Among the genuine mourners were Mr. Jansenius, who burst into tears
at the ceremony of casting earth on the coffin; the boy Arthur, who,
preoccupied by the novelty of appearing in a long cloak at the head of a
public procession, felt that he was not so sorry as he ought to be when
he saw his papa cry; and a cousin who had once asked Henrietta to marry
him, and who now, full of tragic reflections, was enjoying his despair
intensely.

The rest whispered, whenever they could decently do so, about a strange
omission in the arrangements. The husband of the deceased was absent.
Members of the family and intimate friends were told by Daniel Jansenius
that the widower had acted in a blackguard way, and that the Janseniuses
did not care two-pence whether he came or stayed at home; that, but for
the indecency of the thing, they were just as glad that he was keeping
away. Others, who had no claim to be privately informed, made inquiries
of the undertaker's foreman, who said he understood the gentleman
objected to large funerals. Asked why, he said he supposed it was on the
ground of expense. This being met by a remark that Mr. Trefusis was very
wealthy, he added that he had been told so, but believed the money
had not come from the lady; that people seldom cared to go to a great
expense for a funeral unless they came into something good by the death;
and that some parties the more they had the more they grudged. Before
the funeral guests dispersed, the report spread by Mr. Jansenius's
brother had got mixed with the views of the foreman, and had given rise
to a story of Trefusis expressing joy at his wife's death with frightful
oaths in her father's house whilst she lay dead there, and refusing to
pay a farthing of her debts or funeral expenses.

Some days later, when gossip on the subject was subsiding, a fresh
scandal revived it. A literary friend of Mr. Jansenius's helped him
to compose an epitaph, and added to it a couple of pretty and touching
stanzas, setting forth that Henrietta's character had been one of rare
sweetness and virtue, and that her friends would never cease to sorrow
for her loss. A tradesman who described himself as a "monumental mason"
furnished a book of tomb designs, and Mr. Jansenius selected a highly
ornamental one, and proposed to defray half the cost of its erection.
Trefusis objected that the epitaph was untrue, and said that he did not
see why tombstones should be privileged to publish false statements. It
was reported that he had followed up his former misconduct by calling
his father-in-law a liar, and that he had ordered a common tombstone
from some cheap-jack at the East-end. He had, in fact, spoken
contemptuously of the monumental tradesman as an "exploiter" of labor,
and had asked a young working mason, a member of the International
Association, to design a monument for the gratification of Jansenius.

The mason, with much pains and misgiving, produced an original design.
Trefusis approved of it, and resolved to have it executed by the hands
of the designer. He hired a sculptor's studio, purchased blocks of
marble of the dimensions and quality described to him by the mason, and
invited him to set to work forthwith.

Trefusis now encountered a difficulty. He wished to pay the mason the
just value of his work, no more and no less. But this he could not
ascertain. The only available standard was the market price, and this he
rejected as being fixed by competition among capitalists who could only
secure profit by obtaining from their workmen more products than they
paid them for, and could only tempt customers by offering a share of the
unpaid-for part of the products as a reduction in price. Thus he
found that the system of withholding the indispensable materials for
production and subsistence from the laborers, except on condition of
their supporting an idle class whilst accepting a lower standard
of comfort for themselves than for that idle class, rendered the
determination of just ratios of exchange, and consequently the practice
of honest dealing, impossible. He had at last to ask the mason what he
would consider fair payment for the execution of the design, though he
knew that the man could no more solve the problem than he, and that,
though he would certainly ask as much as he thought he could get, his
demand must be limited by his poverty and by the competition of the
monumental tradesman. Trefusis settled the matter by giving double what
was asked, only imposing such conditions as were necessary to compel the
mason to execute the work himself, and not make a profit by hiring other
men at the market rate of wages to do it.

