the day was of early october, and dr. evans, who was driving his swift, steady cob, harnessed to the light dogcart, along the flat road towards norton, had leisure to observe the beauty of the flaming season. he had but a couple of visits to make, and neither of the cases caused him any professional anxiety. but it was with conscious effort that he commanded his obedient mind to cease worrying, and drink in the beneficent influence of this genial morning that followed on a night that had given them the first frost of the year. the road, after leaving riseborough, ran through a couple of level miles of delectable woodland; ditches filled and choked with the full-grown grass and herbage of the summer bordered it on each side. on the left, the sun had turned the frozen night-dews into a liquid heraldry, on the right where the roadside foliage was still in shadow, the faceted jewels of the frost that hinted of the coming winter still stiffened the herbage, and was white on the grey beards of the sprawling clematis in the hedges. but high above these low-growing tangles of vegetation, an ample glory flamed, and the great beech forest was all ablaze with orange and red flame tremulous in the breeze. here and there a yew-tree, tawny-trunked and green-velveted with undeciduous leaf, seemed like a black spot of unconsumed fuel in the fire of the autumn; here a company of sturdy{223} oaks seemed like a group of square-shouldered young men amid the maidens of the woodland. it had its fairies too, the sylph-like birches, whose little leaves seemed shed about their white shapeliness like a shower of confetti. then, in the more open glades, short and rabbit-cropped turf sparkled emerald-like amid the sober greys and browns of the withering heather and the russet antlers of the bracken. now and then a rabbit with white scutt, giving a dot-and-dash signal of danger to his family, would scamper into shelter at the rattle of the approaching dogcart. now and then a pheasant, whose plumage seemed to reproduce in metal the tints of the golden autumn, strode with lowered head and tail away from the dangerous vicinity of man. below the beeches the ground was uncarpeted by any vegetation, but already the “fallen glories” of the leaf were beginning to lie there, and occasionally a squirrel ran rustling across them, and having gained the security of his lofty ways among the trees, scolded puck-like at the interruption that had made him leave his breakfast of the burst beech-nuts. to the right, below the high-swung level road, the ground declined sharply, and gave glimpses of the distant sun-burnished sea; above, small companies of feathery clouds, assembled together as if migrating for the winter, fluttered against the summer azure of the sky.
dr. evans’ alert and merry eye dwelt on those delectable things, and in obedience to his brain, noted and appreciated the manifold festivity of the morning, but it did so not as ordinarily, by instinct and eager impulses, but because he consciously bade it. it needed the spur; its alertness and its merriness were pressed on it, and by degrees the spur failed to{224} stimulate it, and he fell to regarding the well-groomed quarters of his long-stepping cob, which usually afforded him so pleasant a contemplation of strong and harmonious muscularity. but this morning even they failed to delight him, and the rhythm of its firm trot made no music in his mind. there came a crease which deepened into a decided frown between his eyes, and he communed with the trouble in his mind.
there were various lesser worries, not of sufficient importance to disturb seriously the equanimity of a busy and well-balanced man, and though each was trivial enough in itself, and distinctly had a humorous side to a mind otherwise content, the cumulative effect of them was not amusing. in the first place, there was the affair of harry ames, who, in a manner sufficiently ludicrous and calfish, had been making love to his wife. as any other sensible man would have done, wilfred evans had seen almost immediately on his return to riseborough that harry was disposed to make himself ridiculous, and had given a word of kindly warning to his wife.
“snub him a bit, little woman,” he had said. “we’re having a little too much of him. it’s fairer on the boy, too. you’re too kind to him. a woman like you so easily turns a boy’s head. and you’ve often said he is rather a dreadful sort of youth.”
but for some reason she took the words in ill part, becoming rather precise.
“i don’t know what you mean,” she said. “will you explain, please?”
“easy enough, my dear. he’s here too much; he’s dangling after you. laugh at him a little, or yawn a little.{225}”
“you mean that he’s in love with me?”
“well, that’s too big a word, little woman, though i’m sure you see what i mean.”
“i think i do. i think your suggestion is rather coarse, wilfred, and quite ill-founded. is every one who is polite and attentive supposed to be in love with me? i only ask for information.”
