Denzil Quarrier

"And did you encourage her alarm?"

"I felt I had no right to do that. To avoid repeating the word, I said that I didn't think that system would ever find favour in England. At the same time, it was quite certain that our army would have to be greatly strengthened if this war-fever went on. Oh, we had an endless talk—and she was certainly impressed with my arguments."

"Bravo! Why, this is something like!"

"You can't think what courage it has given me! To-morrow I shall go to Mrs. Clifford—yes, I shall. She is far more formidable; but I want to try my strength."

"Ho, ho! What a pugnacious Lily—a sword-Lily! You ought to have had an heroic name—Deborah, or Joan, or Portia! Your eyes gleam like beacons."

"I feel more contented with myself.—Oh, I am told that Mrs. Wade called this afternoon?"

"Yes; anxious to see you. Burning with wrath against female Toryism. She was astonished when I told her of your expedition."

Lilian laughed merrily. Thereupon dinner was announced, and they left the room hand in hand.

That evening it was rumoured throughout the town that Mr. Welwyn-Baker had telegraphed a resolve not to offer himself for re-election. In a committee-room at the Constitutional Literary Society was held an informal meeting of Conservatives, but no one of them had definite intelligence to communicate. Somebody had told somebody else that Hugh Welwyn-Baker held that important telegram from his father; that was all. Mr. Mumbray's hopes rose high. On the morrow, at another meeting rather differently constituted (miserable lack of organization still evident among the Tories), it was made known on incontestable authority that the sitting Member would offer himself for re-election. Mr. Mumbray and his supporters held high language. "It would be party suicide," they went about repeating. With such a man as Denzil Quarrier on the Radical side, they must have a new and a strong candidate! But all was confusion; no one could take the responsibility of acting.

Already the affairs of the Liberals were in perfect crier, and it took but a day or two to decide even the minutiae of the campaign. To Quarrier's candidature no one within the party offered the least opposition. Mr. Chown, who had for some time reserved his judgment, declared to all and sundry that "all things considered, a better man could scarcely have been chosen." Before thus committing himself he had twice called upon Quarrier, and been closeted with him for a longtime. Now, in these days of arming, he received a card inviting him (and his wife) to dine at the candidate's house on a certain evening a fortnight ahead; it was the second dinner that Denzil had planned, but Mr. Chown was not aware of this, nor that the candidate had remarked of him to Lilian: "We must have that demagogue among his kind, of course." Denzil's agent (Hummerstone by name) instantly secured rooms in admirable situations, and the Public Hall was at the disposal of the party for their first great meeting a few days hence.

In facing that assembly (Toby Liversedge was chairman) Denzil had a very slight and very brief recurrence of his platform nervousness. Determined to risk nothing, he wrote out his speech with great care and committed it to memory. The oration occupied about two hours, with not a moment of faltering. It was true that he had discovered his vocation; he spoke like a man of long Parliamentary experience, to the astonished delight of his friends, and with enthusiastic applause from the mass of his hearers. Such eloquence had never been heard in Polterham. If anything, he allowed himself too much scope in vituperation, but it was a fault on the right side. The only circumstance that troubled him was when his eye fell upon Lilian, and he saw her crying with excitement; a fear passed through his mind that she might be overwrought and fall into hysterics, or faint. The occasion proved indeed too much for her; that night she did not close her eyes, and the next day saw her prostrate in nervous exhaustion. But she seemed to pick up her strength again very quickly, and was soon hard at work canvassing among the electors' wives.

"Don't overdo it," Denzil cautioned her. "Remember, if you are ill, I shall mope by your bedside."

"I can't stop now that I have begun," was her reply. "If I try to sit idle, I shall be ill."

She could read nothing but newspapers; her piano was silent; she talked politics, and politics only. Never was seen such a change in woman, declared her intimates; yet, in spite of probabilities, they thought her more charming than ever. No word of animosity ever fell from her lips; what inspired her was simple ardour for Denzil's cause, and, as she considered it, that of the oppressed multitude. In her way, said Toby Liversedge, she was as eloquent as Quarrier himself, and sundry other people were of the same opinion.