But the design was, to its author's astonishment, to be paid
for separately. The mason, after hesitating a long time between
two-pounds-ten and five pounds, was emboldened by a fellow-workman,
who treated him to some hot whiskey and water, to name the larger sum.
Trefusis paid the money at once, and then set himself to find out how
much a similar design would have cost from the hands of an eminent
Royal Academician. Happening to know a gentleman in this position, he
consulted him, and was informed that the probable cost would be from
five hundred to one thousand pounds. Trefusis expressed his opinion that
the mason's charge was the more reasonable, somewhat to the indignation
of his artist friend, who reminded him of the years which a Royal
Academician has to spend in acquiring his skill. Trefusis mentioned that
the apprenticeship of a mason was quite as long, twice as laborious,
and not half so pleasant. The artist now began to find Trefusis's
Socialistic views, with which he had previously fancied himself in
sympathy, both odious and dangerous. He demanded whether nothing was
to be allowed for genius. Trefusis warmly replied that genius cost
its possessor nothing; that it was the inheritance of the whole race
incidentally vested in a single individual, and that if that individual
employed his monopoly of it to extort money from others, he deserved
nothing better than hanging. The artist lost his temper, and suggested
that if Trefusis could not feel that the prerogative of art was divine,
perhaps he could understand that a painter was not such a fool as to
design a tomb for five pounds when he might be painting a portrait for
a thousand. Trefusis retorted that the fact of a man paying a thousand
pounds for a portrait proved that he had not earned the money, and was
therefore either a thief or a beggar. The common workman who sacrificed
sixpence from his week's wages for a cheap photograph to present to his
sweetheart, or a shilling for a pair of chromolithographic pictures
or delft figures to place on his mantelboard, suffered greater privation
for the sake of possessing a work of art than the great landlord or
shareholder who paid a thousand pounds, which he was too rich to miss,
for a portrait that, like Hogarth's Jack Sheppard, was only interesting
to students of criminal physiognomy. A lively quarrel ensued, Trefusis
denouncing the folly of artists in fancying themselves a priestly caste
when they were obviously only the parasites and favored slaves of
the moneyed classes, and his friend (temporarily his enemy) sneering
bitterly at levellers who were for levelling down instead of levelling
up. Finally, tired of disputing, and remorseful for their acrimony, they
dined amicably together.

The monument was placed in Highgate Cemetery by a small band of
workmen whom Trefusis found out of employment. It bore the following
inscription:


THIS IS THE MONUMENT OF HENRIETTA JANSENIUS WHO WAS BORN ON THE 26TH
JULY, 1856, MARRIED TO SIDNEY TREFUSIS ON THE 23RD AUGUST, 1875, AND WHO
DIED ON THE 21ST DECEMBER IN THE SAME YEAR.

Mr. Jansenius took this as an insult to his daughter's memory, and,
as the tomb was much smaller than many which had been erected in the
cemetery by families to whom the Janseniuses claimed superiority, cited
it as an example of the widower's meanness. But by other persons it was
so much admired that Trefusis hoped it would ensure the prosperity of
its designer. The contrary happened. When the mason attempted to return
to his ordinary work he was informed that he had contravened trade
usage, and that his former employers would have nothing more to say to
him. On applying for advice and assistance to the trades-union of which
he was a member he received the same reply, and was further reproached
for treachery to his fellow-workmen. He returned to Trefusis to say
that the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an
argumentative letter to the "Times," which was not inserted, a sarcastic
one to the trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to the
employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to content
himself with setting the man to work again on mantelpieces and other
decorative stone-work for use in house property on the Trefusis
estate. In a year or two his liberal payments enabled the mason to save
sufficient to start as an employer, in which capacity he soon began to
grow rich, as he knew by experience exactly how much his workmen could
be forced to do, and how little they could be forced to take. Shortly
after this change in his circumstances he became an advocate of
thrift, temperance, and steady industry, and quitted the International
Association, of which he had been an enthusiastic supporter when
dependent on his own skill and taste as a working mason.

During these occurrences Agatha's school-life ended. Her resolution to
study hard during another term at the college had been formed, not for
the sake of becoming learned, but that she might become more worthy of
Smilash; and when she learned the truth about him from his own lips, the
idea of returning to the scene of that humiliation became intolerable
to her. She left under the impression that her heart was broken, for
her smarting vanity, by the law of its own existence, would not perceive
that it was the seat of the injury. So she bade Miss Wilson adieu; and
the bee on the window pane was heard no more at Alton College.

