Chapter 20. The Quiet Life To-Morrow

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_ CHAPTER XX. THE QUIET LIFE TO-MORROW

Old Miss Quisante was not as sympathetic as might have been wished. She acquiesced indeed (as who would not?) in the new programme of at least a year's complete rest; she offered to find funds--happily it was not necessary, since the sale of some Alethea shares at a handsome premium supplied them; she admitted that May had done her duty in persuading her husband to yield a limited obedience to his doctors' orders. But she looked disappointed, uninterested, dull; she awoke only for a sparkle of malice, when she remarked how happy they would be together in the country, with nothing to disturb them, nothing but just their two selves.

"Not as unhappy as you think," said May, smiling.

"All nonsense, I call it," pursued the old lady. "Sandro knew best; now you've put notions into his head. Oh, I daresay you were bound to, my dear."

"How can you be so blind?" murmured May. Aunt Maria shook her head derisively; she was not blind, it was the wife and the doctors who were blind. "You're not to say that sort of thing to Alexander," May went on imperiously. Aunt Maria put her head on one side and smiled sardonically.

"You used to agree with me," she said. "Has the Mildmay woman been here again?"

"No; she's at home. We shall see her perhaps at Henstead."

"Henstead! What are you going there for?"

"And you said you knew Alexander!" laughed May. "You don't suppose he's going into retirement without a display of fireworks? The Henstead speech is to be made. Then we put up the shutters--for a year at least, as I say."

"That's something. Is he interested in it?"

"Oh, yes, working all day. But he's wonderfully well. I've never seen him better." She hesitated and laughed a little. "How shall we ever stick to our year?" she asked. "He means it now and I mean it. But----"

"You won't do it," said Aunt Maria emphatically. "Nobody could keep Sandro quiet for a year!"

"Don't tell me that. We're going to try."

"Oh, I won't interfere, my dear. Try away. After all he'll be young still, and they won't forget him in a year. Or if they do, he'll soon make them remember him again."

The buoyant confidence was hard to resist. It seemed to grow greater in face of all reason, and more and more to fill the old woman's mind as she herself descended towards the grave which she scorned as a possibility for Sandro. For now she was very small and frail, thin and yellow; she too, like her nephew, seemed to hold on to life rather because she chose of her arbitrary will, than thanks to any physical justification that she could adduce. Could Quisante not only make himself live but make Aunt Maria live too? Full of the influence of that last great moment, May, laughing at herself, yet hesitated to answer "No." But the year was to be tried, lest, if die he must, he should die to please her or thinking that she wanted him to die. He did not think now that she wanted that; she was happier with him than she had ever been before. She had found a new indulgence for him, even for what she had hated in him. Justice would have turned to harshness, clearness of vision to a Pharisaic strictness, had she not found indulgence for the man who had crept back to kiss her hand. She was very indulgent towards him, and he seemed happy, save that now and then he looked at her wistfully, and began to fall into the way of reminding her of past occasions when he had shone and she admired, asking whether she remembered this and that. He dropped hints too that the Henstead speech was to be memorable. She was a little afraid that already he was feeling indulgence insufficient and mere kindness, or indeed mere affection, not the great thing that he asked of her, just as peace and quiet, or pictures, books, and hills, were not the things that he asked of life. If this were so, the compromise she had brought him to consent to was precarious; it was, as she had hinted to Aunt Maria, doubtful whether they could stick to their year.

There was another question in her mind, not less persistent, not less troubling. Perhaps the greater harmony between them, which had induced and enabled her to obtain that consent from him, was as precarious as the compromise itself; it too was liable to be overthrown by a return of Quisante's old self, or at least of that side of him which was for the time hidden. The temptation to work would overthrow the compromise, the temptation to win might again produce action in him and impose action on her which would bring death to their newly-achieved harmony, even as exertion would to his worn-out body.