CHAPTER XVI

With sullen acquiescence the supporters of Mr. Mumbray and "Progressive Conservatism"—what phrase is not good enough for the lips of party?—recognized that they must needs vote for the old name. Dissension at such a moment was more dangerous than an imbecile candidate. Mr. Sam Quarrier had declared that rather than give his voice for Mumbray he would remain neutral. "Old W.-B. is good enough for a figure-head; he signifies something. If we are to be beaten, let it be on the old ground." That defeat was likely enough, the more intelligent Conservatives could not help seeing. Many of them (Samuel among the number) had no enthusiasm for Beaconsfield, and la haute politique as the leader understood it, but they liked still less the principles represented by Councillor Chown and his vociferous regiment. So the familiar bills were once more posted about the streets, and once more the Tory canvassers urged men to vote for Welwyn-Baker in the name of Church and State.

At Salutary Mount (this was the name of the ex-Mayor's residence) personal disappointment left no leisure for lamenting the prospects of Conservatism. Mr. Mumbray shut himself up in the room known as his "study." Mrs. Mumbray stormed at her servants, wrangled with her children, and from her husband held apart in sour contempt—feeble, pompous creature that he was! With such an opportunity, and unable to make use of it! But for her, he would never even have become Mayor. She was enraged at having yielded in the matter of Serena's betrothal. Glazzard had fooled them; he was an unprincipled adventurer, with an eye only to the fortune Serena would bring him!

"If you marry that man," she asseverated, a propos of a discussion with her daughter on a carpet which had worn badly, "I shall have nothing whatever to do with the affair—nothing!"

Serena drew apart and kept silence.

"You hear what I say? You understand me?"

"You mean that you won't be present at the wedding?"

"I do!" cried her mother, careless what she said so long as it sounded emphatic. "You shall take all the responsibility. If you like to throw yourself away on a bald-headed, dissipated man—as I know he is—it shall be entirely your own doing. I wash my hands of it—and that's the last word you will hear from me on the subject."

In consequence of which assertion she vilified Glazzard and Serena for three-quarters of an hour, until her daughter, who had sat in abstraction, slowly rose and withdrew.

Alone in her bedroom, Serena shed many tears, as she had often done of late. The poor girl was miserably uncertain how to act. She foresaw that home would be less than ever a home to her after this accumulation of troubles, and indeed she had made up her mind to leave it, but whether as a wife or as an independent woman she could not decide. "On her own responsibility"—yes, that was the one thing certain. And what experience had she whereon to form a judgment? It might be that her mother's arraignment of Glazzard was grounded in truth, but how could she determine one way or the other? On the whole, she liked him better than when she promised to marry him—yes, she liked him better; she did rot shrink from the thought of wedlock with him. He was a highly educated and clever man; he offered her a prospect of fuller life than she had yet imagined; perhaps it was a choice between him and the ordinary husband such as fell to Polterham girls. Yet again, if he did not really care for her—only for her money?

She remembered Denzil Quarrier's lecture on "Woman," and all he had said about the monstrously unfair position of girls who are asked in marriage by men of the world. And thereupon an idea came into her mind. Presently she had dried her tears, and in half-an-hour's time she left the house.

Her purpose was to call upon Mrs. Quarrier, whom she had met not long ago at Highmead. But the lady was not at home. After a moment of indecision, she wrote on the back of her visiting card: "Will you be so kind as to let me know when I could see you? I will come at any hour."

It was then midday. In the afternoon she received a note, hand-delivered. Mrs. Quarrier would be at home from ten to twelve the next morning.

Again she called, and Lilian received her in the small drawing-room. They looked at each other with earnest faces, Lilian wondering whether this visit had anything to do with the election. Serena was nervous, and could not reply composedly to the ordinary phrases of politeness with which she was received. And yet the phrases were not quite ordinary; whomsoever she addressed, Lilian spoke with a softness, a kindness peculiar to herself, and chose words which seemed to have more than the common meaning.

The visitor grew sensible of this pleasant characteristic, and at length found voice for her intention.

"I wished to see you for a very strange reason, Mrs. Quarrier. I feel half afraid that I may even offend you. You will think me very strange indeed."

Lilian trembled. The old dread awoke in her. Had Miss Mumbray discovered something?