The intelligence of Henrietta's death shocked her the more because she
could not help being glad that the only other person who knew of
her folly with regard to Smilash (himself excepted) was now silenced
forever. This seemed to her a terrible discovery of her own depravity.
Under its influence she became almost religious, and caused some
anxiety about her health to her mother, who was puzzled by her unwonted
seriousness, and, in particular, by her determination not to speak
of the misconduct of Trefusis, which was now the prevailing topic
of conversation in the family. She listened in silence to gossiping
discussions of his desertion of his wife, his heartless indifference
to her decease, his violence and bad language by her deathbed, his
parsimony, his malicious opposition to the wishes of the Janseniuses,
his cheap tombstone with the insulting epitaph, his association with
common workmen and low demagogues, his suspected connection with a
secret society for the assassination of the royal family and blowing
up of the army, his atheistic denial, in a pamphlet addressed to the
clergy, of a statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury that spiritual
aid alone could improve the condition of the poor in the East-end of
London, and the crowning disgrace of his trial for seditious libel at
the Old Bailey, where he was condemned to six months' imprisonment; a
penalty from which he was rescued by the ingenuity of his counsel, who
discovered a flaw in the indictment, and succeeded, at great cost to
Trefusis, in getting the sentence quashed. Agatha at last got tired of
hearing of his misdeeds. She believed him to be heartless, selfish, and
misguided, but she knew that he was not the loud, coarse, sensual, and
ignorant brawler most of her mother's gossips supposed him to be. She
even felt, in spite of herself, an emotion of gratitude to the few who
ventured to defend him.

Preparation for her first season helped her to forget her misadventure.
She "came out" in due time, and an extremely dull season she found it.
So much so, that she sometimes asked herself whether she should ever be
happy again. At the college there had been good fellowship, fun, rules,
and duties which were a source of strength when observed and a source
of delicious excitement when violated, freedom from ceremony, toffee
making, flights on the banisters, and appreciative audiences for the
soldier in the chimney.

In society there were silly conversations lasting half a minute, cool
acquaintanceships founded on such half-minutes, general reciprocity
of suspicion, overcrowding, insufficient ventilation, bad music badly
executed, late hours, unwholesome food, intoxicating liquors, jealous
competition in useless expenditure, husband-hunting, flirting, dancing,
theatres, and concerts. The last three, which Agatha liked, helped to
make the contrast between Alton and London tolerable to her, but
they had their drawbacks, for good partners at the dances, and good
performances at the spiritless opera and concerts, were disappointingly
scarce. Flirting she could not endure; she drove men away when they
became tender, seeing in them the falsehood of Smilash without his wit.
She was considered rude by the younger gentlemen of her circle. They
discussed her bad manners among themselves, and agreed to punish her by
not asking her to dance. She thus got rid, without knowing why, of
the attentions she cared for least (she retained a schoolgirl's cruel
contempt for "boys"), and enjoyed herself as best she could with such of
the older or more sensible men as were not intolerant of girls.

At best the year was the least happy she had ever spent. She repeatedly
alarmed her mother by broaching projects of becoming a hospital nurse,
a public singer, or an actress. These projects led to some desultory
studies. In order to qualify herself as a nurse she read a handbook of
physiology, which Mrs. Wylie thought so improper a subject for a young
lady that she went in tears to beg Mrs. Jansenius to remonstrate with
her unruly girl. Mrs. Jansenius, better advised, was of opinion that the
more a woman knew the more wisely she was likely to act, and that Agatha
would soon drop the physiology of her own accord. This proved true.
Agatha, having finished her book by dint of extensive skipping,
proceeded to study pathology from a volume of clinical lectures. Finding
her own sensations exactly like those described in the book as symptoms
of the direst diseases, she put it by in alarm, and took up a novel,
which was free from the fault she had found in the lectures, inasmuch
as none of the emotions it described in the least resembled any she had
ever experienced.