The great speech, the last speech, was to be on Wednesday. They arrived in Henstead on Tuesday morning and were plunged at once into a turmoil of business. There was a luncheon, a deputation, a meeting of the party association; Japhet Williams had half a dozen difficulties, and old Foster as many bits of shrewd counsel. Over all and through all was the air of congratulation, of relief from the fear of losing Quisante, of enthusiastic applause for his magnificently courageous struggle against illness and its triumphant issue. When May hinted at a period of rest--the full extent of it was not disclosed--Foster nodded tolerantly, Japhet said times were critical, and the rest declared that they would not flog a willing horse, but knew that Mr. Quisante would do his duty. Unquestionably Henstead's effect was bad, both for the compromise and for Quisante. Minute by minute May saw how the old fascination grew on him, how more and more he forgot that this was to be the last effort, that it was an end, not a beginning. He gave pledges of action, he would not positively decline engagements, he talked as though he would be in his place in Parliament throughout the session. While doing all this he avoided meeting her eye; he would have found nothing worse than pity touched with amusement. But he kept declaring to her, when they had a chance of being alone, that he was loyal to their compact. "Though it's pretty hard," he added with a renewal of his bitterness against the fate that constrained him.

"We ought never to have come," she said. "It makes it worse. I wish we hadn't."

"Wait till you've heard me to-morrow night," he whispered, pressing her hand and looking into her eyes with the glee of anticipated triumph.

He was going to make a great speech, she knew that very well; there were all the signs about him, the glee, the pride, the occasional absence of mind, the frequent appeal for sympathy, the need of a confidence to answer and confirm his own. Such a mood, in spite of its element of childishness, was yet a good one with him. It raised him above pettiness and made him impatient of old Foster's cunning little devices for capturing an enemy or confirming the allegiance of a doubtful friend. He had for the time forgotten himself in his work, the position in what he meant to do with it; he would have delivered that speech now if the price had been the loss of his seat; whatever the price was, that speech now would have its way, all of it, whole and unimpaired, even the passage on which Foster was consulted with the result that its suppression was declared imperative in view of Japhet Williams' feelings. "Damn Japhet Williams," said Quisante with a laugh, and Quisante's wife found herself wishing that he would "damn" a few more men and things. It was just the habit that he wanted, just the thing that Marchmont and Dick Benyon and men like them had. Oh, if he could win and keep it!

"He must consider local feeling," said old Foster, pinching a fat chin in fear and doubt.

"No, he needn't, no, he needn't now," she cried. "He'll carry it with him, whatever he does now. Don't you see? He can take them all with him now. Wait till you've heard him to-morrow night!"

Here was happiness for her and for him, but where else? Not in the compromise, not in the year of quiet. It seemed to be for this that they had come together, in this that they could help one another, feel with one another, be really at one. And this could not be. The tears stood in May Quisante's eyes as she turned away from the pleasant shrewd old schemer; his picture should stand no more on the mantelpiece. But now it seemed again strange and incredible that this, the great career, could not be; Aunt Maria's was the creed for a time like this.

The great night came, and a great crowd in the Corn Exchange. Old Foster was in the chair and the place seemed full of familiar faces; the butcher who was troubled about slaughter-houses sat side by side with the man who was uneasy about his deceased wife's sister; Japhet Williams was on the platform and his men sat in close ranks at the back of the hall, they and Dunn's contingent hard-by smoking their pipes as the custom was at Henstead. There were other faces, not so usual; for far away, in a purposely chosen obscurity, May saw Weston Marchmont and the Dean of St. Neot's. The Mildmays themselves could not be present, but these two had come over from Moors End and sat there now, the Dean beaming in anticipation of a treat, Marchmont with a rather supercilious smile and an air of weariness. May could not catch their eyes but she felt glad to have them there; it was always pleasant to her that her friends should see Quisante when he was at his best, and he was going to be at his best to-night.

