CHAPTER XIII

On a hot morning at the end of June, some four weeks after the Castle Luton visit, George Tressady walked from Brook Street to Warwick Square, that he might obtain his mother's signature to a document connected with the Shapetsky negotiations, and go on from there to the House of Commons.

She was not in the drawing-room, and George amused himself during his minutes of waiting by inspecting the various new photographs of the Fullerton family that were generally to be found on her table. What a characteristic table it was, littered with notes and bills, with patterns from every London draper, with fashion-books and ladies' journals innumerable! And what a characteristic room, with its tortured decorations and crowded furniture, and the flattered portraits of Lady Tressady, in every caprice of costume, which covered the walls! George looked round it all with an habitual distaste; yet not without the secret admission that his own drawing-room was very like it.

His mother might, he feared, have a scene in preparation for him.

For Letty, under cover of some lame excuse or other, had persisted in putting off the visit which Lady Tressady had intended to pay them at Ferth during the Whitsuntide recess, and since their return to town there had been no meeting whatever between the two ladies. George, indeed, had seen his mother two or three times. But even he had just let ten days pass without visiting her. He supposed he should find her in a mood of angry complaint; nor could he deny that there would be some grounds for it.

"Good morning, George," said a sharp voice, which startled him as he was replacing a photograph of the latest Fullerton baby. "I thought you had forgotten your way here by now."

"Why, mother, I am very sorry," he said, as he kissed her. "But I have really been terribly busy, what with two Committees and this important debate."

"Oh! don't make excuses, pray. And of course—for Letty—you won't even attempt it. I wouldn't if I were you."

Lady Tressady settled herself on a chair with her back to the light, and straightened the ribbons on her dress with hasty fingers. Something in her voice struck George. He looked at her closely.

"Is there anything wrong, mother? You don't look very well."

Lady Tressady got up hurriedly, and began to move about the room, picking up a letter here, straightening a picture there. George felt a sudden prick of alarm. Were there some new revelations in store for him? But before he could speak she interrupted him.

"I should be very well if it weren't for this heat," she said pettishly. "Do put that photograph down, George!—you do fidget so! Haven't you got any news for me—anything to amuse me? Oh! those horrid papers!—I see. Well! they'll wait a little. By the way, the 'Morning Post' says that young scamp, Lord Ancoats, has gone abroad. I suppose that girl was bought off."

She sat down again in a shady corner, fanning herself vigorously.

"I am afraid I can't tell you any secrets," said George, smiling, "for I don't know any. But it looks as though Mrs. Allison and Maxwell between them had somehow found a way out."

"How's the mother?"

"You see, she has gone abroad, too—to Bad Wildheim. In fact, Lord Ancoats has taken her."

"That's the place for heart, isn't it?" said his mother, abruptly. "There's a man there that cures everybody."

"I believe so," said George. "May we come to business, mother? I have brought these papers for you to sign, and I must get to the House in good time."

Lady Tressady seemed to take no notice. She got up again, restlessly, and walked to the window.

"How do you like my dress, George? Now, don't imagine anything absurd! Justine made it, and it was quite cheap."

George could not help smiling—all the more that he was conscious of relief. She would not be asking him to admire her dress if there were fresh debts to confess to him.

"It makes you look wonderfully young," he said, turning a critical eye, first upon the elegant gown of some soft pinky stuff in which his mother had arrayed herself, then upon the subtly rouged and powdered face above it. "You are a marvellous person, mother! All the same, I think the heat must have been getting hold of you, for your eyes are tired. Don't racket too much!"

He spoke with his usual careless kindness, laying a hand upon her arm.

Lady Tressady drew herself away, and, turning her back upon him, looked out of the window.

"Have you seen any more of the Maxwells?" she said, over her shoulders.

George gave a slight involuntary start. Then it occurred to him that his mother was making conversation in an odd way.

"Once or twice," he said, reluctantly, in reply. "They were at the Ardaghs' the other night, of course."