After a brief interval, she consulted a fashionable teacher of singing
as to whether her voice was strong enough for the operatic stage. He
recommended her to study with him for six years, assuring her that at
the end of that period--if she followed his directions--she should be
the greatest singer in the world. To this there was, in her mind, the
conclusive objection that in six years she should be an old woman. So
she resolved to try privately whether she could not get on more quickly
by herself. Meanwhile, with a view to the drama in case her operatic
scheme should fail, she took lessons in elocution and gymnastics.
Practice in these improved her health and spirits so much that her
previous aspirations seemed too limited. She tried her hand at all the
arts in succession, but was too discouraged by the weakness of her first
attempts to persevere. She knew that as a general rule there are feeble
and ridiculous beginnings to all excellence, but she never applied
general rules to her own case, still thinking of herself as an exception
to them, just as she had done when she romanced about Smilash. The
illusions of adolescence were thick upon her.

Meanwhile her progress was creating anxieties in which she had no share.
Her paroxysms of exhilaration, followed by a gnawing sense of failure
and uselessness, were known to her mother only as "wildness" and "low
spirits," to be combated by needlework as a sedative, or beef tea as a
stimulant. Mrs. Wylie had learnt by rote that the whole duty of a lady
is to be graceful, charitable, helpful, modest, and disinterested whilst
awaiting passively whatever lot these virtues may induce. But she
had learnt by experience that a lady's business in society is to get
married, and that virtues and accomplishments alike are important only
as attractions to eligible bachelors. As this truth is shameful, young
ladies are left for a year or two to find it out for themselves; it is
seldom explicitly conveyed to them at their entry into society. Hence
they often throw away capital bargains in their first season, and
are compelled to offer themselves at greatly reduced prices
subsequently, when their attractions begin to stale. This was the fate
which Mrs. Wylie, warned by Mrs. Jansenius, feared for Agatha, who, time
after time when a callow gentleman of wealth and position was introduced
to her, drove him brusquely away as soon as he ventured to hint that his
affections were concerned in their acquaintanceship. The anxious mother
had to console herself with the fact that her daughter drove away the
ineligible as ruthlessly as the eligible, formed no unworldly
attachments, was still very young, and would grow less coy as she
advanced in years and in what Mrs. Jansenius called sense.

But as the seasons went by it remained questionable whether Agatha was
the more to be congratulated on having begun life after leaving school
or Henrietta on having finished it.



CHAPTER XI

Brandon Beeches, in the Thames valley, was the seat of Sir Charles
Brandon, seventh baronet of that name. He had lost his father before
attaining his majority, and had married shortly afterwards; so that in
his twenty-fifth year he was father to three children. He was a little
worn, in spite of his youth, but he was tall and agreeable, had a
winning way of taking a kind and soothing view of the misfortunes of
others, could tell a story well, liked music and could play and sing
a little, loved the arts of design and could sketch a little in water
colors, read every magazine from London to Paris that criticised
pictures, had travelled a little, fished a little, shot a little,
botanized a little, wandered restlessly in the footsteps of women, and
dissipated his energies through all the small channels that his wealth
opened and his talents made easy to him. He had no large knowledge of
any subject, though he had looked into many just far enough to replace
absolute unconsciousness of them with measurable ignorance. Never having
enjoyed the sense of achievement, he was troubled with unsatisfied
aspirations that filled him with melancholy and convinced him that he
was a born artist. His wife found him selfish, peevish, hankering after
change, and prone to believe that he was attacked by dangerous disease
when he was only catching cold.