“i think your own good sense will supply you with all necessary information,” he said.
but her good sense apparently had done nothing of the kind, and eventually dr. evans had spoken to harry’s father on the subject. the visits had ceased with amazing abruptness after that, and dr. evans had found himself treated to a stare of blank unrecognition when he passed harry in the street, and a curl of the lip which he felt must have been practised in private. but the omar khayyam club would be the gainers, for they owed to it those stricken and embittered stanzas called “parted.”
here comedy verged on farce, but the farce did not amuse him. he knew that his own interpretation of harry’s assiduous presence was correct, so why should his wife have so precisely denied that those absurd attentions meant nothing? there was nothing to resent in the sensible warning that a man was greatly attracted by her. nor was there warrant for colonel ames’ horror and dismay at the suggestion, when the doctor spoke to him about it. “infamous young libertine” was surely a hyperbolical expression.
dr. evans unconsciously flicked the cob rather sharply with his whip-lash, to that excellent animal’s surprise, for he was covering his miles in five minutes apiece, and the doctor conveyed his apologies for his unintentional hint with a soothing remark. then{226} his thoughts drifted back again. that was not all the trouble with the ames’ family, for his wife had had a quarrel with mrs. ames. this kindly man hated to quarrel with anybody, and, for his part, successfully refused to do so, and that his wife should find herself in such a predicament was equally distressing to him. no doubt it was all a storm in a tea-cup, but if you happen to be living in the tea-cup too, a storm there is just as upsetting as a gale on the high seas. it is worse, indeed, for on the high seas a ship can run into fairer weather, but there is no escape from these tea-cup disturbances. the entire tea-cup was involved: all riseborough, which a year ago had seemed to him so suitable a place in which to pursue an unexacting practice, to conduct mild original work, in the peace and quiet of a small society and domestic comfort, was become a tempest of conflicting winds. “and all arising from such a pack of nonsense,” as the doctor thought impatiently to himself, only just checking the whip-lash from falling again on the industrious cob.
the interest of mrs. ames in the suffragette movement had given rise to all this. she had announced a drawing-room meeting to be held in her house, now a fortnight ago, and the drawing-room meeting had exploded in mid-career, like a squib, scattering sparks and combustible material over all riseborough. it appeared that mrs. ames, finding that the comprehension of suffragette aims extended to the middle-class circles in riseborough, had asked the wives and daughters of tradesmen to take part in it. it wanted but little after that to make mrs. altham remark quite audibly that she had not known that she was to have the privilege of meeting so many ladies with{227} whom she was not previously acquainted, and the sarcastic intention of her words was not lost upon her new friends. tea seemed but to increase the initial inflammation, and the interest mrs. ames had intended to awake on the subject of votes for women was changed into an interest in ascertaining who could be most offensively polite, a very pretty game. it is not to be wondered at that, before twenty-four hours had passed, mrs. altham had started an anti-suffragette league, and millie, still strong in the conviction that under no circumstances could she go to prison, had allowed herself to be drawn into it. next night at dinner she softly made a terrible announcement.
“i passed cousin amy in the street just now,” she said; “she did not seem to see me.”
“perhaps she didn’t see you, little woman,” said her husband.
“so i did not seem to see her,” added millie, who had not finished her sentence. “but if she cares to come to see me and explain, i shall behave quite as usual to her.”
“come, come, little woman!” said dr. evans in a conciliating spirit.
“and i do not see what is the good of saying ‘come, come,’” she said, with considerable precision.