"Oh! you were there?"—Lady Tressady's voice was sharp again. "Well, of course. Letty went as your wife, and you're a member of Parliament. Lady Ardagh knows me quite well—but I don't count now; she used to be glad enough to ask me."

"It was a great crush, and very hot," said George, not knowing what to say.

Lady Tressady frowned as she looked out of the window.

"Well!—and Lady Maxwell—is she as absurd as ever?"

"That depends upon one's point of view," said George, smiling. "She seemed as convinced as ever."

"Who sent Mrs. Allison to that place? Barham, I suppose. He always sends his patients there. They say he's in league with the hotel-keepers."

George stared. What was the matter with her? What made her throw out these jerky sentences with this short, hurried breath.

Suddenly Lady Tressady turned.

"George!"

"Yes, mother." He stepped nearer to her. She caught his sleeve.

"George "—there was something like a sob in her voice—"you were quite right. I am ill. There, don't talk about it. The doctors are all fools. And if you tell Letty anything about it, I'll never forgive you."

George put his arm round her, but was not, in truth, much disturbed. Lady Tressady's repertory, alas! had many rôles. He had known her play that of the invalid at least as effectively as any other.

"You are just overdone with London and the heat," he said. "I saw it at once. You ought to go away."

She looked up in his face.

"You don't believe it?" she said.

Then she seemed to stagger. He saw a terrible drawn look in her face, and, putting out all his strength, he held her, and helped her to a sofa.

"Mother!" he exclaimed, kneeling beside her, "what is the matter?"

Voice and tone were those of another man, and Lady Tressady quailed under the change. She pointed to a small bag on a table near her. He opened it, and she took out a box, from which she swallowed something. Gradually breath and colour returned, and she began to move restlessly.

"That was nothing," she said, as though to herself—"nothing—and it yielded at once. Well, George, I knew you thought me a humbug!"

Her eyes glanced at him with a kind of miserable triumph. He looked down upon her, still kneeling, horror-struck against his will. After a life of acting, was this the truth—this terror, which spoke in every movement, and in some strange way had seized upon and infected himself?

He urgently asked her to be frank with him. And with a sob she poured herself out. It was the tragic, familiar story that every household knows. Grave symptoms, suddenly observed—the hurried visit to a specialist—his verdict and his warnings.

"Of course, he said at first I ought to give up everything and go abroad—to this very same place—Bad-what-do-you-call-it? But I told him straight out I couldn't and wouldn't do anything of the sort. I am just eaten up with engagements. And as to staying at home and lying-up, that's nonsense—I should die of that in a fortnight. So I told him to give me something to take, and that was all I could do. And in the end he quite came round—they always do if you take your own line—and said I had much better do what suited me, and take care. Besides, what do any of them know? They all confess they're just fumbling about. Now, surgery, of course—that's different. Battye"—Battye was Lady Tressady's ordinary medical adviser—"doesn't believe all the other man said. I knew he wouldn't. And as for making an invalid of me, he sees, of course, that it would kill me at once. There, my dear George, don't make too much of it. I think I was a fool to tell you."

And Lady Tressady struggled to a sitting position, looking at her son with a certain hostility. The frown on her white face showed that she was already angry with him for his emotion—this rare emotion, that she had never yet been able to rouse in him.

He could only implore her to be guided by her doctor—to rest, to give up at least some of the mill-round of her London life, if she would not go abroad. Lady Tressady listened to him with increasing obstinacy and excitability.

"I tell you I know best!" she said, passionately, at last. "Don't go on like this—it worries me. Now, look here—"

She turned upon him with emphasis.

"Promise me not to tell Letty a word of this. Nobody shall know—she least of all. I shall do just as usual. In fact, I expect a very gay season. Three 'drums' this afternoon and a dinner-party—it doesn't look as though I were quite forgotten yet, though Letty does think me an old fogey!"

She smiled at him with a ghastly mixture of defiance and conceit. The old age in her pinched face, fighting with the rouged cheeks and the gaiety of her fanciful dress, was pitiful.