Lady Brandon, who believed that he understood all the subjects he
talked about because she did not understand them herself, was one of
his disappointments. In person she resembled none of the types of beauty
striven after by the painters of her time, but she had charms to which
few men are insensible. She was tall, soft, and stout, with ample and
shapely arms, shoulders, and hips. With her small head, little ears,
pretty lips, and roguish eye, she, being a very large creature,
presented an immensity of half womanly, half infantile loveliness which
smote even grave men with a desire to clasp her in their arms and kiss
her. This desire had scattered the desultory intellectual culture of Sir
Charles at first sight. His imagination invested her with the taste for
the fine arts which he required from a wife, and he married her in her
first season, only to discover that the amativeness in her temperament
was so little and languid that she made all his attempts at fondness
ridiculous, and robbed the caresses for which he had longed of all their
anticipated ecstasy. Intellectually she fell still further short of his
hopes. She looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime for
amateur and a branch of the house-furnishing trade for professional
artists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she would
offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as she
frequently blundered upon a sound conclusion whilst he was reasoning his
way to a hollow one with his utmost subtlety and seriousness. On such
occasions his disgust did not trouble her in the least; she triumphed in
it. She had concluded that marriage was a greater folly, and men greater
fools, than she had supposed; but such beliefs rather lightened her
sense of responsibility than disappointed her, and, as she had plenty of
money, plenty of servants, plenty of visitors, and plenty of exercise
on horseback, of which she was immoderately fond, her time passed
pleasantly enough. Comfort seemed to her the natural order of life;
trouble always surprised her. Her husband's friends, who mistrusted
every future hour, and found matter for bitter reflection in many past
ones, were to her only examples of the power of sedentary habits and
excessive reading to make men tripped and dull.

One fine May morning, as she cantered along the avenue at Brandon
Beeches on a powerful bay horse, the gates at the end opened and a young
man sped through them on a bicycle. He was of slight frame, with fine
dark eyes and delicate nostrils. When he recognized Lady Brandon he
waved his cap, and when they met he sprang from his inanimate steed, at
which the bay horse shied.

"Don't, you silly beast!" she cried, whacking the animal with the butt
of her whip. "Though it's natural enough, goodness knows! How d'ye do?
The idea of anyone rich enough to afford a horse riding on a wheel like
that!"

"But I am not rich enough to afford a horse," he said, approaching her
to pat the bay, having placed the bicycle against a tree. "Besides, I am
afraid of horses, not being accustomed to them; and I know nothing about
feeding them. My steed needs no food. He doesn't bite nor kick. He never
goes lame, nor sickens, nor dies, nor needs a groom, nor--"

"That's all bosh," said Lady Brandon impetuously. "It stumbles, and
gives you the most awful tosses, and it goes lame by its treadles and
thingamejigs coming off, and it wears out, and is twice as much trouble
to keep clean and scrape the mud off as a horse, and all sorts of
things. I think the most ridiculous sight in the world is a man on a
bicycle, working away with his feet as hard as he possibly can, and
believing that his horse is carrying him instead of, as anyone can see,
he carrying the horse. You needn't tell me that it isn't easier to walk
in the ordinary way than to drag a great dead iron thing along with you.
It's not good sense."

"Nevertheless I can carry it a hundred miles further in a day than I can
carry myself alone. Such are the marvels of machinery. But I know that
we cut a very poor figure beside you and that magnificent creature not
that anyone will look at me whilst you are by to occupy their attention
so much more worthily."

She darted a glance at him which clouded his vision and made his heart
beat more strongly. This was an old habit of hers. She kept it up from
love of fun, having no idea of the effect it produced on more ardent
temperaments than her own. He continued hastily:

"Is Sir Charles within doors?"

"Oh, it's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of in my life," she
exclaimed. "A man that lives by himself in a place down by the Riverside
Road like a toy savings bank--don't you know the things I mean?--called
Sallust's House, says there is a right of way through our new pleasure
ground. As if anyone could have any right there after all the money we
have spent fencing it on three sides, and building up the wall by the
road, and levelling, and planting, and draining, and goodness knows what
else! And now the man says that all the common people and tramps in the
neighborhood have a right to walk across it because they are too lazy to
go round by the road. Sir Charles has gone to see the man about it. Of
course he wouldn't do as I wanted him."

"What was that?"

"Write to tell the man to mind his own business, and to say that the
first person we found attempting to trespass on our property should be
given to the police."

