Chapter 32

Lady Mary had a sense of escape. She had put off the immediate need to decide for twelve months. Almost she exulted in the time she had won. She felt she had saved for herself a year of her days and nights—a year in which to measure the issues.

Peter that afternoon had never seen her so radiant. He looked at her continually, and, when for a moment she left the room to answer a message, it seemed as if a light had gone out.

In recoil from her ordeal of the morning Lady Mary gave herself free rein. She accepted Peter's worship, and allowed the climbing current of her pleasure to flow. It seemed like the beginning of a holiday.

They talked quietly of indifferent things. Lady Mary saw that Peter's looks were openly read by his mother. Once, as Mrs. Paragon turned from his lost face to Lady Mary, a glance of intelligence passed between them.

Lady Mary kissed Mrs. Paragon at parting.

"You are not anxious about him?" she said, as Peter waited for his mother at the door.

"Peter finds his own way. I can trust him with you," said Mrs. Paragon.

In the evening, after her maid had left her, Lady[Pg 237] Mary sat in the firelight of her room alone with her problem. For months to come she suffered these solitary hours, looking into a future she could not read. Her duty became less clear as the days passed. She doubted the necessity of her sacrifice. Would it ultimately weigh in history? Was she justified in giving herself to a doubtful cause? In an agony of regret she saw herself turning from the virginal adoration of the boy she loved to long years of devoted work for a country that neither wanted her nor would understand.

These moods inexorably came, but at first they were few and far. In Peter's company the holiday persisted. Wenderby heard of them everywhere together. One morning, on his way to the House, he saw them in the Park. They were riding at a gallop, glowing with laughter. He stood on the path, unseen, and turned sadly away with the picture of their dancing faces firmly drawn upon his brain. He framed them in a window opposite the Treasury Bench.

Peter was already deeply committed to the routine of London. He was popular. His youth was a perpetual delight to hostesses for whom a boy of twenty-four was a precious discovery.

His readiness to enter into things eagerly and without reserve was the quaintest of pleasures to watch. It was all the more entertaining to Peter's friends owing to the rapidity with which he exhausted his ideas, emotions, hobbies, and [Pg 238]acquaintances, and the impetuosity with which he discarded them. It was his charm to be the most lovable of spendthrifts; and the charm of his desire to rush at everything as it came was enhanced for the women who welcomed him by their knowledge of his absolute integrity. He seemed to unite the energy and frank joy of a wilful libertine with the austere purity of a Galahad. Peter's was an eager, questing purity, whose adventure was watched by many of his friends with an almost passionate solicitude.

The winter drew in, and rapidly passed. Peter began to lose the edge of his enthusiasm for the new life. He soon realised that at Highbury he had found the best, and that London was inferior. It was not upon the level he had measured by Eustace Haversham. He began to be sensible of a shabby side to the frank hedonism which had at first seemed all free nature and ready fellowship. A quiet and gradual disappointment flung him the more devotedly upon Lady Mary. He was entirely happy to be her constant friend. Now that the shadow of Wenderby had passed—Wenderby hardly saw her at this time—Peter felt only an untroubled comfort in her presence. She was his particular angel, a shrine for his private adoration. The perfect symbol of his emotion at meeting her was the cool clasp of her hand.

Lady Mary was content that this should be so. She thought of Peter as of a sleeping boy, who one day, if she were free, would wake to her.[Pg 239] She watched him curiously, and with fear, for knowledge to stir in him. She knew that at the first flutter she would have to meet her problem with an answer.

The winter passed, and spring began warmly to enter. The lonely hours of her stress became more intolerable. Her holiday was passing, and her conscience was astir. Surely she must take Peter, or send him away. She would soon be unable to part with him.

Curiously she felt no scruples as to Peter himself—that she was betraying him into a love she might have to deny. She felt that for him it was safest to continue quietly beside her. Were she to dismiss him suddenly, it would provoke in him the storm she feared. He had come unbidden into her life, and she knew he would not leave it without a struggle.

The burden became at last too heavy. She must share it, or run for ever round in the circle of her thoughts. Upon an evening in April she heard her brother pass along the corridor as she sat in her room. She called to him.

"Tony," she said, "I want you to know something."

Haversham looked at her keenly. He had lately seen little of his sister or of Peter. The session had been very heavy, and the estate had also to be visited. Haversham was by more than twelve months older than he was a year ago.

"Is it Peter?" he asked quietly.

[Pg 240]

She shrank from an opening so direct.

"Not altogether," she said.

"It is partly Peter."

"Yes," she admitted.

"I saw it coming, Mary. You are only a sister of the younger branch. You can marry for yourself. You are not worrying about that?"