"We are rejoiced to welcome our Member back among us in good health and strength again," old Foster began, quite in the Aunt Maria style, and he went on to describe the grief caused by Quisante's illness and the joy now felt at the prospect of his being able to render services to his Queen, his country, and his constituency no less long than valuable and brilliant. Quisante listened with a smile, gently tapping the table with his fingers. May turned from him to seek again her friends' faces in the hall; this time she met their gaze; they were both looking at her with pitying eyes; the instant they saw her glance, they avoided it. What did that mean? It meant that they were not of Aunt Maria's party. The kindly compassionate look of those two men went to her heart; it brought back reality and pierced through the pretence, the grand pretence, which everybody, herself included, had been weaving. An impulse of fear laid hold of her; involuntarily she put out her hand towards Foster who had just finished his speech and was sitting down. She meant to tell him to stop the meeting, to send the people home, to help her to persuade Quisante to go back to the hotel and not to speak. Foster looked round to see what she wanted, but at the moment Quisante was already on his feet. "It's nothing," May whispered, withdrawing her hand. It was too late now, the thing must go forward now, whatever the end of it might be, whatever the friendly pity of those eyes might seem to say. To-morrow quiet would begin; but she had a new, strange, intense terror of to-night. This feeling lasted through the early part of Quisante's speech, when he was still in a quiet vein and showed some signs of physical weakness. But as he went on it vanished and in its place came the old faith and the old illusion. For he gathered force, he put out his strength, he exhaled vitality. Again she sought her friends' faces and marked with joy and triumph that their eyes were now set on the speaker and their attention held firmly, as the fine resonant voice filled the building and seemed to resent the confinement of its walls, or even more when a whisper, heard only by a miracle as she thought, thrilled even the most distant listener. The speech was being all that it had been going to be, his confidence and hers were to be justified. The pronouncement that the country waited for was coming, the fighting men were to get the lead they wanted, the attack was sounded, the battle was being opened to the sound of a trumpet-call. May leant forward, listening. A period reached its close, and applause delayed the beginning of the next. Quisante glanced round and saw his wife; their eyes met; a slow smile came on his lips, a smile of great delight. Once more her heart beat and her eyes gleamed for him, once more she would be no man's if she could not be his. His air was gay and his face joyful as, the next minute, he threw himself into a flood of eloquence where indignation mingled with ridicule; he made men doubt whether they must laugh or fight. Now he had all that he desired, men hung on his words, and she sat by, and saw, and felt, and shared.

At the next pause, when the cheering again imposed a momentary silence, the Dean turned to Marchmont, raising his hands and dropping them again.

"Yes, he can do it," said Marchmont in a curious tone; envy and scorn and admiration all seemed to find expression.

"Look at her!" whispered the Dean, but this time Marchmont made no answer. He had been looking at her, and knew now why she had tied her life to Alexander Quisante's.

"If I could do it like that I couldn't stop doing it," said the Dean.

"He never will as long as he lives," answered Marchmont with a shrug of his shoulders.

"But he won't live?" whispered the Dean. "You mean that?"

The applause ended; there was no need for Marchmont to answer, even if he could have found an answer. Quisante took up his work again. He was near the end now, an hour and a quarter had passed. May's eyes never left him; he was going to get through, she thought, and she had no thought now of the compromise or the year of quiet, no thought except of his triumph that to-morrow would ring through the land. He paused an instant, whether in faltering or for effect she could not tell, and then began his peroration. It was short, but he gave every word slowly, apart, as it were in a place of its own, in the sure and superb confidence that every word had its own office, its own weight, and its own effect. But before he ended there came one interruption. Suddenly, as though moved by an impulse foreign to himself, old Foster pushed back his chair and rose to his feet; after an instant the whole audience imitated him. Quisante paused and looked round; again he smiled; then, taking a step forward to clear himself of those who surrounded him, he went on. Thus he ended his speech, he standing, to men and women one and all standing about and before him.