"Then I shall find no one at home. I beg your pardon for calling it so,
but it is the only place like home to me."

"Yes; it is so comfortable since we built the billiard room and took
away those nasty hangings in the hall. I was ever so long trying to
per--"

She was interrupted by an old laborer, who hobbled up as fast as his
rheumatism would allow him, and began to speak without further ceremony
than snatching off his cap.

"Th'ave coom to the noo groups, my lady, crowds of 'em. An' a parson
with 'em, an' a flag! Sur Chorles he don't know what to say; an' sooch
doin's never was."

Lady Brandon turned pale and pulled at her horse as if to back him out
of some danger. Her visitor, puzzled, asked the old man what he meant.

"There's goin' to be a proceyshon through the noo groups," he replied,
"an' the master can't stop 'em. Th'ave throon down the wall; three yards
of it is lyin' on Riverside Road. An' there's a parson with 'em, and a
flag. An' him that lives in Sallust's hoos, he's there, hoddin''em on."

"Thrown down the wall!" exclaimed Lady Brandon, scarlet with indignation
and pale with apprehension by turns. "What a disgraceful thing! Where
are the police? Chester, will you come with me and see what they are
doing? Sir Charles is no use. Do you think there is any danger?"

"There's two police," said the old man, "an' him that lives at Sallust's
dar'd them stop him. They're lookin' on. An' there's a parson among 'em.
I see him pullin' away at the wall with his own han's."

"I will go and see the fun," said Chester.

Lady Brandon hesitated. But her anger and curiosity vanquished her
fears. She overtook the bicycle, and they went together through the
gates and by the highroad to the scene the old man had described. A heap
of bricks and mortar lay in the roadway on each side of a breach in
the newly built wall, over which Lady Brandon, from her eminence on
horseback, could see, coming towards her across the pleasure ground, a
column of about thirty persons. They marched three abreast in good order
and in silence; the expression of all except a few mirthful faces being
that of devotees fulfilling a rite. The gravity of the procession was
deepened by the appearance of a clergyman in its ranks, which were
composed of men of the middle class, and a few workmen carrying a banner
inscribed THE SOIL or ENGLAND THE BIRTHRIGHT OF ALL HER PEOPLE. There
were also four women, upon whom Lady Brandon looked with intense
indignation and contempt. None of the men of the neighborhood had dared
to join; they stood in the road whispering, and occasionally venturing
to laugh at the jests of a couple of tramps who had stopped to see the
fun, and who cared nothing for Sir Charles.

He, standing a little way within the field, was remonstrating angrily
with a man of his own class, who stood with his back to the breach and
his hands in the pockets of his snuff-colored clothes, contemplating
the procession with elate satisfaction. Lady Brandon, at once suspecting
that this was the man from Sallust's House, and encouraged by the
loyalty of the crowd, most of whom made way for her and touched their
hats, hit the bay horse smartly with her whip and rode him, with a
clatter of hoofs and scattering of clods, right at the snuff-colored
enemy, who had to spring hastily aside to avoid her. There was a roar
of laughter from the roadway, and the man turned sharply on her. But he
suddenly smiled affably, replaced his hands in his pockets after raising
his hat, and said:

"How do you do, Miss Carpenter? I thought you were a charge of cavalry."

"I am not Miss Carpenter, I am Lady Brandon; and you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, Mr. Smilash, if it is you that have brought these
disgraceful people here."

His eyes as he replied were eloquent with reproach to her for being
no longer Miss Carpenter. "I am not Smilash," he said; "I am Sidney
Trefusis. I have just had the pleasure of meeting Sir Charles for
the first time, and we shall be the best friends possible when I have
convinced him that it is hardly fair to seize on a path belonging to
the people and compel them to walk a mile and a half round his estate
instead of four hundred yards between two portions of it."

"I have already told you, sir," said Sir Charles, "that I intend to open
a still shorter path, and to allow all the well-conducted work-people to
pass through twice a day. This will enable them to go to their work
and return from it; and I will be at the cost of keeping the path in
repair."

