Shadows of Flames Part 11

IX

For a week after this Chesney was much better, if rather languid. He seemed in a peaceable, rather indifferent frame of mind--that is, he was apparently detached from immediate matters, such as the life of his little household, which usually "got on his nerves." He kept his room a good deal, or lay on the big, leather lounge in the smoking-room, reading incessantly. His interest in politics, however, seemed suddenly to have revived, and he continually a.s.sured Sophy that the party which had been in power since 1886 was on its last legs, and that the G. O. M.

would be reinstated as Prime Minister within two years. "If I wasn't so handicapped with this rotten fever, I'd throw off my coat and jump into the ring," he kept telling her.

"With the Liberals?" Sophy ventured.

He scowled, then grinned.

"Do I strike you as Conservative?" he asked.

"No--but your family----"

"Confound the family," he said cheerfully.

He took up his book again--a heavy volume on German politics, and Sophy sat watching him quietly as she embroidered a collar for Bobby. She wished with all her heart that he would "go in" actively for politics.

She felt that what he needed, perhaps most of all, was some steady, vital interest and occupation. He was only thirty-three, and she had heard from many people that much had been expected from him by men whose opinion in such things mattered. Of course, his mother was furious at his Radical tendencies and called him "turncoat" to his face, among other terms as frank and equally harsh. He always met this with the secretive smile that so enraged her. At twenty-seven his brilliant series of articles, "The Liberalism of a Tory-Born," had been much talked of. In them he showed originality, a singular grasp of matters for so young a man, and, in addition, that perhaps most valuable gift for the man who wishes to "arrive"--a tremendous power of conviction that there is but one side to a question--the side on which he stands.

He saw the other side, of course, but he saw it as the side of the wave which breaks--as froth.

There were people, however, who said that Cecil Chesney was "agin' the Government" as he was against most facts that happened to be established, that they had prophesied from the first that his "staying power" was _nil_, and his brilliancy of the unstable, sky-rockety sort that peters out in talk and scribbling. Certainly he had made an odd _volte-face_, when he whipped about at twenty-eight and went off on that exploring expedition to Africa.

Sophy was very ignorant about politics. She imagined that if Cecil only chose, he could easily become a member of the House of Commons and make a stir in that august and portly body. This innocent belief shows how really and sincerely and extremely ignorant she was. But then she had had few opportunities of information. The first year of her marriage had been spent chiefly in learning how to adapt herself in some sort to her eccentric, pa.s.sionate husband, to the new characters and customs with which she found herself surrounded, to the amazing difficulties of her intercourse with Chesney's family. Lady Wychcote had been hostile to her from the first. But Sophy had a gift of natural, fiery dignity, which constrained even her imperious mother-in-law to treat her, if not with kindness, at least with a certain measure of outward respect. Gerald was a kindly, quiet, scholarly man of thirty-six, who cared nothing whatever for politics. His books and the welfare of the miners whose labour was one of the chief sources of the Wychcote riches, amply filled his time.

It may be imagined what a severe thorn her eldest son proved in the proud flesh of his mother. And as her disappointment in Cecil waxed, her love for Gerald waned. When she realised that there had sprung up a quiet affection between him and his young sister-in-law--"the daughter of Heth" as Lady Wychcote called her to her own circle--she came near to hating him. That he had not married and showed no inclination to enter that respectable state so inc.u.mbent on the heirs of old t.i.tles and large fortunes, was like a continual draught on the smouldering embers of her grievance against him for having been born sickly. He had suffered from childhood with an obscure form of heart-trouble.

Sophy's second year of marriage had brought Bobby and the first serious symptoms of her husband's malady. She had certainly had scant time for the study of politics. What little she did know was gleaned from the glib, rattling talk of Olive Arundel, who, as the wife of an M. P., had the political patter at her tongue's tip.

So Sophy worked on the little collar for Bobby, and dreamed that she was sitting behind the grating of the Ladies' Gallery, in the House of Commons, to hear Cecil's maiden speech. She had just arrived at the pleasant moment when Mr. Gladstone, reinstated as premier, was listening, hand at ear, with unmistakable signs of surprised approval to the eloquence of his new supporter, when Cecil himself destroyed the vision. He let the heavy German book fall to the floor with a bang and said:

"What's on for this week in the way of society? Anything promising?"

"We've had lots of invitations, Cecil, but I've refused them, because you weren't feeling well."

He looked peevish.

"Hang it all! Why didn't you consult me before making such a holocaust as that? I'm feeling much more fit. Think I'd like to mix with pleasant fools for a time."

Sophy looked doubtful.

"Don't you think it's too soon, Cecil? You were awfully ill that night."

"Well, I didn't stay ill, did I?"

"N-no. You recovered wonderfully quickly. But it was that strong medicine that Gaynor gave you." She stopped st.i.tching on the little collar, and looked at him earnestly. "Somehow, I _am_ so afraid of your taking that medicine, Cecil."

"Rubbish!" he said curtly.

"You can't think how it affects you----"

"How that fever affects me, you mean, don't you?"

Sophy did not like to say too much. He was frowning, and he had been so amiable for several days. She began to sew again, saying only:

"Of course, I don't really know. Only--it worries me."

Chesney got up.

"I think I'll go out for a bit," he said. "Just a turn in the Park. It's beastly stuffy indoors."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"You forget--don't you? You told me Olive Arundel was coming for tea."

"Oh, so I did. Well then--but don't overtire yourself."

He scowled frankly this time.

"Confound it, Sophy--I told you I felt quite fit." He reached the door, then turned. "Mind you hold on to the next invitation that seems promising. I need bucking up a bit. Mixing with my fellows, confound 'em! It will give me something to vent my spleen on, if nothing else. So long."

As it happened, Mrs. Arundel came with an invitation. It was for a dinner at the House of Commons. She had coaxed her Jack to give this dinner. Varesca had never been to a dinner at the House of Commons.

"You _must_ come, Sophy," she said urgently. "It's going to be _bwilliant_." (Whenever Olive grew very intense she missed her "r's" and this suited her Greuze type charmingly.)

Sophy needed no urging. It seemed to her that this was the very thing for which Cecil had been wishing. She accepted for them both.

Olive leaned over and kissed her.

"Oh, I _am_ so pleased. And that duck of an Amaldi will be in the seventh heaven."

Sophy could not help smiling at the idea of the quiet, reserved Amaldi being called a "duck."

"Why do you smile, Sophy? Don't you like him? Varesca says he is madly in love with you."

Sophy was annoyed to feel herself blushing, for this blush came wholly from vexation and she knew that Olive would interpret it otherwise.

"It's very stupid of Count Varesca to say such things," she said a little haughtily.

"Oh, _no_, darling!--Attilio may be impulsive--but he _isn't_ stupid."

Sophy's grey eyes grew long with laughter. Olive, puzzled, demanded to know what she _could_ be laughing at.

"I think Attilio is such a funny name, Olive. Do you really call him Attilio?"

"Of course I do. But I don't think it is a _funny_ name exactly--only sweetly quaint. Besides--there's positively _no_ shortening it. Tilio is _too_ silly, and one _couldn't_ call a _man_ 'Tilly' ... an Italian of all things. Now _could_ one?"

Sophy laughed and laughed, and Olive, after pouting for a second, joined in.