"Do let me know what it is," she replied, in a low voice.

"It—it is about Mr. Eustace Glazzard. I think he is an intimate friend of Mr. Quarrier's?"

"Yes, he is."

"You are surprised, of course. I came to you because I feel so alone and so helpless. You know that I am engaged to Mr. Glazzard?"

Her voice faltered. Relieved from anxiety, Lilian looked and spoke in her kindest way.

"Do speak freely to me, Miss Mumbray. I shall be so glad to—to help you in any way I can—so very glad."

"I am sure you mean that. My mother is very much against our marriage—against Mr. Glazzard. She wants me to break off. I can't do that without some better reason than I know of. Will you tell me what you think of Mr. Glazzard? Will you tell me in confidence? You know him probably much better than I do—though that sounds strange. You have known him much longer, haven't you?"

"Not much longer. I met him first in London."

"But you know him through your husband. I only wish to ask you whether you have a high opinion of him. How has he impressed you from the first?"

Lilian reflected for an instant, and spoke with grave conscientiousness.

"My husband considers him his best friend. He thinks very highly of him. They are unlike each other in many things. Mr. Quarrier sometimes wishes that he—that Mr. Glazzard were more active, less absorbed in art; but I have never heard him say anything worse than that. He likes him very much indeed. They have been friends since boyhood."

The listener sat with bowed head, and there was a brief silence.

"Then you think," she said at length, "that I shall be quite safe in—Oh, that is a bad way of putting it! Do forgive me for talking to you like this. You, Mrs. Quarrier, are very happily married; but I am sure you can sympathize with a girl's uncertainty. We have so few opportunities of–Oh, it was so true what Mr. Quarrier said in his lecture at the Institute—before you came. He said that a girl had to take her husband so very much on trust—of course his words were better than those, but that's what he meant."

"Yes—I know—I have heard him say the same thing."

"I don't ask," pursued the other, quickly, "about his religious opinions, or anything of that kind. Nowadays, I suppose, there are very few men who believe as women do—as most women do." She glanced at Lilian timidly. "I only mean—do you think him a good man—an honourable man?"

"To that I can reply with confidence," said Lilian, sweetly. "I am quite sure he is an honourable man—quite sure I believe he has very high thoughts. Have you heard him play? No man who hadn't a noble nature could play like that."

Serena drew a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, dear Mrs. Quarrier—thank you so very much! You have put my mind at rest."

These words gave delight to the hearer. To do good and to receive gratitude were all but the prime necessities of Lilian's heart. Obeying her impulse, she began to say all manner of kind, tender, hopeful things. Was there not a similarity between this girl's position and that in which she had herself stood when consenting to the wretched marriage which happily came to an end at the church door? Another woman might have been disposed to say, in the female parrot-language: "But do you love him or not? That is the whole question." It was not the whole question, even granting that love had spoken plainly; and Lilian understood very well that it is possible for a girl to contemplate wedlock without passionate feeling such as could obscure her judgment.

They talked with much intimacy, much reciprocal good-will, and Serena took her leave with a comparatively cheerful mind. She had resolved what to do.

And the opportunity for action came that afternoon. Glazzard called upon her. He looked rather gloomy, but smiled in reply to the smile she gave him.

"Have you read Mr. Gladstone's address to the electors of Midlothian?" Serena began by asking, with a roguish look.

"Pooh! What is such stuff to me?"

"I knew I should tease you. What do you think of Mr. Quarrier's chances?"

"Oh, he will be elected, no doubt."

Glazzard spoke absently, his eyes on Serena's face, but seemingly not conscious of her expression.

"I hope he will," she rejoined.

"What!—you hope so?"

"Yes, I do. I am convinced he is the right man. I agree with his principles. Henceforth I am a Radical."

Glazzard laughed mockingly, and Serena joined, but not in the same tone.

"I like him," she pursued, with a certain odd persistence. "If I could do it decently, I would canvass for him. He is a manly man and means what he says. I like his wife, too—she is very sweet."

He glanced at her and pursed his lips.

"I am sure," added Serena, "you like me to praise such good friends of yours?"

"Certainly."

