What a Man Wills Part 14

In a corner of the Ladies' Gallery sat a small figure with an aureole of flaxen hair. She leaned forward on her seat, her hands clasped together, her eyes fixed in a deep, unblinking gaze at a man on the opposite benches. He was a striking-looking man, still young, yet with an air of delicacy and strain. An onlooker observing him at this moment would have noticed that from time to time he stirred uneasily, and cast a glance upwards at the grille of the Ladies' Gallery. As each speaker in succession finished his speech and sat down, this man stirred more forcibly, as though combating an impulse which increased in violence, and eventually he was on his feet; had caught the Speaker's eyes.

There was a momentary silence throughout the House. _Lowther_! How long was it, how many years since Lowther had essayed a speech? What had happened to spur him to such an effort? This was his first appearance since the beginning of the session, and though he was obviously improved in health he had avoided private conversation, and kept shrinkingly to himself. And now--a speech! With characteristic loyalty to a man who has done good work in past days, the House prayed that Lowther knew what he was about, and was not going to make an exhibition of himself.

But now he was speaking, and the old charm was at work. The members listened with surprise to the old well-turned sentences, the old masterly style; felt again the charm of the old ingenuous manner. And he was speaking to the point, with an expert's width of knowledge which held the House. "On this point of tenure might it not be well to take a hint from Italy?--In Italy, etc., etc."

"In Holland there was a special exemption which was worthy of note..."

"In the province of Lombardy the tenants retained the right..." The land problems of Europe seemed at his finger-ends; he handled them not as a politician informed by dry, written statements, but as living things, seen through living eyes. He had apt ill.u.s.trations to present with the readiness of first-hand knowledge; he had, as a sum total, one illuminating suggestion, and the House cheered him with a ringing cheer.

That cheer sounded in Lowther's ears like the opening of a great gate, a gate which his own hands had closed. Through its portals he beheld once more the castles of his dreams, and took heart to walk forward.

Lilith greeted him with a smile of congratulation, but the drive home was accomplished in silence. It was late when they arrived at their modest flat. The servants had retired to bed, leaving a table of refreshments drawn up before the drawing-room fire. Lilith took off her cloak and sat down, but Lowther went straight to his own room. A few minutes later he returned, and, closing the door behind him, stood silently behind her chair. She could hear the quick intake of his breath, but she waited motionless until he should speak.

At last it came.

"Lilith! I have something I want to give you. Something for you--to keep! Put out your hand."

Still silent, still with eyes averted, she held out her hand towards him. Something cold clicked against the palm, something long and thin.

She opened her fingers, and beheld a morphia syringe.

"I--I shan't need it any more," stammered the voice. A hand, Lowther's hand, came over her shoulder, mutely making appeal. Lilith dropped the syringe, and caught the hand to her breast.

The next minute he was kneeling at her feet, and the two were gazing deep into each other's eyes.

"Lilith," cried Lowther brokenly, "it--it will be hard... I shall have a hard fight. Do you think you could _love_ me a little, Lilith?"

"I must love you," answered Lilith deeply, "a great deal, or it will be no use!"

It was five years later when the Opposition came into power, and it surprised n.o.body when Hereward Lowther was given a seat in the Cabinet.

During those five years husband and wife had lived quietly in their little flat, going but little into society, affecting few of the amus.e.m.e.nts of the day. When Parliament was sitting, Lilith was a constant visitor to the Ladies' Gallery, and it was noted that her husband never spoke when she was absent. In holiday time her chief interest lay in the study of the problems of modern life; but, as on that first tour abroad, she studied first-hand, and not through the medium of books. Lowther felt it an extraordinary coincidence that her inquiries so often proved of value to himself, and always, under every circ.u.mstance, Lilith's immovable serenity was as a rock, against which his weaker, more excitable nature found support. Lowther questioned himself sometimes as to the explanation of his wife's unshaken calm, and came to the conclusion that it sprang from a certain obtuseness or stupidity of brain, but he smiled as he mentally voiced the thought, and his smile was tender. He loved his wife; she was a dear girl, tactful, una.s.suming. He was thankful that she was not clever.

Five years spread a kindly veil over the public memory, and there were few people who troubled to recall Lowther's temporary lapse. That was an affair of the past. What mattered now was that he was one of the most brilliant and valuable men in the House, and that the country needed his services. As a politician he was able and statesmanlike, but he was a politician second and a patriot first. The glory of office counted for nothing with him in comparison with the glory of his native land, and the country recognised his honesty and loved him for it. He was a member of the Cabinet now, but as certainly as he lived he would be Prime Minister another day. As he walked through the streets the people pointed him out to each other.

"That's Lowther. Our best man. He'll be Prime Minister before he's done. The sooner the better. A straight, fair man. The man we want.