all this was sufficient to cause very sensible disquiet to a man who attached so proper an importance to peaceful and harmonious conditions of life, yet it was but a small thing compared to a far deeper anxiety that brooded over him. till now he had not let himself directly contemplate it, but to-day, as he returned from his two visits, he made himself face this last secret trouble. he felt it was necessary for him to ascertain, for the sake of others no less than himself,{228} what part, if any, of his disquiet was grounded on certainty, what part, if any, might be the figment of an over-anxious imagination. but he knew he was not anxious by temperament, nor given to imagine troubles. if anything, he was more prone, in his desire for a pleasant and studious life, to shut his eyes to the apparent approach of storm, trusting that it would blow by. he was anxious about millie, not without cause; a hundred symptoms justified his anxiety. she who for so long had been of such imperturbable serenity of temper that a man who did not feel her charm might have called her jelly-fish was the prey of fifty moods a day. she had strange little fits of tenderness to him, with squalls of peevishness quite as strange. she was restless and filled with an energy that flamed and flickered and vanished, leaving her indolent and inert. she would settle herself for a morning of letter writing, and after tearing up a couple of notes, put on her gardening gloves and get as far as the herbaceous bed. then she would find an imperative reason for going into the town, and so sit down at her piano to practise. her appetite, usually of the steady reliable order, failed her, and she passed broken and tossing nights. had she been a girl, he would have said those symptoms all pointed one way; and it would probably not have been difficult to guess who was the young man in question. yet he could scarcely face the conclusion applied to his wife. it was a hideous thing that a husband should harbour such a suspicion, more hideous that the husband should be himself. and perhaps more hideous of all, that he should guess—again without difficulty—who was the man in question.{229}
he had no conception what to do, or whether to do nothing; it seemed that action and inaction might alike end in disaster. and, again, the whole of his explanation of millie’s symptoms might be erroneous. there might be other explanations—indeed, there were others possible. as to that, time would show; at present the best course, perhaps the only right course, was to be watchful, yet not suspicious, observant, not prying. rather than pry or be suspicious he would go to millie herself, and without reservation tell her all that had been in his mind. he was well aware what the heroic attitude, the attitude of the virile, impetuous englishman, dear to melodrama, would have been. it was quite easy for him to “tax” major ames with baseness, to grind his teeth at his wife, and then burst into manly tears, each sob of which seemed to rend him. but to his quiet, sensible nature, it seemed difficult to see what was supposed to happen next. in melodrama the curtain went down, and you started ten years later in queensland with regenerated natures distributed broadcast. but in actual life it was impossible to start again ten years later, or ten minutes later. you had to go on all the time. willingly would he, on this divine october morning, have started again, indefinitely later. the difficulty was how to go on now.
his cases had not long detained him, and it was still not long after noon when the cob, still pleased and alert with motion, but with smoking flanks, drew up at his door. the clear chill of the morning had altogether passed, and the air in the basin or tea-cup of a town was still and sultry. there was a familiar hat on the table in the hall, a bunch of long-stemmed{230} tawny chrysanthemums lay by it. and at that sight some distant echo of barbaric and simple man, deplorable to the smoothness of civilization and altogether obsolete, was resonant in him. he pitched the chrysanthemums into the street, where they flew like a shooting star close by the head of general fortescue, who was tottering down to the club, and slammed the door. it was melodramatic and foolish enough, but the desire that prompted it was quite sincere and irresistible, and if at the moment major ames had been in that cool oak-panelled hall, there is little doubt that dr. evans would have done his best to pitch him out after his flowers.
the doctor gave himself a moment to recover from his superficial violence, and then went out into the garden. they were sitting together on the bench under the mulberry-tree, and major ames got up with his usual briskness as he approached. somehow dr. evans felt as if he was being welcomed and made to feel at home.
“good morning,” said major ames. “glorious day, isn’t it? i just stepped over with a handful of flowers, and we’ve been having a bit of a chat, a bit of a chat.”
“cousin lyndhurst has very kindly come to talk over all these little disturbances,” said millie.
she looked at him.
“shall i explain?” she asked.
dr. evans took the seat that major ames had vacated, leaving him free to sit down in a garden chair opposite, or to stand, just as he pleased.
“it is like this, wilfred,” she said. “cousin amy did not like my joining the anti-suffragette league which mrs. altham started, and i have told lyndhurst that i did not care a straw one way or the other,{231} except that i could not go to prison to please cousin amy or any one else. but it looked like taking sides, she thought. so lyndhurst thought it would make everything easy if i didn’t join any league at all. i think it very clever and tactful of him to think of that, and i will certainly tell mrs. altham i find i am too busy. of course, there is no quarrel between cousin amy and me, and lyndhurst wants to assure us that he isn’t mixed up in it, though there isn’t any—and, of course, if cousin amy didn’t see me the other day when i thought she pretended not to, it makes a difference.”
millie delivered herself of these lucid statements with her usual deferential air.
“i think it is very kind of cousin lyndhurst to take so much trouble,” she added. “he is stopping to lunch.”
major ames made a noble little gesture that disclaimed any credit.
