Denzil Quarrier Part 17

Still she said nothing.

"Rather out of sorts to-day, Lily?"

"I wish we were going to stay here--never to go back to England."

"Live the rest of our lives in a Paris hotel!"

"No, no--in some quiet place--a home of our own."

"That wouldn't suit me, by any means. Paris is all very well for a holiday, but I couldn't make a home here. There's no place like England. Don't you ever think what an unspeakable blessing it is to have been born in England? Every time I go abroad, I rejoice that I am not as these foreigners. Even my Scandinavian friends I can't help despising a little--and as for Frenchmen! There's a great deal of the old island prejudice in me."

Lilian smiled, raising herself slightly upon the sofa.

"These old Latin nations have had their day," he continued, with a wave of the arm. "France, Italy, Spain--they have played their part in civilization, and have nothing left now but old relics and modern bl.u.s.ter. The future's with us Teutons. If I were not an Englishman, I would be an American. The probability is that we shall have a hard fight one of these days with the Slavs--and all the better, perhaps; I don't think the world can do without fighting yet awhile."

"I should be sorry to hear you teaching people that," said Lilian.

"Oh," he laughed, "it wouldn't fit into our electoral campaign! No danger of my preaching bloodthirstiness. But how I shall enjoy the bloodless fight down at Polterham! I want you to look forward to it in the same way. Do cheer up, Lily!--you see I have been gradually moving in this direction. When I found myself a man of means, I knew that the time had come for stirring. Writing about the Sea-Kings is all very well in its way, but I am no born literary man. I must get that book finished and published, though. It might help me with the const.i.tuency.

A book gives a man distinction."

"You seem to me to have changed very much."

"No; it's only that you didn't know me thoroughly. To tell you the truth, that life of hiding away in London wasn't a very good thing for me. I lived too much to myself. The half-dozen acquaintances I had were not the kind of men to profit me. Glazzard--well, Glazzard is an odd sort of fellow--helpful now and then, but on the whole musty. He has no ambition, thinks it enough to doze on among his pictures, and that kind of thing. The fact is, such companionship has made me conceited. I want to get among my equals and my superiors--as I shall do if I become a Member of Parliament."

"Your equals--perhaps."

"Confound it! _Your_ influence has tended the same way. You spoil me--make me think myself a fine fellow. I suppose one's wife ought to talk like that--I don't dislike it, you know; but if I end by never doing anything at all, I should be confoundedly ashamed of myself. But the more I think of it, the better satisfied I am that a political career is the best thing for me. You see, this is the age of political progress--that before everything. We English are working out our revolution in a steady and sensible way,--no shrieking and slaughtering--we leave that to people who don't really know what they want, and will never get much to speak of. We go ahead soberly on the const.i.tutional highway--with a little hearty swearing to clear the air now and then."

Lilian laughed.

"Well, I was saying it is a political age, and I think a man ought to go in for the first interest of his time. What have we to do just now with artistic aims? The English, at any time, care little or nothing for art; one has to recognize that. Our task in the world is practical--to secure all men a sufficiency of beef and beer, and honest freedom. I like to feel that I am on the advancing wave; I don't care for your picturesque ponds; they generally have a bad smell."

The effect of his vigorous talk was manifest in Lilian's face. She yielded her spirit to his, was borne whither he would.

"You talk of living in Paris--why, if you really knew Paris, you would hate the place. Underneath all this show of civilization, refinement, brilliancy--I'm glad to say you can't even guess what it covers. The town reeks with abominations. I'm getting sick of it."

The sincerity of his moral disgust was obvious. No one knew so well as Lilian the essential purity--even the puritanism--of Quarrier's temper.

"For all that," he added, merrily, "we'll go and dine at the restaurant, and then look in at the Francais. They know how to cook here, and they know how to play the fool--no denying it."