They were in the room where the grand piano stood, for Mrs. Mumbray had gone to pass the day with friends at a distance. Serena said of a sudden:

"Will you please play me something—some serious piece—one of the best you know?"

"You mean it?"

"I do. I want to hear you play a really noble piece. You won't refuse."

He eyed her in a puzzled way, but smiled, and sat down to the instrument. His choice was from Beethoven. As he played, Serena stood in an attitude of profound attention. When the music ceased, she went up to him and held out her hand.

"Thank you, Eustace. I don't think many people can play like that."

"No; not very many," he replied quietly, and thereupon kissed her fingers.

He went to the window and looked out into the chill, damp garden.

"Serena, have you any idea what Sicily is like at this time of year?"

"A faint imagination. Very lovely, no doubt."

"I want to go there."

"Do you?" she answered, carelessly, and added in lower tones, "So do I."

"There's no reason why you shouldn't. Marry me next week, and we will go straight to Messina."

"I will marry you in a fortnight from to-day," said Serena, in quivering voice.

"You will?"

Glazzard walked back to Highmead with a countenance which alternated curiously between smiling and lowering. The smile was not agreeable, and the dark look showed his face at its worst. He was completely absorbed in thought, and when some one stopped full in front of him with jocose accost, he gave a start of alarm.

"I should be afraid of lamp-posts," said Quarrier, "if I had that somnambulistic habit. Why haven't you looked in lately? Men of infinite leisure must wait upon the busy."

"My leisure, thank the destinies!" replied Glazzard, "will very soon be spent out of hearing of election tumult."

"When? Going abroad again?"

"To Sicily."

"Ha!—that means, I conjecture," said Denzil, searching his friend's face, "that a certain affair will come to nothing after all?"

"And what if you are right?" returned the other, slowly, averting his eyes.

"I sha'n't grieve. No, to tell you the truth, I shall not! So at last I may speak my real opinion. It wouldn't have done, Glazzard; it was a mistake, old fellow. I have never been able to understand it. You—a man of your standing—no, no, it was completely a mistake, believe me!"

Glazzard looked into the speaker's face, smiled again, and remarked calmly:

"That's unfortunate. I didn't say my engagement was at an end; and, in fact, I shall be married in a fortnight. We go to Sicily for the honeymoon."

A flush of embarrassment rose to Denzil's face. For a moment he could not command himself; then indignation possessed him.

"That's too bad!" he exclaimed. "You took advantage of me. You laid a trap. I'm damned if I feel able to apologize!"

Glazzard turned away, and it seemed as if he would walk on. But he faced about again abruptly, laughed, held out his hand.

"No, it is I who should apologize. I did lay a trap, and it was too bad. But I wished to know your real opinion."

No one more pliable than Denzil. At once he took the hand that was offered and pressed it heartily.

"I'm a blundering fellow. Do come and spend an hour with me to-night. From eleven to twelve. I dine out with fools, and shall rejoice to see you afterwards."

"Thanks, I can't. I go up to town by the 7.15."

They were in a suburban road, and at the moment some ladies approached. Quarrier, who was acquainted with them, raised his hat and spoke a few hasty words, after which he walked on by Glazzard's side.

"My opinion," he said, "is worth very little. I had no right whatever to express it, having such slight evidence to go upon. It was double impertinence. If you can't be trusted to choose a wife, who could? I see that—now that I have made a fool of myself."

"Don't say any more about it," replied the other, in a good-natured voice. "We have lived in the palace of truth for a few minutes, that's all."

"So you go to Sicily. There you will be in your element. Live in the South, Glazzard; I'm convinced you will be a happier man than in this mill-smoke atmosphere. You have the artist's temperament; indulge it to the utmost. After all, a man ought to live out what is in him. Your wedding will be here, of course?"

"Yes, but absolutely private."

"You won't reject me when I offer good wishes? There is no man living who likes you better than I do, or is more anxious for your happiness. Shake hands again, old fellow. I must hurry off."

So they parted, and in a couple of hours Glazzard was steaming towards London.