What a position for a man to gain by sheer personal force--the virtual ruler over a fifth part of the world! What power, my dear fellow--what power!"

"You may say so, indeed; extraordinary power!"

CHAPTER SIX.

THE MAN WHO WISHED FOR COMFORT.

It seemed hard to Francis Manning that he, who had asked of fate nothing more exorbitant than an easy, comfortable existence, should have been called on to endure one of the most uncomfortable of experiences--that of being jilted by the girl to whom he had believed himself engaged to be married! For years past he had intended to marry Lilith Wastneys, and when he told his love she had been everything that was sweet and complaisant, had said, in so many words, that she loved him in return.

He had gone home feeling the happiest man in the world, had lain awake for a solid hour by the clock, rejoicing in his happiness, and the very next morning, behold a letter to tell him that she was engaged to another man!

Francis could not endure to recall the shock, the misery, the discomfort, of that hour. If the news had come from another source he would have refused to believe it; but it was Lilith herself who wrote, so there was no loophole of escape.

During the following days he felt stunned and wretched. His heart was wounded, but he was not sentimental by nature, and it seemed to him that he could have schooled his heart into subjection if it had not been for--for the other things! There did not seem a single interest in life which this wretched disillusionment had left untouched. To begin with, there was his work. He had worked for a home in which Lilith should live as his wife. Work seemed suddenly dull and purposeless now that the proposed home had crumbled into ruins. Then, as regards amus.e.m.e.nt-- he had grown into the habit of arranging his engagements to fit in with Lilith's own. A dinner meant the chance of Lilith for a partner; a ball, a dance or two with Lilith, and a _tete-a-tete_ in a conservatory; a reception, the chance of edging his way towards a little white figure and keeping beside it for the rest of the evening. Amus.e.m.e.nt lost its savour, now that Lilith no more entered into the scheme. Life was dull, stale, and unprofitable. The days dragged past on leaden feet; he fell asleep with a sigh, and woke to a pang of remembrance.

For a whole month Francis was a prey to grief, and then, as he himself would have expressed it, he "bucked up." There came an historic Sat.u.r.day evening, when, in the company of a particularly fine cigar he came to the conclusion that "it was not good enough," and that he could not "stick" it any more. He had had a whole month of being miserable, and it was the dullest time he had ever known! In self-defence he must pull himself together and face the music.

It was astonishing how many saws Francis quoted over that cigar; but he was as good as his vow, and from that hour he wasted no more regrets on Lilith Wastneys. So serene and cheerful became his demeanour that his one confidante congratulated him on having set a pattern to suffering mankind.

"I have heard many tragic stories. People always do confide in me," she told him; "but have I met a man who has borne his trouble as you have borne yours. I feel a better woman from the experience. It has been a triumph of bravery and endurance!"

"Think so?" said Francis. He was gratified to know that he had made such a good impression, and reminded himself insistently that lookers-on saw most of the game. He did this to quieten a tiresome inner voice which insisted that his cheerful mien was the result of cowardice rather than of bravery, the cowardice which refused to endure!

"Still, you know," he declared lugubriously, "a fellow feels lonely--"

The confidante sighed, and flicked her light eyelashes.

"I know the feeling," she said.

When a man has made up his mind that it is time to marry, it is foolish to abandon the plan because one woman out of the teeming millions in the land refuses to become his wife. This, at least, was Francis Manning's seasoned decision, and it was emphasised by the announcement of Lilith Wastneys' wedding, which appeared in the newspapers exactly three months after her refusal of himself. Whatever sentimental hankerings he might have cherished for Lilith the maid, it was clearly out of place to cast another thought towards the wife of Hereward Lowther. Francis had a deep respect for the conventions, and death itself could not have removed his former love to a more impa.s.sable distance. He heaved a sigh to her memory, and buried it underground.

Within a week from that day he was engaged to the confidante. It seemed the obvious thing to do, for he knew her more intimately than any other girl of his acquaintance, and owed her a debt of grat.i.tude for her sympathy in his former affair. She was quite a nice girl, too; not pretty, but amiable and healthy, with a small income of her own which would come in usefully towards running the house. He wished her eyelashes had not been quite so white; but one could not have everything. She was a nice, affectionate girl.

The confidante accepted Francis because she was tired of living at home with a managing mamma, and wanted to start life on her own account. She liked Francis, was proud of his fine appearance, knew him to be good-tempered and honourable, and was complacently a.s.sured that they would "get on." Far better, she said, to begin with a sensible, open-eyed liking, than a headlong pa.s.sion which would wear itself out before the honeymoon was over. It was, in short, a sensible marriage between eminently sensible contracting parties. The little G.o.d of Love had no part in the ceremony, but it is only fair to mention that n.o.body missed him.