When Lilian went forth with him she had once more succeeded in overcoming her despondent mood. The lights of the Boulevard exercised their wonted effect--cheering, inspiring. She pressed his arm, laughed at his mirthful talk; and Denzil looked down into her face with pride and delight in its loveliness. He had taken especial care to have her dressed in the manner that became his wife; Parisian science had gone to the making of her costume, and its efforts were not wasted. As they entered the restaurant, many eyes were turned with critical appreciation upon the modest face and figure, as undeniably English, in their way, as Quarrier's robust manhood.

Denzil's French was indifferently good, better perhaps than his capacity for picking out from the bill of fare a little dinner which should exalt him in the eyes of waiters. He went to work, however, with a n.o.ble disregard for consequences, whether to digestion or pocket.

Where Lilian was concerned there could be no such thing as extravagance; he gloried in obtaining for her the best of everything that money could command. The final "_Bien, monsieur_," was, after all, sufficiently respectful, and our friend leaned back with the pleasant consciousness of duty performed.

He drank a good deal of wine, and talking with a spontaneity beyond the ordinary Briton. Towards the close of dinner his theme was the coming electoral contest.

"You know," he said, bending over the table, "you will be able to give me important help. The wife of a candidate--especially of a Radical candidate--can find plenty of work, if she knows how to go about it. As little humbug as possible; and as little loss of self-respect, but we shall have to shake a good many dirty hands. Your turn for 'slumming'

will serve us well, but I know the dangers of it. You'll be coming home _eploree_, as they say here. I hope you'll grow stronger in that respect. One has to harden one's heart a little."

"I know it is wiser to do so."

"Of course! It's not only that you are constantly imposed upon; the indulgence of universal sympathy is incompatible with duty to one's self--unless you become at once a sister of mercy. One is bound, in common sense, to close eyes and ears against all but a trifling fraction of human misery. Why, look, we sit here, and laugh and talk and enjoy ourselves; yet at this instant what horrors are being enacted in every part of the world! Men are perishing by every conceivable form of cruelty and natural anguish. Sailors are gurgling out their life in sea-storms; soldiers are agonizing on battle-fields; men, women, and children are being burnt, boiled, hacked, squashed, rent, exploded to death in every town and almost every village of the globe. Here in Paris, and over there in London, there is no end to the forms of misery our knowledge suggests--all suffered while we eat and talk. But to sit down and think persistently of it would lead to madness in any one of imagination like yours. We have to say: It doesn't concern us! And no more it does. We haven't the ordering of the world; we can't alter the vile course of things. I like to swear over it now and then (especially when I pa.s.s a London hospital), but I soon force myself to think of something else. You must do the same--even to the swearing, if you like. There's a tendency in our time to excess of humanitarianism--I mean a sort of lachrymose habit which really does no good. You represent it in some degree, I'm afraid--eh? Well, well, you've lived too much alone--you've got into the way of brooding; the habit of social life will strengthen you."

"I hope so, Denzil."

"Oh, undoubtedly! One more little drop of wine before the coffee.

Nonsense! You need stimulus; your vitality is low. I shall prescribe for you henceforth. Merciful heavens! how that French woman does talk!

A hundred words to the minute for the last half hour."

A letter had arrived for him at the hotel in his absence. It was from Mr. Hornibrook's agent, announcing that the house at Polterham was now vacated, and that Mr. Quarrier might take possession just as soon as he chose.

"_That's_ all right!" he exclaimed, after reading it to Lilian. "Now we'll think of getting back to London, to order our furniture, and all the rest of it. The place can be made habitable in a few weeks, I should say."

CHAPTER XII

An emissary from Tottenham Court Road sped down to Polterham, surveyed the vacant house, returned with professional computations. Quarrier and Lilian abode at the old home until everything should be ready for them, and Mrs. Liversedge represented her brother on the spot--solving the doubts of workmen, hiring servants, making minor purchases. She invited Denzil to bring his wife, and dwell for the present under the Liversedge roof, but her brother preferred to wait. "I don't like makeshifts; we must go straight into our own house; the dignity of the Radical candidate requires it." So the work glowed, and as little time as possible was spent over its completion.