He lay back in the corner of a carriage, his arms hanging loose, his eyes on vacancy. Of course he had guessed Quarrier's opinion of the marriage he was making; he could imagine his speaking to Lilian about it with half-contemptuous amusement. The daughter of a man like Mumbray—an unformed, scarcely pretty girl, who had inherited a sort of fortune from some soap-boiling family—what a culmination to a career of fastidious dilettantism! "He has probably run through all his money," Quarrier would add. "Poor old fellow! he deserves better things."

He had come to hate Quarrier. Yet with no vulgar hatred; not with the vengeful rancour which would find delight in annihilating its object. His feeling was consistent with a measure of justice to Denzil's qualities, and even with a good deal of admiration; as it originated in mortified vanity, so it might have been replaced by the original kindness, if only some stroke of fortune or of power had set Glazzard in his original position of superiority. Quarrier as an ingenuous young fellow looking up to the older comrade, reverencing his dicta, holding him an authority on most subjects, was acceptable, lovable; as a self-assertive man, given to patronage (though perhaps unconsciously), and succeeding in life as his friend stood still or retrograded, he aroused dangerous emotions. Glazzard could no longer endure his presence, hated the sound of his voice, cursed his genial impudence; yet he did not wish for his final unhappiness—only for a temporary pulling-down, a wholesome castigation of over-blown pride.

The sound of the rushing wheels affected his thought, kept it on the one subject, shaped it to a monotony of verbal suggestion. Not a novel suggestion, by any means; something that his fancy had often played with; very much, perhaps, as that ingenious criminal spoken of by Serena amused himself with the picture of a wrecked train long before he resolved to enjoy the sight in reality.

"Live in the South," Quarrier had urged. "Precisely; in other words: Keep out of my way. You're a good, simple-hearted fellow, to be sure, but it was a pity I had to trust you with that secret. Leave England for a long time."

And why not? Certainly it was good counsel—if it had come from any one but Denzil Quarrier. Probably he should act upon it after all.

CHAPTER XVII

His rooms were in readiness for him, and whilst the attendant prepared a light supper, he examined some letters which had arrived that evening. Two of the envelopes contained pressing invitations—with reference to accounts rendered and re-rendered; he glanced over the writing and threw them into the fire. The third missive was more interesting; it came from a lady of high social position at whose house he had formerly been a frequent guest. "Why do we never see you?" she wrote. "They tell me you have passed the winter in England; why should you avoid your friends who have been condemned to the same endurance? I am always at home on Thursday."

He held the dainty little note, and mused over it. At one time the sight of this handwriting had quickened his pulses with a delicious hope; now it stimulated his gloomy reflections. Such a revival of the past was very unseasonable.

Before going to bed he wrote several letters. They were announcements of his coming marriage—brief, carelessly worded, giving as little information as possible.

The next morning was taken up with business. He saw, among other people, his friend Stark, the picture-collecting lawyer. Stark had letters from Polterham which assured him that the Liberals were confident of victory.

"Confounded pity that Quarrier just got the start of you!" he exclaimed. "You could have kept that seat for the rest of your life."

"Better as it is," was the cheerful reply. "I should have been heartily sick of the business by now."

"There's no knowing. So you marry Miss Mumbray? An excellent choice, I have no doubt. Hearty congratulations!—Oh, by-the-bye, Jacobs & Burrows have a capital Greuze—do look in if you are passing."

Glazzard perceived clearly enough that the lawyer regarded this marriage just as Quarrier did, the pisaller of a disappointed and embarrassed man. There was no more interest in his career; he had sunk finally into the commonplace.

At three o'clock he was at home again, and without occupation. The calendar on his writing-table reminded him that it was Thursday. After all, he might as well respond to the friendly invitation of last evening, and say good-bye to his stately acquaintances in Grosvenor Square. He paid a little attention to costume, and presently went forth.

In this drawing-room he had been wont to shine with the double radiance of artist and critic. Here he had talked pictures with the fashionable painters of the day; music with men and women of resonant name. The accomplished hostess was ever ready with that smile she bestowed only upon a few favourites, and her daughter—well, he had misunderstood, and so came to grief one evening of mid-season. A rebuff, the gentlest possible, but leaving no scintilla of hope. At the end of the same season she gave her hand to Sir Something Somebody, the diplomatist.