Was she herself indeed like that? The question rushed into Cynthia’s mind. As pretty as that? It was impossible. Yet she had been recognized because of it. Just so then she must have looked that morning when, after sending her neglected telegram to Captain Rames, she had stood at the edge of the wheat on the Daventry estancia. Yet nobody recognized her now. She had the features of the girl in the portrait, the broad forehead, the straight, delicate nose, the fair hair, the big dark-blue eyes. Yet nobody recognized her. Perhaps, however, she had gone off. She was getting old. A gentle melancholy descended upon Cynthia. The fear lest her likeness to the girl in the picture should be remarked had quite gone since she had seen the picture. She was now rather hurt and indignant that no one had noticed it.
Lady Lorme gave the signal a little while afterward, and the ladies rose and left the men to their cigars and their discussion. Colonel Challoner opened the proceedings with a pompous, unnecessary little speech. He welcomed his guests, and he reminded them at considerable length of the object of the gathering. He concluded with a question as to whether any honorable member present had any views as to the best procedure to be adopted.
“Yes,” said Harry Rames, “if I may make a suggestion. There are eighteen of us here. I propose that we now go carefully through the list of members and consider how many more we can get to join us, upon whom we can count. I have Vacher’s list here;” and he drew out from his pocket the familiar little paper-covered book with the names and addresses of the members.
“I think that’s the first thing to be done,” a man agreed from the other end of the table. He was a Mr. Edgington, a little, square, bald man with short side-whiskers, who seemed a cross between an attorney and a stable-boy. He was one of the many men in the House who have a subject. He had mastered the Housing question; he really knew the facts, he had the figures at his fingers’ ends, and he had counted upon his knowledge to take him straight through the doors of the Local Government Board. But the doors had remained closed, and he had turned gadfly in consequence — a gadfly that trumpeted but had no sting. “To be sure about the men who will stand out against the pressure of the Whips, who will not be frightened into line by their local associations, who retain, in a word, some self-respect and some veneration for the independence of the House of Commons — that is our first requisite,” he said floridly.
The company then went carefully through the list and marked off twenty fresh names as the names of men who might be inclined to join the revolt. It was arranged that discreet letters should be written to them on the following day, and Robert Brook was appointed secretary by an unanimous vote.
“Of course we shan’t get them all,” said Lorme.
“And of those we do get, some will shirk when the division bell rings,” added Howard Fall.
“No doubt,” said Rames. “But if we can carry thirty men into the opposition lobby on the second reading, we shall have made a demonstration which will go far to kill the bill. It will mean sixty on a division. It will leave the government with a comfortable majority. We all want that of course,” — a chorus of approval, more or less sincere, greeted the remark— “But it will also mean that the government will hardly be able to force the bill through its committee stages by a drastic use of the closure.”
“Exactly,” said a tall, bearded man with a strong Scotch accent, who up to this moment had held his tongue. He represented a northern town of Scotland, and was one of the eight who were opposed to the measure first and last because they believed it harmful to the country. “Exactly. The demonstration is very well, but if the bill is to be killed, we will have to kill it in committee. And to prepare for that must be our chief work here, Colonel Challoner.”
“Yes,” said Rames. “Mr. Monro is right. We must go word by word through those clauses of Fanshawe’s bill, which we are fairly certain Devenish will incorporate in his measure. We must formulate amendments, and we ought, I think, to agree, to some extent, upon the speakers to move them. It will, of course, have to be a provisional arrangement—” and he was interrupted by a strident voice which belonged to a sandy-haired hunting-man with a broad red face who would have seemed totally out of place in any conspiracy.
“Yes. Devenish may sell us a pup. He’s a deuce of a clever fellow is Devenish. Let him get wind of your partridges, Challoner, and he’ll sell us a pup for a sure thing.”
“All the more reason we should keep our gathering quiet,” said Challoner. He looked round the table with an impatience which had been growing upon him during the last half-hour. “I think that’s all we can do to-night.”
“About all,” said Monro. “There is just this suggestion I would like to make. I know a man whose business is land, and he is most experienced in it; and I thought that if you would like, I would send him a telegram to-morrow, and we could employ him to help us in framing these amendments. He is a partner in Beevis and Beevis, the land-agents in Piccadilly.”
“By all means, do,” said Challoner. “We all agree to that, don’t we? And now let us join the ladies.”
He sprang up and opened the door like a man in a great hurry. When he entered the drawing-room, he crossed it at once to Cynthia’s side.
“I was sorry, Mrs. Rames, that I couldn’t take you in to dinner to-night. I would have liked very much that on your first evening at Bramling you should have come in with me. For, as you know, I somehow associate you with this house.”
He looked at her with a very direct inquiry in his eyes. But Cynthia would not respond to it; and he sat at her side with a wistfulness in his voice and his words against which she had a little trouble to protect her heart. But she did, for she was alarmed. When she had met him before he had spoken rather as though he wished that they were related. To-night he spoke as if he suspected that they were.