His quiet accepting of Peter made it harder for Lady Mary to go on. Instinctively she felt that her brother would be against her when he knew the rest. She shut her eyes and rushed at her confession.

"Lord Wenderby," she said, "asked me to marry him six months ago."

"Wenderby?"

The surprise in his voice uttered the quick leap of his mind. He came towards her. "Tell me," he said, "there is more in this than a proposal of marriage. Am I right?"

"Yes, Tony. If I marry Lord Wenderby, he will leave the Cabinet."

Haversham's eyes dangerously glittered.

"You mean," he said, "that Wenderby's political services are a wedding present?"

"He isn't sure what he ought to do. I can help him to decide."

"I see," said Haversham quietly. "Let me think of this."

He rapidly looked at the facts. He saw them clearly, in a hard, political light. Haversham had just come through a session of weary work in the[Pg 241] House. Temper was hardening on both sides. The Government was shaken, but its power for mischief was still incalculable. Just at this moment Wenderby's defection would recast the entire position. Haversham swept into the future, thinking only of his country. He turned back to his sister.

"Mary, darling. Can you do this?"

She looked at him with dismay. She wanted for Peter the help he was giving to Wenderby.

"You think it is my duty?" she suggested.

"It is your duty." He uttered it like a doom.

"But, Antony," she pleaded, "are you sure? Think what it means."

He hesitated a moment; then, taking her by the arms, he searched her face.

"Can you reasonably do this?" he asked.

"Reasonably?" she echoed.

"I mean, you are reasonably fond of Wenderby?"

"I trust him utterly."

"Then it is only Peter."

"Peter is my youth," she cried out, "and my right to be loved."

He felt her pain, and hated the influence he used.

"It is very difficult," he said in a low voice. "Are the things for which we stand worth while? Surely we must think that they are."

She again felt the trap closing about her.

"How clearly you see things, Tony."

[Pg 242]

"Mary, darling, I see things as Lord Haversham. But I would to God this were not asked of you."

The words burst from him as he saw the tears gather in his sister's eyes. At the tenderness of his voice the barriers of her grief broke down. She wept in his arms, but at last drew erect.

"You are quite sure, Tony?" she asked again.

"Yes, dear."

"I will remember this talk when the time comes."

Haversham did not inquire when this time would be. He left everything now to his sister, inwardly deciding not to persuade her further.

"Meantime," he lightly suggested, "what is happening to Peter?"

"He holds me too precious to be loved, but I am afraid there will be trouble when I send him away."

"I wonder," reflected Haversham.

"I am sure of it," she insisted.

"He may surprise you yet," answered Haversham. "There is a blind side to Peter. Sometimes I think he was intended for a monk. He has a dedicated look."

"He loves me, Tony, and he will discover it."

"Cannot you spare him the knowledge?"

Lady Mary shook her head.

"Peter loved me at Highbury," she insisted. "I shall have nothing on my conscience."

Haversham sat that night in his room in quiet[Pg 243] contemplation of the advice he had instinctively given to his sister. It displeased him to think how promptly and easily he had declared against the friend of his own years. He realised that a season or so ago he would not so immediately have perceived where his sister's duty lay. Was there, after all, something in Peter's ineradicable contempt for politics? Did they not rub the finer edges from a man?

Peter, after all, was his friend. He saw him with a pang, eager and impetuous; and knew how savagely his sister's marriage with Wenderby would tear him. There was nothing tangibly ignoble—nothing that a man of worldly years would boggle at—in Wenderby's proposal to Lady Mary. Nevertheless Haversham realised that young Marbury twelve months ago would have recoiled with a faint disgust from this attempt upon his sister. Undoubtedly he had changed. A year of politics, of arrangements and compromises, of difficult dealings with men of many tempers and desires, had caused young Marbury to seem like a legend, remote and debonair, to thoughtful Haversham. He had, almost without thinking, thrown over his friend, perceived the wisdom of his sister's great alliance, and quite overlooked the faint soil in Wenderby of a finesse which a year ago would rudely have jarred him.

Haversham smiled a little bitterly into the fire as he thought of these things—and the smile deepened as he realised that, though on reflection[Pg 244] he could see the pity of it, and even hope that youth might even now defeat them all, nevertheless he could himself only repeat his first advice and conduct. He would on all occasions repeat that Wenderby was a man of perfect honour, even though he understood the impulsive dislike and distrust of Peter. He would continue to insist that the mere claims of youth were not enough to defeat the splendid political vision this marriage had offered to their eyes.

Meantime to ease the pricking of his conscience in regard to Peter he assured himself that Peter was far too young to be really in love with anybody—with Mary least of all.