Mr and Mrs Manning went to Scotland for their honeymoon, and Francis played golf every day, what time his wife read novels in the veranda of the hotel. She sped him on his way with a smile, and welcomed him back with a smile to match, and if the young girls in the hotel confided in each other that _they_ would break their hearts if _their_ bridegrooms neglected them in such a fashion, such a thought never entered her head.

She would have been bored if Francis had stayed beside her all day long. What on earth could they have found to say?

At the end of a fortnight Mr and Mrs Manning returned to a semi-detached villa in a southern suburb, and settled down to a comfortable married life.

Mr and Mrs Francis Manning spent the next ten years in peace and comfort, and humdrum happiness. They had good health, easy means, a large number of acquaintances, and three little daughters. The daughters were plain, but st.u.r.dy, and gave a minimum of trouble in the household. Francis, indeed, insisted on this point. Early in the lifetime of Maud, the eldest daughter, he had become aware of the amazing fact that nurses occasionally wished to "go out"; that, in addition, they wished to go out on the Sabbath day. This seemed to him unreasonable, and he said as much to his wife.

"But why in the name of all that's ridiculous, _Sunday_? I'm at home on Sunday. Sunday's the day when we need nurse most of all. It's my holiday."

Mrs Manning represented that Sunday was also a holiday for nurse and her friends, and Francis said, very well, then, they must have _two_ nurses. If necessary they must have three. The one thing certain was that he could not be disturbed on his day of rest, so a capable a.s.sistant was engaged forthwith, and comfort was re-established.

The Mannings took no part in the intellectual life of the neighbourhood.

There, were several book clubs, lecture courses, and the like, which they were urged to join, but without success. Francis declared that he worked all day, and came home to rest, and his wife said, thank you, no; she had no wish to go back to school at her age. They went out to dinner now and then, and made a point of giving two or three dinners themselves every winter. They provided lavishly on such occasions, and were agreeably conscious that their guests were impressed. Both husband and wife enjoyed rich foods, and saw no reason for denying themselves the gratification.

As far as religion was concerned, the Mannings made a point of going to church with the children every Sunday morning when it was fine, or they were not late for breakfast, or Francis did not feel inclined for a walk. Sometimes he went off golfing for the day, and then Mrs Manning dressed Maud in her best clothes and they went to church together. She had been brought up to go to church, and thought the habit "nice."

Besides it was pleasant to see friends coming out, and walk home with Mrs Lane, her favourite neighbour. They would meet on the path outside the graveyard, and turn uphill together, and Mrs Lane would say: "_What_ a sermon! My dear, _did_ you see the woman in the pew before ours? She came in late, just before the psalms. She took off her coat, _and_, my dear, her blouse--"

She would proceed to describe the blouse in detail, and Mrs Manning would sigh and say: "It _is_ nice to have something interesting to look at in the next pew! We have those awful Miss Newtes."

The neighbours on both sides envied the Francis Mannings, and quoted their doings with admiration. In the matter of holidays, for instance, how sane and sensible were their arrangements! The children were sent with their nurses to the sea, the father enjoyed himself on Scottish golf links; the mother toured abroad with a woman friend. Each autumn the neighbours agreed to profit by the example of the Francis Mannings, and to do likewise the next summer; but somehow it never came off. When spring came round the wife would conscientiously remind her husband of the resolve, and urge him to keep it, while gracefully withdrawing herself. "Margot has had several of those bad chest colds," she would explain. "I should be so anxious in case she caught a chill. It really is my duty to go with the children but _you_, dear, you could quite well--"

"Well! I don't know," the husband would reply. "What would become of you in the evenings? And I promised to teach Jack to swim. I think, on the whole, we'd better stick to the old arrangement this summer."

So once more they would depart _en famille_ to the seaside, and stay in lodgings, and be happy in the old domesticated fashion. But also, quite frequently, bored!

On the rare occasions when he gave himself over to thought, Francis realised that there was only one respect in which life had disappointed him, only one desire which had been withheld. He wanted a son. Each time that a child had been expected he had built his hopes upon a son; each time disappointment had been more acute. He had built up a good business by his own exertions; he wanted a son of his own name to carry it on. There were times, moreover, when the purely feminine nature of his household fretted his nerves, and he thought, with longing, of a man child; a little chappie in trousers, instead of the eternal flounces; a knickerbockered elf sitting in his dressing-room watching him shave; a tall hobbledehoy beginning to play golf, listening with interest to accounts of his father's prowess. Later on, a man, a partner, a prop for declining years. Francis pushed the thought from him, but it recurred. Deep at his heart lay the longing for a son.

And the son came. This time he had not hoped; he had told himself steadily that it would be a girl. Better if it were a girl. No use having a boy at the end of a family of girls. He would grow up half a girl himself, and be a disappointment. He was placidly resigned to girl, and after all, behold, it was a boy! The blood raced through his veins as he heard the good news; something astonishingly like tears p.r.i.c.ked at his eyes.