“it’s nothing, a mere nothing,” he said, quite truly. “but i’m sure you hate little domestic jars as much as i do. as amy once said, my profession was to be a man of war, but my instinct was to be a man of peace. ha! ha! i’m only delighted my little olive branch has—has met with success,” he added rather feebly, being unable to think of any botanical metaphor.
the doctor got up. it is to be feared that, in his present state of mind, he felt not the smallest admiration or gratitude for the work of lyndhurst the peacemaker, but only saw in it a purely personal desire to secure an uninterrupted va et vient between the two houses.
“i’m sure i haven’t the slightest intention of{232} quarrelling with anybody,” he said. “it seems to me the most deplorable waste of time and energy, besides being very uncomfortable. let us go in to lunch, millie; i have to go out again at two o’clock.”
millie wrote an amiable and insincere little note to mrs. altham, which major ames undertook to deliver on his way home, explaining how, since elsie had gone to dresden to perfect herself in the german language, she herself had become so busy that she did not know which way to turn, besides missing elsie very much. she felt, therefore, that since she would not be able to give as much time as she wished to this very interesting anti-suffragette movement, it would be better not to give to it any time at all. this she wrote directly after her husband had gone out again, and brought to major ames, who was waiting for it. he, too, had said he would have to be off at once. she gave him the note.
“there it is,” she said; “and so many thanks for leaving it. but you are not hurrying away at once, are you?”
“am i not keeping you in?” he asked.
she pulled down the lace blinds over the window that looked into the street; the october sun, it is true, beat rather hotly into the room, but the instinct that dictated her action was rather a desire for privacy.
“as if i would not sooner sit and talk to you,” she said, “than go out. i have no one to go out with. i am rather lonely since elsie has gone, and i daresay i shall not see wilfred again till dinner-time. it is rather amusing that i have just written to mrs. altham to say how busy i am.”
he came and sat a little closer to her.{233}
“upon my word,” he said, “i am in the same boat as you. i haven’t set eyes on amy all morning, and this afternoon i know she has a couple of meetings. it’s extraordinary how this idea of votes for women has taken hold of her. not a bad thing, though, as long as she doesn’t go making a fool of herself in public, and as long as she doesn’t have any more quarrels with you.”
“what would you have done if she had really wished to quarrel with me over mrs. altham’s league?” she asked.
“just what i told her. i said i would be no partner to it, and as long as you would receive me here en gar?on i should always come.”
“that was dear of you,” she said softly.
she paused a moment.
“sometimes i think we made a mistake in coming to settle here,” she said; “but you know how obstinate wilfred is, and how little influence i have with him. but then, again, i think of our friendship. i have not had many friends. i think, perhaps, i am too shy and timid with people. when i like them very much i find it difficult to express myself. it is rather sad not to be able to show what you feel quite frankly. it prevents your being understood by the people whom you most want to understand you.”
but beneath this profession of incompetence, it seemed to major ames that there lurked a very efficient strength. he felt himself being gradually overpowered by a superior force, a force that did not strike and disable and overbear, but cramped and paralysed the power of its adversary, enfolding him, clinging to him. there was still something in him, some part of his will which was hostile and opposed{234} to her: it was just that which she assailed. and in alliance with that paralysing force was her attraction and charm—soft, yielding, feminine; the two advanced side by side, terrible twins.
he did not answer for a moment, and it flashed across his mind that this cool room, shaded from the street glare by the lace curtains, and suffused with the greenish glow of the sunlight reflected from the lawn outside, was like a trap.... she gave a little laugh.
“see how badly i express myself,” she said. “you are puzzling, frowning. don’t frown, you look best when you are laughing. i get so tired of frowning faces. wilfred so often frowns all dinner-time when he is thinking over something connected with microbes. and he frowns over his chess, when he cannot make up his mind whether to exchange bishops. we play chess every evening.”
instinctively she had drawn back a little, when she saw he did not advance to meet her, and spoke as if chess and the pathos of her dumbness to express friendship were things of equal moment. there was no calculation about it: it was the expression of one type, the eternal feminine attracted and wishing to attract. her descent to these commonplaces restored his confidence; the room was a trap no longer, but the pleasant drawing-room he knew so well, with its charming mistress seated by him. it was almost inevitable that he should contrast the hot plushes and saddle-bag cushions of his own, its angular chairs and axminster carpets with the cool chintzes here, the lace-shrouded windows, the persian rugs. more marked was the contrast between the mistresses of the two houses. amy had been writing at her davenport a good deal lately, and her short, stiff back{235} had been the current picture of her. here was a woman, dim in the half light, wanting to talk to him, to make timid confidences, to make him realize how much his friendship meant to her. his confidence returned with disarming completeness.