Mr. Beevis arrived the next afternoon, and for the rest of the week, while the morning was given to the partridges and the amusements of the country, the afternoon and the evening found the Cave busy upon the bill. Amendments were formulated and shared out amongst them, whilst it was by general consent left to Rames to raise the question, first of all, on the Address at the beginning of the session and then to move the rejection of the bill later on when it came before the House upon its second reading. Good progress, in a word, was made, and, to the delight of all, no whisper of this conspiracy crept into any of the daily papers. They were examined anxiously every day upon their arrival at eleven, and laid down with relief. Cynthia could not but laugh.
“I never would have believed that you could have found so many members of Parliament reluctant to see their names in the papers,” she said to her husband.
“Yes, it’s astonishing what modesty they can develop,” he replied.
But though Cynthia laughed, the work, the concealments, the sort of restrained excitement which was diffused through the house, began to have their effect upon her. She was getting color into her life at last, she assured herself, even if it was only a dingy color. Moreover, she had the opportunity to compare her husband with his rivals in the career. Indeed, he had but one real rival in that House, Howard Fall. And though he lacked the subtlety of his intellect, he had a swifter initiative, a more telling vigor of phrase. As for the rest he stood head and shoulders above them all, and they knew it and looked to him to lead them. If he did not share the strong convictions of the honest men, he overtopped them by sheer ability, and as to the others he knew nothing either of their malice or their fear. Thus they all came hopefully to the last day of their visit; and then at one o’clock in the day the thunderbolt fell.
It was a Sunday and the whole party had just settled down to luncheon when the whir of a motor-car floated into the room. It was followed by the sound of a door opening and shutting, a pleasant and familiar voice was heard to inquire for Colonel Challoner, and the next moment, ushered in by the butler, Mr. Devenish entered the room. Consternation ran round that luncheon table like a wind across a field of corn. Colonel Challoner sprang up hastily with
every sign of discomfort.
“My dear Devenish, I am delighted to see you, I am sure. You are just in time for luncheon.” He called to the butler to lay another place at his side. “I didn’t know you were in the neighborhood. You should have let me know.”
“I didn’t mean to do that,” said Devenish dryly. He ran his eye from face to face with a twinkling glance. Cynthia herself could hardly restrain a laugh. The independent members of the nation’s Parliament looked so singularly like a set of school-boys’ caught by a master in the planning of a rebellion.
“Quite a large party, eh, Challoner?” he said with a smile.
“Yes, yes,” replied the colonel. “The partridges, you know.”
“Ah, the partridges, to be sure. But I didn’t know that Howard Fall shot at anything but ministers. And even they only get winged, eh, Fall?”
Mr. Devenish strolled round the table and shook hands with Fall. Fall, however, was one of the few who was quite undisturbed.
“Yes, but I am looking to practice to improve my shooting,” he said.
A place was now laid for Devenish. Colonel Challoner called to him.
“Will you come and sit here, Devenish?”
“Certainly,” replied the smiling minister. “But I should first of all like to shake hands with all my friends;” and quite slowly he walked round the table and shook hands with each of the men present and those of the ladies whom he knew. He was in the best of tempers, and he had a cordial word for every one except for Captain Ramos. To him he merely said:
“Ah!” and the accent of his voice had in it no note of surprise. It was the ejaculation of a man establishing something which he had suspected. Then he walked to his place and sat down.
“There are eighteen members of Parliament, Challoner,” he said pleasantly. “I hope that I have forgotten no one. Let me see!” Again his eye ranged round the table, obviously registering in his memory the identity of Challoner’s guests. “No, eighteen members of Parliament. Have you got a partridge left?”
Rames leaned forward and met smile with smile.
“We have just left one for next year,” he said, “and we have been making a careful note of the piece of land on which we think we shall get him.”
Howard Fall was delighted. For he loved courage. But the others of that company were more than ever confused and disconcerted.
“He’s giving us away,” said one of the weak-kneed in an indignant whisper to Andrew Fallon. Fallon’s white face was twisted in a grin.
“He’s cutting down the bridge behind you, my friend. And I don’t think he’s a bad judge.”
Meanwhile Devenish returned the direct gaze of Captain Rames. There was no pretence between these two. Their eyes met; they challenged each other, Rames with perfect good-humor, Devenish with a certain grimness in his smile. He nodded his head toward Rames and tightened his lips. There was not a man at that table who could not construe the gesture into words.
“You are the leader here, Rames. Very well, we’ll see.”
Mr. Devenish turned to his neighbor. It was Cynthia, and even to her he talked for a little while with reserve. Rames had been correct in his diagnosis of the man. A good-humored fighter as a rule, he lost his good-humor when the attack was made upon his flank. He had begun his own political career with side-shots at his leaders from the front-bench below the gangway; but he did not rejoice when the same disposition of battle was planned against himself. However, luncheon and the proximity of a beautiful woman appeased him as they should. He began to talk freely; his smile lost its grimness, his natural geniality flashed bright.
“Tell me one thing,” he said suddenly.
“It depends—” said Cynthia warily.
“Very well then. Tell me another thing. Why does your portrait hang in this house?”
Cynthia’s cheeks flamed. She looked swiftly across Devenish at Colonel Challoner. But he was giving no heed to them.
“Do you think it’s like me?” she asked.
“It is you,” he replied.
