Denzil Quarrier Part 19

"You will count my wife among your friends, I hope?" he continued.

"I hope so. Do you think we shall understand each other?"

"If not, it won't be for lack of good will on her side. I mustn't begin to praise her, but I think you will find she has a very fair portion of brains."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Do you imply that you had fears?"

"Men are occasionally odd in their choice of wives."

"Yes," Denzil replied, with a laugh; "I have seen remarkable ill.u.s.trations of it."

"I didn't feel sure that you regarded brains as an essential."

"Indeed! Then you were a long way from understanding me. How can you say that, after my lecture, and our talks?"

"Oh, theory doesn't go for much. May I call shortly?"

"If you will be so good."

"She's very young, I think?"

"Not much more than one-and-twenty. I have known her for about three years."

There was a short silence, then Mrs. Wade said with some abruptness:

"I think of leaving Polterham before long. It was Mr. and Mrs.

Hornibrook who decided me to come here, and now that they are gone I feel as if I too had better stir. I want books that are out of my reach."

"That will be a loss to us, Mrs. Wade. Society in Polterham has its limitations"----

"I'm aware of it. But you, of course, will have a home in London as well?"

"Well, yes--if I get sent to Parliament."

"I suppose we shall meet there some day."

Her voice grew careless and dreamy. She folded her hands upon her lap, and a.s.sumed a look which seemed to Denzil a hint that he might now depart. He stood up.

"So you are going to skate?" murmured Mrs. Wade. "I won't keep you.

Thank you very much for looking in."

Denzil tried once more to read her countenance, and went away with a puzzled feeling. He could not conjecture the meaning of her changed tone.

CHAPTER XIII

Last November had turned the scale in the Polterham Town Council. It happened that the retiring members were all Conservatives, with the exception of Mr. Chown, who alone of them obtained re-election, the others giving place to men of the Progressive party. Mr. Mumbray bade farewell to his greatness. The new Mayor was a Liberal. As returning-officer, he would preside over the coming political contest.

The Tories gloomed at each other, and whispered of evil omens.

For many years Mr. Mumbray had looked to the Mayoralty as the limit of his ambition. He now began to entertain larger projects, encouraged thereto by the dissensions of Conservative Polterham, and the promptings of men who were hoping to follow him up the civic ladder. He joined with those who murmured against the obstinacy of old Mr.

Welwyn-Baker. To support such a candidate would be party suicide. Even Welwyn-Baker junior was preferable; but why not recognize that the old name had lost its prestige, and select a representative of enlightened Conservatism, who could really make a stand against Quarrier and his rampant Radicals? Mr. Mumbray saw no reason why he himself should not invite the confidence of the burgesses.

In a moment of domestic truce the ex-Mayor communicated this thought to his wife, and Mrs. Mumbray gave ready ear. Like the ladies of Polterham in general, she had not the faintest understanding of political principles; to her, the distinction between parties was the difference between bits of blue and yellow ribbon, nothing more. But the social advantages accruing to the wife of an M.P. impressed her very strongly indeed. For such an end she was willing to make sacrifices, and the first of these declared itself in an abandonment of her opposition to Mr. Eustace Glazzard. Her husband pointed out to her that a connection with the family so long established at Highmead would be of distinct value. William Glazzard nominally stood on the Liberal side, but he was very lukewarm, and allowed to be seen that his political action was much swayed by personal considerations. Eustace made no pretence of Liberal leaning; though a friend of the Radical candidate (so Quarrier was already designated by his opponents), he joked at popular enthusiasm, and could only be described as an independent aristocrat.

Money, it appeared, he had none; and his brother, it was suspected, kept up only a show of the ancestral position. Nevertheless, their names had weight in the borough.

Eustace spent Christmas at Highmead, and made frequent calls at the house of the ex-Mayor. On one of the occasions it happened that the ladies were from home, but Mr. Mumbray, on the point of going out, begged Glazzard to come and have a word with him in his sanctum. After much roundabout talk, characteristically pompous, he put the question whether Mr. Glazzard, as a friend of Mr. Denzil Quarrier, would "take it ill" if he, Mr. Mumbray, accepted an invitation to come forward as the candidate of the Conservative party.

"I hope you know me better," Glazzard replied. "I have nothing whatever to do with politics."

The ex-Mayor smiled thoughtfully, and went on to explain, "in strictest confidence," that there _was_ a prospect of that contingency befalling.

"Of course I couldn't hope for Mr. William's support."

He paused on a note of magnanimous renunciation.

"Oh, I don't know," said Glazzard, abstractedly. "My brother is hardly to be called a Radical. I couldn't answer for the line he will take."

"Indeed? That is very interesting. Ha!"

Silence fell between them.

"I'm sure," remarked Mr. Mumbray, at length, "that my wife and daughter will be very sorry to have missed your call. Undoubtedly you can count on their being at home to-morrow."

The prediction was fulfilled, and before leaving the house Glazzard made Serena a proposal of marriage. That morning there had occurred a quarrel of more than usual bitterness between mother and daughter.

Serena was sick of her life at home, and felt a longing, at any cost, for escape to a sphere of independence. The expected offer from Glazzard came just at the right moment; she accepted it, and consented that the marriage should be very soon.

But a few hours of reflection filled her with grave misgivings. She was not in love with Glazzard; personally, he had never charmed her, and in the progress of their acquaintance she had discovered many points of his character which excited her alarm. Serena, after all, was but a half-educated country girl; even in the whirlwind of rebellious moments she felt afraid of the words that came to her lips. The impulses towards emanc.i.p.ation which so grievously perturbed her were unjustified by her conscience; at heart, she believed with Ivy Glazzard that woman was a praying and subordinate creature; in her bedroom she recounted the day's sins of thought and speech, and wept out her desire for "conversion," for the life of humble faith. Accepting such a husband as Eustace, she had committed not only an error, but a sin. The man was without religion, and sometimes made himself guilty of hypocrisy; of this she felt a miserable a.s.surance. How could she hope to be happy with him? What had interested her in him was that air of culture and refinement so conspicuously lacked by the men who had hitherto approached her. He had seemed to her the first _gentleman_ who sought her favour. To countenance him, moreover, was to defy her mother's petty rule. But, no, she did not love him--did not like him.

Yet to retract her promise she was ashamed. Only girls of low social position played fast and loose in that way. She went through a night of misery.

On the morrow her betrothed, of course, came to see her. Woman-like, she had taken refuge in a resolve of postponement; the marriage must be sooner or later, but it was in her power to put it off. And, with show of regretful prudence, she made known this change in her mind.

"I hardly knew what I was saying. I ought to have remembered that our acquaintance has been very short."

"Yet long enough to enable me to win your promise," urged Glazzard.

"Yes, I have promised. It's only that we cannot be married so very soon."

"I must, of course, yield," he replied, gracefully, kissing her hand.

"Decision as to the time shall rest entirely with you."

"Thank you--that is very kind."

He went away in a mood of extreme discontent. Was this little simpleton going to play with him? There were solid reasons of more than one kind why the marriage should not be long delayed. It would be best if he returned to London and communicated with her by letter. He could write eloquently, and to let her think of him as in the midst of gay society might not be amiss.