“well, i’m sure i should find it dismal enough at home,” he said, “if i hadn’t somewhere to go to, knowing i should find a welcome. mind you, i don’t blame amy. for years now, when we’ve been alone in the evening, she has done her work, and i have read the paper, and i daresay we haven’t said a dozen words till parker brought in the bedroom candles, or sometimes we play picquet—for love. but now evenings spent like that seem to me very prosy and dismal. perhaps it’s harrogate that has made me a bit more supple and youthful, though i’m sure it’s ridiculous enough that a tough old campaigner like me should feel such things——”
mrs. evans put forward her chin, raising her face towards him.
“but why ridiculous?” she asked. “you must be so much younger than dear cousin amy. i wonder—i wonder if she feels that too?”
there was there a very devilish suggestion, the more so because, in proportion to the suggestion, so very little was stated. it succeeded admirably.
“poor dear amy!” said he.
he had said that once before, when cleopatra-amy was contrasted with cleopatra-millie. but there was a significance in the repetition of it. once the assumed identity of character had suggested the comment, now there was no assumed character. it concerned millie and amy themselves.
mrs. evans put back her chin.{236}
“i am sure cousin amy ought to be very happy,” she said softly. “you are so devoted to her, and all. i almost think you spoil her, lyndhurst. it is all so romantic. fancy being a woman, and as old as cousin amy, and yet having a young man so devoted. harry, too!”
again a billow of confidence tinged with self-appreciation surged over major ames. after all, his wife was much older than him, for he was still a young man, and his youth was being expanded on sweet-peas and the garden roller. and he was stirred into a high flight of philosophical conjecture.
“my god, what a puzzle life is!” he observed.
she rose to this high-water mark.
“and it might be so simple,” she said. “it should be so easy to be happy.”
then major ames knew where he was. in one sense he was worthy of the occasion, in another he did not feel up to all that it implied. he rose hastily.
“i had better go,” he said rather hoarsely.
but he had smoked five cigarettes since lunch. the hoarseness might easily have been the result of this indulgence.
she did not attempt to keep him, nor did she make it incumbent on him to give her a kiss, however cousinly. she did not even rise, but only looked up at him from her low chair as she gave him her hand, smiling a little secretly, as monna lisa smiles. but she felt quite satisfied with their talk; he would think over it, and find fresh signals and private beckonings in it.
“come and see me again,” she said. there was a touch of imperativeness in her tone.
she looked through the lace curtain and saw him go out into the street. there was something in the{237} gutter of the roadway which he inquired into with the end of his stick. it looked like a withered bunch of dusty chrysanthemums.
mrs. ames, meantime, had lunched at home, and gone off immediately afterwards, as her husband had conjectured, to a meeting. in the last month the membership of her league had largely increased, and it was no longer possible to convene its meetings in her own drawing-room, for it numbered some fifty persons, including a dozen men of enlightened principles. even at first, as has been seen, she had welcomed (thereby incurring mrs. altham’s disapproval) several ladies with whom she did not usually associate, and now the gathering was entirely independent of all class distinctions. the wife of the station-master, for instance, was one of the most active members and walked up and down the platform with a large rosette of suffragette colours selling current copies of the clarion. and no less remarkable than this growth of the league was the growth of mrs. ames. she was neither pompous nor condescending to those persons whom, a couple of months ago, she would have looked upon as being barely existent, except if they were all in church, when she would very probably have shared a hymn-book with any of them, the “idea” for which they had assembled galvanizing them, though strictly temporarily, into the class of existent people. now, the idea which brought them together in the commodious warehouse, kindly lent and sufficiently furnished by mr. turner, had given them a permanent existence, and they were not automatically blotted out of her book of life the moment these meetings were over, as they would have{238} been so short a time ago in church, when the last “amen” was said. the bonds of her barren and barbaric conventionality were bursting; indeed, it was not so much that others, not even those of “her class,” were becoming women to her, as that she was becoming a woman herself. she had scarcely been one hitherto; she had been a piece of perfect propriety. and how far she had travelled from her original conception of the suffragette movement as suitable to supply a novelty for the autumn that would eclipse the memory of the shakespearean ball, may be gathered from the fact that she no longer took the chair at these meetings, but was an ordinary member. mr. turner had far more experience in the duties of a chairman: she had herself proposed him and would have seconded him as well, had such a step been in order.