"I never saw such a thing," whispered the Dean of St. Neot's. But his words were lost in the cheers, and Weston Marchmont's "Bravo" rang out so loud that May Quisante heard it on the platform and bent forward to kiss her hand to him.

In the tea-room, to which all the important persons withdrew after the meeting, festivity reigned. Quisante was surrounded by admirers, busy listening to compliments and congratulations, and receiving the advice of the local wise men. May did not attempt to get near him, but surrendered herself to a like process. Old Foster came up to her and shook hands, saying, "I'm proud to have had a hand in making Mr. Quisante member for Henstead. You were right too; he can say what he likes now."

Then came Japhet Williams' thin voice. "I hope it won't be many days before Mr. Quisante tells the House of Commons what he's told us to-night."

Should she say that he would not tell anything to the House of Commons for many days, probably not ever, that his voice would not be heard there? They would not believe her, she hardly would believe herself. In that hour illness and retirement seemed dim and distant, unreal and a little ludicrous. She abandoned herself to the temptation pressed upon her and talked as though her husband were to lead all through the campaign that he had opened.

"I never saw him looking better in my life," said Foster.

As he spoke a short thick-set man with grey hair pushed by him. Old Foster caught him by the wrist, crying with a laugh, "Why, Doctor, what are you doing here? You're one of the enemy!"

"I came to hear the speech."

"A good'un, eh?"

"Never mind the speech. Take me over to Mr. Quisante--now, directly."

"What for?"

"He must go home."

"Go home? Nonsense. He's all right."

Dr. Tillman wrenched his hand away, shook his head scornfully, and started across the room toward where Quisante was. May laid her hand on old Foster's arm.

"What did he say? Does he think my husband ill?"

"I don't know. It's all nonsense."

Another voice broke in.

"A triumph, Lady May, a triumph indeed!"

She turned to find the Dean and Marchmont close behind her, and the Dean holding out his hand as he spoke.

"Yes, yes," she said hurriedly and uncomfortably. "It was fine, wasn't it?"

"It was magnificent," said Marchmont.

"Thanks, thanks." Her tone was still hurried, absent, ungracious. The two looked at her in surprise. Where was the radiance of triumph that had lit up her face as she signalled to them from the platform? They had expected to find her full of the speech and had been prepared to give her joy by the warmth and sincerity of their praise.

"What's the matter?" whispered Marchmont.

"Do you see that short man, the one with grey hair, trying to get near Alexander It's the doctor--Dr. Tillman. He can't get near Alexander."

"What does he want?"

"I don't know. He thinks he ought to go home. He thinks--Ah, now he's getting to him! Look! He's speaking to him now!"

They saw the doctor come up to Quisante and Quisante smile as he waited for the visitor to introduce himself. The doctor began to speak quickly and energetically. "Oh, thank you very much, but I'm all right," came suddenly in loud clear tones from Quisante. The doctor spoke again. Quisante shook his head, laughing merrily. Marchmont looked at May; her eyes were on her husband and they were full of fear. "I'd forgotten," he heard her murmur. She turned to him with an imploring air. "He won't listen," she said.

A burst of laughter came from Quisante's group; he had made some joke and they all applauded him. Tillman stood for a moment longer before him, then gave a queer jerk of his head, and turned sharp round on his heel. He came back towards where she stood. She took a step forward and thus crossed his path, Marchmont and the Dean standing on either side of her.

"You remember me, Dr. Tillman?" she asked. "I'm Mr. Quisante's wife, you know."

He stood still, looking at her angrily from under his bushy eyebrows.

"Take him home then," he said sharply. "It was madness to let him come here at all. You're flying in the face of the advice you've had. Oh, I know about it. Let me tell you, you're very lucky to have got through so far."

"We--we're through all right now," she said.

"Are you? I hope so. The man's in a high state of excitement now, and high states of excitement aren't good for him." He paused and added impatiently, "Have you no influence over him? Can none of you do anything with him?"