"Promise," she said. "Not a word—to her!"

George promised, in much distress. While he was speaking she had a slight return of pain, and was obliged to submit to lie down again.

"At least," he urged, "don't go out to-day. Give yourself a rest. Shall I go back, and ask Letty to come round to tea?"

Lady Tressady made a face like a spoilt child.

"I don't think she'll come," she said. "Of course, I know from the first she took an ungodly dislike to me. Though, if it hadn't been for me—Well, never mind! Yes, you can ask her, George—do! I'll wait and see if she comes. If she comes, perhaps I'll stay in. It would amuse me to hear what she has been doing. I'll behave quite nicely—there!"

And, taking up her fan, Lady Tressady lightly tapped her son's hand with it in her most characteristic manner.

He rose, seeing from the clock that he should only just have time to drive quickly back to Letty if he was to be at the House in time for an appointment with a constituent, which had been arranged for one o'clock.

"I will send Justine to you as I go out," he said, taking up his hat, "and I shall hear of you from Letty this evening."

Lady Tressady said nothing. Her eyes, bright with some inner excitement, watched him as he looked for his stick. Suddenly she said, "George! kiss me!"

Her tone was unsteady. Infinitely touched and bewildered, the young man approached her, and, kneeling down again beside her, took her in his arms. He felt a quick sobbing breath pass through her; then she pushed him lightly away, and, putting up the slim, pink-nailed hand of which she was so proud, she patted him on the cheek.

"There—go along! I don't like that coat of yours, you know. I told you so the other day. If your figure weren't so good, you'd positively look badly dressed in it. You should try another man."

Tressady hailed a hansom outside, and drove back to Brook Street. On the way his eyes saw little of the crowded streets. So far, he had had no personal experience of death. His father had died suddenly while he was at Oxford, and he had lost no other near relation or friend. Strange! this grave, sudden sense that all was changed, that his careless, half-contemptuous affection for his mother could never again be what it had been. Supposing, indeed, her story was all true! But in the case of a character like Lady Tressady's, there are for long, recurrent, involuntary scepticisms on the part of the bystander. It seems impossible, unfitting, to grant to such persons le beau rôle they claim. It outrages a certain ideal instinct, even, to be asked to believe that they too can yield, in their measure, precisely the same tragic stuff as the hero or the saint.

Letty was at home, just about to share her lunch with Harding Watton, who had dropped in. Hearing her husband's voice, she came out to the stairhead to speak to him.

But after a minute or two George dashed down again to his study, that he might write a hurried note to a middle-aged cousin of his mother's, asking her to go round to Warwick Square early in the afternoon, and making excuses for Letty, who was "very much engaged."

For Letty had met his request with a smiling disdain. Why, she was simply "crowded up" with engagements of all sorts and kinds!

"Mother is really unwell," said George, standing with his hands on his sides, looking down upon her. He was fuming with irritation and hurry, and had to put a force on himself to speak persuasively.

"My dear old boy!"—she rose on tiptoe and twisted his moustache for him—"don't we know all about your mother's ailments by this time? I suppose she wants to give me a scolding, or to hear about the Ardaghs, or to tell me all about the smart parties she has been to—or something of the sort. No, really, it's quite impossible—this afternoon. I know I must go and see her some time—of course I will."

She said this with the air of someone making a great concession. It was, indeed, her first formal condonement of the offence offered her just before the Castle Luton visit.

George attempted a little more argument and entreaty, but in vain. Letty was rather puzzled by his urgency, but quite obdurate. And as he ran down the stairs, he heard her laugh in the drawing-room mingled with Harding Watton's. No doubt they were making merry over the "discipline" which Letty found it necessary to apply to her mother-in-law.