to-day the meeting was assembled to discuss the part which the league should take in the forthcoming elections. the tory government was at present in power, and likely to remain in office, while riseborough itself was a fairly safe seat for the tory member, who was sir james westbourne. before polemical or obstructive measures could be decided on, it had clearly been necessary to ascertain sir james’ views on the subject of votes for women, and to-day his answer had been received and was read to the meeting. it was as unsatisfactory as it was brief, and their “obedient servant” had no sympathy with, and so declined to promise any support to, their cause. mr. turner read this out, and laid it down on his desk.
“will ladies or gentlemen give us their views on the course we are to adopt?” he said.{239}
a dozen simultaneously rose, and simultaneously sat down again. the chairman asked mrs. brooks to address the meeting. another and another succeeded her, and there was complete unanimity of purpose in their suggestions. sir james’ meetings and his speeches to his constituents must not be allowed to proceed without interruption. if he had no sympathy with the cause, the cause would show a marked lack of sympathy with him. thereafter the league resolved itself into a committee of ways and means. the president of the board of trade was coming to support sir james’ candidature at a meeting the date of which was already fixed for a fortnight hence, and it was decided to make a demonstration in force. and as the discussion went on, and real practical plans were made, that strange fascination and excitement at the thought of shouting and interrupting at a public meeting, of becoming for the first time of some consequence, began to seethe and ferment. most of the members were women, whose lives had been passed in continuous self-repression, who had been frozen over by the narcotic ice of a completely conventional and humdrum existence. many of them were unmarried and already of middle-age; their natural human instincts had never known the blossoming and honey which the fulfilment of their natures would have brought. to the eagerness and sincerity with which they welcomed a work that demanded justice for their sex, there was added this excitement of doing something at last. there was an opportunity of expansion, of stepping out, under the stimulus of an idea, into an experience that was real. in kind, this was akin to martyrs who rejoiced and sang when the prospects of prosecution came near;{240} as martyrs for the sake of their faith thought almost with glee of the rack and the burning, so, minutely, the very prospect of discomfort and rough handling seemed attractive, if, by such means, the cause was infinitesimally advanced. to this, a sincere and wholly laudable desire, was added the more personal stimulus. they would be doing something, instead of suffering the tedium of passivity, acting instead of being acted on. for it is only through centuries of custom that the woman, physically weak and liable to be knocked down, has become the servant of the other sex. she is fiercer at heart, more courageous, more scornful of consequences than he; it is only muscular inferiority of strength that has subdued her into the place that she occupies, that, and the periods when, for the continuance of the race, she must submit to months of tender and strong inaction. there she finds fruition of her nature, and there awakes in her a sweet indulgence for the strange, childish lust of being master, of parading, in making of laws and conventions, his adventitious power, of the semblance of sovereignty that has been claimed by man. at heart she knows that he has but put a tinsel crown on his head, and robed himself in spangles that but parody real gold. she lays a woman’s hand on his child-head, and to please him says, “how wise you are, how strong, how clever.” and the child is pleased, and loves her for it. and there is her weakness, for the most dominant thing in her nature is the need of being loved. from the beginning it must have been so. when adam’s rib was taken from him in sleep, he lost more than was left him, and woke to find all his finer self gone from him. he was left a blundering bumble-bee: to the rib that was taken{241} from him clung the courage of the lioness, the wisdom of the serpent, the gentleness of the dove, the cunning of the spider, and the mysterious charm of the firefly that dances in the dusk. but to that rib also clung the desire to be loved. otherwise, in the human race, the male would be slain yearly like the drone of the hive. but the strange thing that grew from the rib, like flowers from buried carrion, desired love. there was its strength and its weakness.
