upon Cousin Jack. Their recognition of each other was mutually incredulous. Yet there was really no reason why it should have been. It was known to the young man that Muriel had been refused permission to marry a politician already on the high road to place and power, and it was known to her that Jack had been going about with an actress.
“A family party,” said Jack, as their eyes met. “Let me introduce Miss Lawrence—Lady Muriel Dinneford.”
An exchange of aloof bows followed. And then, although very careful to seem to do nothing of the kind, each measured the other with an eye as hard and bright as a diamond. To neither was the result of this scrutiny exactly pleasant. It came upon Cousin Muriel with a little shock of surprise that “the Chorus Girl” should look just as she did, and that she knew how to bear herself in a way that did not yield an inch to the enemy, yet at the same time scrupulously refrained from offering battle. Here was beauty of a very compelling kind, and in the hostile view of its present beholder something more valuable. The distinguished air, the look of breeding, went some way to excuse a deplorable infatuation. But as far as “the Chorus Girl” herself was concerned, a little over-sensitive as circumstances may have made her on the score of her own dignity, it was far from pleasant to detect in this authentic member of the family that power of conveying subtle insult, without speech or look, which belonged to the two others, presumably her sisters, whom she had met in the Park.
Somehow the girl felt a keen rage within. It may have been the world of unconscious arrogance behind that aloof nod, it may have been the implicit challenge in the lidded glance down the long straight nose. But whatever the cause, Mary suddenly felt a surge of resentment in her very bones.
In the meantime, the People’s Candidate was playing his part to perfection. The flight of time had wrought wonders in this champion of Demos. He was no longer tongue-tied and awkward; even the roll of his “r’s” was so diminished that Ardnaleuchan would hardly have known its child. Everything was in perfect harmony. After a few brief passages with Harriet, audaciously humorous, in which homage was paid to old times, he turned with a sportsman’s eye to exchange a ready quip with Joe and Eliza.
Joe, in his heart, was scandalized. A Tory to the bone, in his view the social hierarchy was part of the cosmic order. It was unchanging, immutable. “Scotchie” was a charlatan, tongue in cheek; a mountebank of a fellow whom it was amazing that honest men, let alone high-born women, could not see through. Joe was determined to have no truck with him, but the People’s Candidate with a bonhomie which the former colleague of the X Division was inclined to regard as mere brazenness, seemed quite determined not to take rebuffs from an old friend.
“You haven’t a vote, Joe, I know,” said Maclean, “but you are a man of influence here and I want you to speak for me with your pals.”
Joe shook a solemn head.
“I don’t believe in your principles,” said he.
The voice, a growl of indignation, struck the ear of Lady Muriel a veritable blow. In spite of “the breadth” she was trying so hard to cultivate, the laws of her being demanded that these humble people should grovel. They were of another caste, another clay; somehow Joe’s blunt skepticism gave her a sense of personal affront.
“You have not a vote, Mr. Kelly,” she interposed, in a sharp tone. “Pray, why didn’t you tell me? A canvasser’s time is valuable.”
“Your ladyship never asked the question.”
“But you knew, surely, my object in coming?”
“I did,” said Joe coolly, with a slightly humorous air. “And I thought your ladyship so dangerous that the best thing I could do was to get you barking up the wrong tree.”
The answer delighted Maclean. He threw up his head and laughed like a school boy. But in the midst of a mirth that his fiancée was quite incapable of sharing with him, Jack and Mary rose to go. They had been waiting to seize the first chance which offered in order to escape from a decidedly irksome family party.
V
As Mary and Jack took leave, the penetrating eye of the new Home Secretary regarded them. The two men had not met before, but they were known to each other by hearsay. Jack had heard little good of Maclean—Sir Dugald had heard even less good of Jack. A light of amused malice sprang to their eyes in the moment of recognition. But from those of the Scotsman it quickly passed. For almost at once his attention was caught by the affectionate intimacy of the good-bys bestowed upon Joe, Eliza, and Harriet by a girl of quite remarkable interest.
Was it possible? The live thought flashed through Sir Dugald’s mind. In an instant it had leapt to the November evening of the year 1890. Immense quantities of water had flowed under the bridge since that far distant hour. And if this vivid, unforgettable girl was the creature he now suspected that she must be, here was one example the more of the romance of time, nature and circumstance.
As soon as Mary and Jack were away on what they called a joy-ride to Richmond, all Sir Dugald’s doubts in the matter were laid at rest. At once there followed a few brief, but pitiless and bitter passages between Harriet Sanderson and Lady Muriel.
“Tell me, Mrs. Sanderson,” said the younger woman in a tone of ice, “is Miss Lawrence a connection of yours?”
“My niece, my lady,” said Harriet, an odd tremor in her voice.
“A daughter, I presume, of your sister and her husband?”
“That is so, my lady.” Harriet’s tone was slowly deepening to that of her questioner.
“Of course, the matter will have to be mentioned at once to my father. And I’m afraid the consequences cannot fail to be serious. You must feel that it is very wrong to have connived at such a state of things.”