It was midway in January when the day and hour of arrival were at last appointed. No one was to be in the house but the servants. At four in the afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Quarrier would receive Mr. and Mrs.

Liversedge, and thus make formal declaration of their readiness to welcome friends. Since her return to England, Lilian had seen no one.

She begged Denzil not to invite Glazzard to Clapham.

They reached Polterham at one o'clock, in the tumult of a snowstorm; ten minutes more, and the whitened cab deposited them at their doorway.

Quarrier knew, of course, what the general appearance of the interior would be, and he was well satisfied with the way in which his directions had been carried out. His companion was at first overawed rather than pleased. He led her from room to room, saying frequently, "Do you like it? Will it do?"

"It frightens me!" murmured Lilian, at length. "How shall I manage such a house?"

She was pale, and inclined to tearfulness, for the situation tired her fort.i.tude in a degree Denzil could not estimate. Fears which were all but terrors, self-reproach which had the poignancy of remorse, tormented her gentle, timid nature. For a week and more she had not known unbroken sleep; dreams of fantastic misery awakened her to worse distress in the calculating of her perils and conflict with insidious doubts. At the dead hour before dawn, faiths of childhood revived before her conscience, upbraiding, menacing. The common rules of every-day honour spoke to her with stern reproval. Denzil's arguments, when she tried to muster them in her defence, answered with hollow, meaningless sound. Love alone would stead her; she could but shut her eyes, and breathe, as if in prayer, the declaration that her love was a sacred thing, cancelling verbal untruth.

She changed her dress, and went down to luncheon. The large dining-room seemed to oppress her insignificance; to eat was impossible, and with difficulty she conversed before the servants. Fortunately, Denzil was in his best spirits; he enjoyed the wintery atmosphere, talked of skating on the ice which had known him as a boy, laughed over an old story about a s...o...b..ll with a stone in it which had stunned him in one of the fights between town and Grammar School.

"Pity the election can't come on just now!--we should have lively times. A s...o...b..ll is preferable to an addled egg any day. The Poltram folks"--this was the common p.r.o.nunciation of the town's name--"have a liking for missiles at seasons of excitement."

From table, they went to the library--as yet unfurnished with volumes--and made themselves comfortable by the fireside. Through the windows nothing could be seen but a tempestuous whirl of flakes.

Lilian's cat, which had accompanied her in a basket, could not as yet make itself at home on the hearthrug, and was glad of a welcome to its mistress's lap. Denzil lit a pipe and studied the political news of the day.

At four o'clock he waited impatiently the call of his relatives.

Lilian, unable to command her agitation, had gone into another room, and was there counting the minutes as if each cost her a drop of heart's blood. If this first meeting were but over! All else seemed easy, could she but face Denzil's sister without betrayal of her shame and dread. At length she heard wheels roll up to the door; there were voices in the hall; Denzil came forth with loud and joyous greeting; he led his visitors into the library. Five minutes more of anguish, and the voices were again audible, approaching, at the door.

"Well, Lily, here is my sister and Mr. Liversedge," said Denzil. "No very formidable persons, either of them," he added merrily, as the best way of making apology for Lilian's too obvious tremor.

But she conquered her weakness. The man was of no account to her; upon the woman only her eyes were fixed, for _there_ was the piercing scrutiny, the quick divination, the merciless censure--there, if anywhere, in one of her own s.e.x. From men she might expect tolerance, justice; from women only a swift choice between the bowl and the dagger. Pride prompted her to hardihood, and when she had well looked upon Mrs. Liversedge's face a soothing confidence came to the support of desperation. She saw the frank fairness of Denzil's lineaments softened with the kindest of female smiles; a gaze keen indeed, but ingenuous as that of a child; an expression impossible to be interpreted save as that of heartfelt welcome, absolutely unsuspecting, touched even with admiring homage.

They kissed each other, and Lilian's face glowed. After that, she could turn almost joyously for Mr. Liversedge's hearty hand-shake.