it desired love, and in its desire it suffered all degradation to obtain it. and no leanness of soul entered into the gratification of its desire. only when its desire was pinched and rationed, or when, by the operation of civilized law, all fruit of desire was denied it, so that the blossom of sex was made into one unfruitful bud, did revolt come. long generations produced the germ, long generations made it active. at length it swam up to sight, from subaqueous dimnesses, feeble and violent, conscious of the justice of its cause and demanding justice. but what helped to make the desire for justice so attractive was the violence, the escape from self-repression that the demand gave opportunity for, to many who, all their lives, had been corked or wired down in comfort, which no woman cares about, or sealed up in spinsterhood and decorous emptiness of days. there was justice in the demand, and hysterical excitement in demanding.
to others, and in this little league of riseborough there were many such, the prospect of making those demands was primarily appalling, and to none more than to poor mrs. ames, when the plan of campaign was discussed, decided on, and entrusted to the{242} members of the league. it required almost more courage than the idea was capable of inspiring to face, even in anticipation, the thought of shouting “votes for women” when good-humoured cousin james rose and said “ladies and gentlemen!” very possibly, as had often happened in cousin james’ previous candidatures, lyndhurst would wish his wife to ask him and the president of the board of trade to dinner before the meeting, an occasion which would warrant the materialization of the most sumptuous of all the dinners tabulated on the printed menu-cards, while sherry would be given with soup, hock with fish, and a constant flow of champagne be kept up afterwards, until port time. in that case cousin james would certainly ask them to sit on the platform, and they would roll richly to the town hall in his motor, all blazing with conservative colours, while she, in a small bag, would be surreptitiously conveying there her great suffragette rosette, and a small steel chain with a padlock. she would be sitting probably next the mayor, who would introduce the speakers, and no doubt refer to “the presence of the fair sex” who graced the platform. during this she would have to pin her colours on her dress, chain herself up like andromeda, snap the patent spring-lock of the padlock, and when sir james rose ... her imagination could not grapple with the picture: it turned sickly away, refusing to contemplate. and this to a cousin and a guest, who had just eaten the best salt, so to speak, of her table, from one who all her life had been so perfect a piece of propriety! she felt far too old a bottle for such new wine. sitting surrounded by fellow-crusaders, and infected by the proximity of their undiluted enthusiasm, it{243} would be difficult enough, but that she should chain herself, perhaps, to the very leg of the table which cousin james would soon thump in the fervour of his oratory, as he announced all those tory platitudes in which she so firmly believed, and which she must so shrilly interrupt, while sitting solitary in the desert of his sleek and staid supporters, was not only an impossible but an unthinkable achievement. whatever horrors fate, that gruesome weaver of nightmares, might have in store for her, she felt that here was something that transcended imagination. she could not sit on the platform with lyndhurst and cousin james and the mayor and lady westbourne, and do what was required of her, for the sake of any crusade. curfew, so to speak, would have to ring that night.
she and lyndhurst were dining alone the evening after this meeting of “ways and means,” he in that state of mind which she not inaptly described as “worried” when she felt kind, and “cross” when she felt otherwise. he had come home hot from his walk, and, having sat in his room where there was no fire, when evening fell chilly, had had a smart touch of lumbago. thus there were clearly two causes for complaint against amy, and a third disturbing topic, for there was no shadow of doubt that it was his bouquet of chrysanthemums that he had found in the road outside dr. evans’ house, and even before the lumbago had produced its characteristic pessimism, he had been unable to find any encouraging explanation of this floral castaway.
“i’m sure i don’t know what was the good of my spending all august,” he said, “in that filthy hole of a harrogate, at no end of expense, too, if i’m to be crippled all winter. but you urged me to so{244} strongly: should never have thought of going there otherwise.”
“my dear, you have only been crippled for half-an-hour at present,” she observed. “it is a great bore, but if only you will take a good hot bath to-night, and have a very light dinner, i expect you will be much better in the morning. parker, tell them to see that there is plenty of hot water in the kitchen boiler.”
“it’ll be the only warm thing in the house, if there is,” said he. “my room was like an ice-house when i came in. positively like an ice-house. enough to give a man pneumonia, let alone lumbago. soup cold, too.”
“my dear, you should take more care of yourself,” said mrs. ames placidly. “why did you not light the fire instead of being cold? i’m sure it was laid.”
“and have it just burning up at dinner-time,” said he, “when i no longer wanted it.”
it was still early in the course of dinner.
“light the fire in the drawing-room, parker,” said mrs. ames. “let there be a good fire when we come out of dinner.”