In the House of Commons the afternoon was once more given up to the adjourned debate on the second reading of the Maxwell Bill. The House was full, and showing itself to advantage. On the whole, the animation and competence of the speeches reflected the general rise in combative energy and the wide kindling of social passions which the Bill had so far brought about, both in and out of Parliament. Those who figured as the defenders of industries harassed beyond bearing by the Socialist meddlers spoke with more fire, with more semblance, at any rate, of putting their hearts into it than any men of their kind had been able to attain since the "giant" days of the first Factory debates. Those, on the other hand, who were urging the House to a yet sterner vigilance in protecting the worker—even the grown man—from his own helplessness and need, who believed that law spells freedom, and that the experience of half a century was wholly on their side—these friends of a strong cause were also at their best, on their mettle. Owing to the widespread flow of a

great reaction, the fight had become a representative contest between two liberties—a true battle of ideas.

Yet George, sitting below the Gangway beside his leader, his eyes staring at the ceiling, and his hands in his pockets, listened to it all in much languor and revolt. He himself had made his speech on the third day of the debate. It had cost him endless labour, only to seem to him in the end—by contrast with the vast majority of speeches made in the course of the debate, even those by men clearly inferior to himself in mind and training—to be a hollow and hypocritical performance. What did he really think and believe? What did he really desire? He vowed to himself once more, as he had vowed at Ferth, that his mind was a chaos, without convictions, either intellectual or moral; that he had begun what he was not able to finish; and that he was doomed to make a failure of his parliamentary career, as he was already making a failure of coal-owning and a failure—

He curbed something bitter and springing that haunted his most inmost mind. But his effort could not prevent his dwelling angrily for a minute on the thought of Letty laughing with Harding Watton—laughing because he had asked her a small kindness, and she had most unkindly refused it.

Yet she must help him with his poor mother. How softened were all his thoughts about that difficult and troublesome lady! As it happened, he had a good deal of desultory medical knowledge, for the problems and perils of the body had always attracted his pessimist sense. Yet it did not help him much at this juncture. At one moment he said to himself, "eighteen months—she will live eighteen months," and at another, "Battye was probably right; Barham took an unnecessarily gloomy view—she may quite well last as long as the rest of us."

* * * * *

Suddenly he was startled by a movement beside him.

"The honourable member has totally misunderstood me," cried Fontenoy, springing to his feet and looking eagerly towards the Speaker.

The member who was speaking on the Government side smiled, put on his hat, and sat down. Fontenoy flung out a few stinging sentences, was hotly cheered both by his own supporters and from a certain area of the Liberal benches, and sat down again triumphant, having scored an excellent point.

George turned round to his companion.

"Good!" he said, with emphasis. "That rubbed it in!"

But when the man opposite was once more on his legs, labouring to undo the impression which had been made, George found himself wondering whether, after all, the point had been so good, and why he had been so quick to praise. She would have said, of course, that it was a point scored against common-sense, against humanity. He began to fancy the play of her scornful eyes, the eloquence of her white hand moving and quivering as she spoke.

How long was it—one hurried month only—since he had walked with her along the river at Castle Luton? While the crowded House about him was again listening with attention to the speech which had just brought the protesting Fontenoy to his legs; while his leader was fidgeting and muttering beside him; while to his left the crowd of members round the door was constantly melting, constantly reassembling, Tressady's mind withdrew itself from its surroundings, saw nothing, heard nothing, but the scenes of a far-off London and a figure that moved among them.

How often had he been with her since Castle Luton? Once or twice a week, certainly, either at St. James's Square or in the East End, in spite of Parliament, and Fontenoy, and his many engagements as Letty's husband. Strange phenomenon—that little salon of hers in the far East! For it was practically a salon, though it existed for purposes the Hôtel Rambouillet knew nothing of. He found himself one of many there. And, like all salons, it had an inner circle. Charles Naseby, Edward Watton, Lady Madeleine Penley, the Levens—some or all of these were generally to be found in Lady Maxwell's neighbourhood, rendering homage or help in one way or another. It was touching to see that girl, Lady Madeleine, looking at the docker or the shirtmaker, with her restless greenish eyes, as though she realised for the first time what hideous bond it is—the one true commonalty—that crushes the human family together!