“No one else has noticed the resemblance all this week,” said Cynthia.
Mr. Devenish glanced along the table.
“Well, look at ’em,” he said contemptuously, and they both laughed. Lady Lorme rose at that moment from the table, and Mr. Devenish, pleading the distance he had to travel, took his departure.
“I have enjoyed myself very much, Challoner,” he said as the colonel came out with him to-the doorway. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that I thought of dropping in upon you for luncheon. I am going back to London now. Good-by.”
He mounted into his car and drove gaily off. In the dining-room behind him, the sandy-haired man was saying over and over again to the dismayed conspirators —
“He’ll sell us a pup. He’ll sell us a pup. I’ll bet you a monkey, he’ll sell us a pup.”
That night, when the men went upstairs, Rames passing from his dressing-room into his wife’s bedroom found her still up and sitting by her fire.
“We go back to-morrow, Cynthia. It has been a long week. I hope you haven’t been bored.”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t.”
“What do you think of them? Will they run away when the fight comes?”
“Not all,” said Cynthia. “But even of those who stay with you, there’s not one who is a match for Mr. Devenish.”
She spoke with some warmth in her voice.
“You like him?” said Harry Rames.
“I think he’s a big man,” she replied.
Rames, who was standing looking into her mirror, suddenly swung round.
“Shall I tell you why you say that, Cynthia?”
“Yes.”
“Because he’s the only man except myself who has noticed your likeness to that very pretty girl on the wall of the dining-room. I heard him mention it to you at luncheon.”
He burst out into a laugh as he spoke; and in a moment or two Cynthia joined in the laugh. So Harry Rames too had noticed the resemblance. She laughed and her eyes laughed with her lips.
“After all,” said Harry Rames, “we get some fun out of it, don’t we, Cynthia?”
“Yes,” said Cynthia and her laughter died away. “We get some fun out of it, Harry. That’s just what we do get”; and her eyes turned away from him to the fire.
CHAPTER XXVII
DEVENISH REPLIES
CAPTAIN RAMES HAD arranged to travel by a train which ran directly into Warwickshire through the outskirts of London. It left Wareham at mid-day, some two hours later than the fast London trains, and though Cynthia had wished to escape in all the hurry of the general departure, she had found no sufficient reason. She and her husband were thus the last of that company at Bramling, and when all but they had gone, Colonel Challoner turned from the front door whence he had been speeding his guests, and invited her to walk with him in the garden. Cynthia in a flurry began to search for excuses, and before she found one realized that the moment for excuses had already gone. She turned and walked with Colonel Challoner into the red-walled garden where his fruit and flowers grew. The half-hour which ever since the first evening at Bramling she had intended to avoid was, after all, upon her.
“There is not very much to see now, Mrs. Rames,” said the colonel, and without any change of voice he added, “I learnt just before the session ended that you had come from South America.”
“From the Argentine,” said Cynthia.
“But you are English-born, of course?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Cynthia. “But I never came to England until five years ago. I was brought up partly in Buenos Ayres and partly on the Daventry estancia two hundred miles to the south-west of Buenos Ayres. My name was Cynthia Daventry.”
Cynthia rattled off her story to spare herself his questions, and for a few minutes he walked by her side in silence. But he was not altogether to be deterred.
“I had a son in South America,” he continued. “He went out under — rather unhappy circumstances.
He took a young wife with him. She ran away to join him. They went to Chile. There a daughter was born — my granddaughter.”
“On the other side of the Andes,” said Cynthia.
“Yes,” said Colonel Challoner. “You were never in Chile, I suppose?”
Cynthia answered without any hesitation and in a voice schooled perfectly to indifference.
“Oh, yes, once. I have seen Valparaiso.”
Colonel Challoner was deceived by her indifference. To him, with the particular intention of his question filling his mind, it was as though she had said she had never been in Valparaiso at all.
“I knew nothing of what my boy was doing, Mrs. Rames,” he continued, “nor that he had a daughter. He left England under a cloud. I gave him what money I could afford and — I had done with him. Perhaps I was harsh — I did not think that I was. But — well, it’s not so easy to have done with people when they are your own flesh and blood, and after a time I began to make inquiries. I heard of the daughter then.”
“Yes?” said Cynthia. She looked up into his face inquiringly. She had dreaded this half-hour of acting lest the changes of color in her face, and the unevenness of her voice, should betray her. Yet now that the half-hour was here she played her part with ease.
“I heard that Jim and his wife and his child had all perished in one of the earthquakes, eighteen years ago. And there was I, you see, alone again, but alone for life now.”
“I am sorry,” said Cynthia.
“But the news was wrong,” the old man continued with a sudden violence. “My son — died,” and he plainly substituted that verb for another, “only five years ago. I received a cutting from a newspaper. I sent out again at once to South America a man whom I could trust; and I discovered that Jim was not killed by the earthquake, nor was his daughter. He carried her up the valley toward the Andes — tramped away, since Valparaiso was ruined, with his daughter in his arms. He wouldn’t leave her behind. No, he must have carried her across the Continent. There was good in Jim, after all, you see — only I, his father hadn’t the sense to see it.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 500