“get roasted alive,” said major ames, half to himself, but intending to be heard.
but mrs. ames’ mind had been feasting for weeks past on things which had a solider existence than her husband’s unreasonable strictures. since this new diet had been hers, his snaps and growls had produced no effect: they often annoyed her into repartee, and as likely as not, a few months ago, she would have said that his claret seemed a very poor kind of beverage. but to-night she felt not the smallest desire to retort. she was very sorry for his lumbago, but felt no inclination to carry the war into his territories, or to{245} tell him that if people, perspiring freely, and of gouty habit, choose to sit down without changing, and get chilly, they must expect reprisal for their imprudence.
“then we will open the window, dear,” she said, “if we find we are frizzling. but i don’t think it will be too hot. evenings are chilly in october. did you have a pleasant lunch, lyndhurst? indeed, i don’t know where you lunched. i ordered curry for you. i sat down at a quarter to two as you did not come in.”
it was all so infinitesimal ... yet it was the mental diet which had supported her for years. perhaps after dinner they would play picquet. the garden, the kitchen, for years, except for gossip infinitely less real, these had been the topics. there had been no joy for him in the beauty of the garden, only a pleased sense of proprietorship, if a rare plant flowered, or if there were more roses than usual. for her, she had been vaguely pleased if lyndhurst had taken two helpings of a dish, and both of them had been vaguely disquieted if harry quoted swinburne.
“i lunched with the evans’,” he said. “by the way, i met your cousin james westbourne this afternoon, when i was on my walk. extraordinarily cordial he gets when there’s business ahead that brings him into riseborough, and he wants to cadge a dinner or two. it’s little notice he takes of us the rest of the year, and i’m sure it’s a couple of years since he so much as sent us a brace of pheasants, and more than that since he asked me to shoot there. but as i say, when he wants to pick up a dinner or two in riseborough, he’s all heartiness, and saying he doesn’t see half enough of us. he doesn’t seem to strain himself in trying to see more, and ther{246}e’s seldom a week-end when he and that great guy of a wife of his don’t have the house packed with people. i suppose we’re not smart enough for them, except when it’s convenient to dine in riseborough. then he’s not above drinking a bottle of my champagne.”
mrs. ames was eager in support of her husband.
“i’m sure there’s no call for you to open any more bottles for him, my dear,” she said. “if cousin james wants to see us, he can take his turn in asking us. and harriet is a great guy, as you say, with her big fiddle-head.”
major ames shrugged his shoulders rather magnificently.
“i’m sure i don’t grudge him his dinner,” he said, “and, in point of fact, i told him he could come and dine with us before his first meeting. he’s got some cabinet minister with him, and i said he could bring him too. you might get up a little party, that’s to say if i’m not in bed with this infernal lumbago. and cousin james will return our hospitality by giving us seats on the platform to hear him stamp and stammer and rant. an infernal bad speaker. never heard a worse. wretched delivery, nothing to say, and says it all fifty times over. enough to make a man turn radical. however, he’ll have made himself at home with my mumm, and perhaps he’ll go to sleep himself before he sends us off.”
this, of course, represented the lumbago-view. major ames had been fulsomely cordial to cousin james, and had himself urged the dinner that he represented now as being forced on him.
“have you actually asked him, lyndhurst?” said mrs. ames rather faintly. “did he say he would come?{247}”
“did you ever know your cousin james refuse a decent dinner?” asked lyndhurst. “and he was kind enough to say he would like it at a quarter past seven. cool, upon my word! i wish i had asked him if he’d have thick soup or clear, and if he preferred a wing to a leg. that’s the sort of thing one never thinks of till afterwards.”
mrs. ames was not attending closely: there was that below the surface which claimed all her mind. consequently she missed the pungency of this irony, hearing only the words.
“cousin james never takes soup at all,” she said. “he told me it always disagreed.”
major ames sighed; his lumbago felt less acute, his ill-temper had found relief in words, and he had long ago discovered that women had no sense of humour. on the whole, it was gratifying to find the truth of this so amply endorsed. for the moment it put him into quite a good temper.
“i’m afraid i’ve been grumbling all dinner,” he said. “shall we go into the other room? there’s little sense in my looking at the decanters, if i mayn’t take my glass of port. eh! that was a twinge!”