Harriet’s reply, brief but considered, made with a sudden flush of color and a lighted eye, was a cold denial. It was a short but painful scene, and its three witnesses would gladly have been spared it. Lady Muriel had lost a little of her poise. In spite of her “breadth” she was simply horrified by her discovery. She could not believe that Harriet spoke the truth. And the cunning, the duplicity, the chicane of a retainer who had held a privileged position for so many years filled her with an inward fury that was almost beyond control.
“One could not have believed it to be possible,” she said, in a voice that trembled ominously. And having discharged that Parthian bolt, she withdrew with the People’s Candidate in order to canvass the next house in the street.
VI
Such a departure left consternation in its train. After a moment of complete silence, Eliza burst into a sudden flood of tears, Joe put on his tunic with the air of a tragedian, but Harriet remained immovable as a statue.
“This comes of the stage,” wailed poor Eliza.
Joe felt the times themselves were to blame, at any rate they were sadly out of joint.
“I don’t know what things are coming to,” he said, flinging his slippers into a corner and putting on his boots. “Things are all upside down these days and no mistake.”
Harriet blamed no one. She merely stood white and shaken, a picture of tragic unhappiness.
“Gal,” said Joe, turning to her a Job’s comforter, “one thing is sure. You are going to lose your place.”
Harriet bit her lip, coldly disdaining a reply.
“As sure as eggs that’ll be the upshot,” proceeded Joe. “I’m sorry I let that jockey go without giving him a bit of my mind.”
“He is not to blame,” said Harriet tensely.
“Who is, then?”
“You and me, Joe,” sobbed Eliza, “for letting her go on the stage.”
“There was no stopping her—you know that well enough. As soon as she took up her dancing we lost all control of her. But we’ve got to be pretty sensible now. A nice tangle things are in, and they’ll take a bit of straightening out.”
Harriet shook a mournful head.
“What can people like ourselves possibly do?” she asked.
“I’ve a great mind,” said Joe, “to step as far as Bridport House and have a few words with his Grace.”
“That’s merely preposterous,” said Harriet decisively.
“The matter must be brought to his notice at once, any way,” said Joe doggedly.
“You can count upon that,” said Harriet grimly.
“But it’ll be one side only. And there’s the other, my gal.”
“What other?” Harriet asked with a drawn smile.
“Her side. She is not going to be made a fool of by anyone if I can help it.”
Said Harriet very gravely: “Joe, I sincerely hope you will not meddle in this. I am quite sure that any interference of ours will be most unwise.”
But Joe shook the head of a warrior.
“There you’re wrong. This is our affair and we’ve got to see it through.”
“Far better let the matter alone.”
“When we adopted that girl,” said Joe, “we took a great responsibility on ourselves, and we’ve got to live up to it. In my opinion that young man means no good.”
“You have no right to say that,” said Harriet quickly.
“I’ve a right to say what I think. And you know as well as I do that the likes o’ him don’t condescend to the likes o’ her with any good intention.”
Harriet flushed darkly.
“I am quite sure that Mr. Dinneford would always behave like a gentleman,” she said sternly.
“That is more than you know.”
“You seem to forget that he is one of the Family.”
Joe laughed rather sardonically. “I don’t blame you for being so set up with your precious Family,” he said. “It is only right that you should be—but I know what I know. Human nature’s human nature.”
Harriet shook her head. Not for a moment could she accept this point of view. Moreover, she strongly urged that there must not be interference of any kind with Bridport House.
“That’s as may be,” said Joe stoutly. “But you can take your oath that I mean to see justice done in the matter.”
“You talk as if she was your own daughter,” said Harriet, who was growing deeply annoyed.
“Ever since I gave her my name and my roof, I have looked on her as a gal of my own.”
“Yes, that we have,” chimed Eliza tearfully. “And I am sure that Joe is right to take the matter up.”
Again Harriet dissented. In her view, and she did not hesitate to express it forcibly, it would be sheer folly for people like themselves to meddle in such a delicate affair.
“It seems to me,” said Eliza bitterly, “that rather than go against Bridport House, you would ruin the girl.”
The words struck home. Eliza had long looked up to her younger sister. The position she held was one of honor, but Harriet’s exaggerated concern for an imposing machine of which she was no more than a very humble cog, somehow aroused Eliza’s deepest feelings.
“It is a very wicked thing to say.” And in the eyes of Harriet was an odd look.
“You set these grandees above everything in the world,” Eliza taunted. “Like the Dad, you simply worship them.”
A deadly pallor overspread Harriet’s face. Her eyes grew grim with pain and anger. But a powerful nature, schooled to self-discipline, fought for control and was able to gain it.
“It’s a futile discussion,” she said suddenly, in a changed tone. And then she added with an earnestness strangely touching. “Joe, I implore you not to take any step in the matter without first consulting me.”
The solemn words seemed to gain finality from the fact that Harriet Sanderson then walked abruptly out of the house.