"He won't like it if I go to him," May whispered.

"I'll go," said the Dean, stepping forward.

"Yes," said Tillman, "go and tell him Lady May Quisante wants him."

The Dean started off on his errand. The doctor's manner grew a little gentler.

"You couldn't be expected to know," he said. "But in a thing like this you mustn't think he's all right because he looks all right. He'll look his best just at the time when there's most--well, when he isn't. I hope he's going to keep quiet after this?"

"Yes, yes. At least we've arranged that. Weston, do go and bring him to me."

"Look, he's coming now with the Dean."

Quisante's group opened, and he began to move towards them. But at every step somebody stopped him, to shake hands and to say a few words of thanks or praise. The Dean kept urging him on gently, but he would not be hurried.

"Now take him straight home," said Tillman. "Good-night." And hardly waiting for May's bow he turned away and disappeared among the throng that was making for the door.

Quisante, at last escaping from his admirers, came up to his wife. His eyes were very bright, and he ran to her, holding out both his hands. She put hers in his and said, "We must go home. You'll be worn out."

"Worn out? Not I! But you look worn out. Come along. Ah, Marchmont, this is a compliment indeed."

They were almost alone in the room now. May took her husband's arm and they walked thus together.

"Are you pleased?" he whispered.

"Am I pleased!" she said with the laugh he knew and an upward glance of her eyes. Quisante himself laughed and drew himself to his full height, carrying his head defiantly. For though he sought and loved to please all, it was pleasing her that had been foremost in his mind that night. He had remembered the boast he made on Duty Hill; now it was justified, and he had once again tasted his sweetest pleasure.

They had to wait in an ante-room while their carriage was sent for. Here the Dean and Marchmont joined them again. They were there when old Foster rushed in in great excitement.

"The whole town's in the square," he cried. "There's never been anything like it in Henstead. You'll say just a word to them from the steps, sir? Only a word! They're all waiting there for you. You'll say just a word? I'll be back in an instant." And he bustled out again.

Quisante walked across to a window that opened on to the Market Square. He looked out, then turned and beckoned to his wife. The whole town seemed to be in the square, as Foster said, and the people caught sight of him as he stood in the window with the lighted room behind him. They broke into loud cheering. Quisante bowed to them. Then a sudden short shiver seemed to run through him; he put his hand first to his side, then to his head.

"I feel queer" he said to his wife. "I think I--I won't--I won't speak any more. I feel so--so queer." Her eyes were fixed on him now, and his on hers. He smiled and tapped his forehead lightly with his hand. "It's nothing," he said. "You were pleased, weren't you, to-night?" Again he put his hands in hers. She found no word to say and they stood like this for a moment. The cheers ceased, the crowd outside was puzzled. Marchmont jumped up from his chair and walked forward hastily.

"Anything wrong?" he asked.

Neither heeded him. May's eyes were set in terror on her husband's face; for now she was holding him up by the power of her hands gripped in his; without them he would fall. Nay, he would fall now!

He spoke in a low thick voice. "It's come," he said, "it's come." And he sank back into Weston Marchmont's arms, his wife letting go his hands and standing rigid.

Old Foster ran in again, calling, "Are you ready, sir?" He found his answer. Alexander Quisante would speak no more in Henstead. He was leaning against Marchmont, breathing heavily and with sore difficulty. May went to him; she was very white and very calm; she took his hand and kissed it.

"I--I--I spoke well?" he muttered. "Didn't I?"

"Very very finely, Alexander."

"They were--were all wrong in saying I couldn't do it," he murmured. He shivered again and then was still. The Dean had brought a chair and they put him in it. But he moved no more. May looked at old Foster who stood by, his face wrung with helpless distress and consternation.

"We've killed him among us, I and you and the people out there," she said. _

Read next: Chapter 21. A Relict

Read previous: Chapter 19. Death Defied

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