"Thank you," said Trefusis drily; "but why should we trouble you when
we have a path of our own to use fifty times a day if we choose,
without any man barring our way until our conduct happens to please him?
Besides, your next heir would probably shut the path up the moment he
came into possession."

"Offering them a path is just what makes them impudent," said Lady
Brandon to her husband. "Why did you promise them anything? They would
not think it a hardship to walk a mile and a half, or twenty miles, to
a public-house, but when they go to their work they think it dreadful
to have to walk a yard. Perhaps they would like us to lend them the
wagonette to drive in?"

"I have no doubt they would," said Trefusis, beaming at her.

"Pray leave me to manage here, Jane; this is no place for you. Bring
Erskine to the house. He must be--"

"Why don't the police make them go away?" said Lady Brandon, too excited
to listen to her husband.

"Hush, Jane, pray. What can three men do against thirty or forty?"

"They ought to take up somebody as an example to the rest."

"They have offered, in the handsomest manner, to arrest me if Sir
Charles will give me in charge," said Trefusis.

"There!" said Lady Jane, turning to her husband. "Why don't you give
him--or someone--in charge?"

"You know nothing about it," said Sir Charles, vexed by a sense that she
was publicly making him ridiculous.

"If you don't, I will," she persisted. "The idea of having our ground
broken into and our new wall knocked down! A nice state of things it
would be if people were allowed to do as they liked with other peoples'
property. I will give every one of them in charge."

"Would you consign me to a dungeon?" said Trefusis, in melancholy tones.

"I don't mean you exactly," she said, relenting. "But I will give
that clergyman into charge, because he ought to know better. He is the
ringleader of the whole thing."

"He will be delighted, Lady Brandon; he pines for martyrdom. But will
you really give him into custody?"

"I will," she said vehemently, emphasizing the assurance by a plunge in
the saddle that made the bay stagger.

"On what charge?" he said, patting the horse and looking up at her.

"I don't care what charge," she replied, conscious that she was being
admired, and not displeased. "Let them take him up, that's all."

Human beings on horseback are so far centaurs that liberties taken with
their horses are almost as personal as liberties taken with themselves.
When Sir Charles saw Trefusis patting the bay he felt as much outraged
as if Lady Brandon herself were being patted, and he felt bitterly
towards her for permitting the familiarity. He uas relieved by the
arrival of the procession. It halted as the leader came up to Trefusis,
who said gravely:

"Gentlemen, I congratulate you on the firmness with which you have this
day asserted the rights of the people of this place to the use of one of
the few scraps of mother earth of which they have not been despoiled."

"Gentlemen," shouted an excited member of the procession, "three cheers
for the resumption of the land of England by the people of England! Hip,
hip, hurrah!"

The cheers were given with much spirit, Sir Charles's cheeks becoming
redder at each repetition. He looked angrily at the clergyman, now
distracted by the charms of Lady Brandon, whose scorn, as she surveyed
the crowd, expressed itself by a pout which became her pretty lips
extremely.

Then a middle-aged laborer stepped from the road into the field, hat in
hand, ducked respectfully, and said: "Look 'e here, Sir Charles. Don't
'e mind them fellers. There ain't a man belonging to this neighborhood
among 'em; not one in your employ or on your land. Our dooty to you and
your ladyship, and we will trust to you to do what is fair by us. We
want no interlopers from Lunnon to get us into trouble with your honor,
and--"

"You unmitigated cur," exclaimed Trefusis fiercely, "what right have you
to give away to his unborn children the liberty of your own?"

"They're not unborn," said Lady Brandon indignantly. "That just shows
how little you know about it."

"No, nor mine either," said the man, emboldened by her ladyship's
support. "And who are you that call me a cur?"

"Who am I! I am a rich man--one of your masters, and privileged to call
you what I please. You are a grovelling famine-broken slave. Now go and
seek redress against me from the law. I can buy law enough to ruin you
for less money than it would cost me to shoot deer in Scotland or vermin
here. How do you like that state of things? Eh?"

The man was taken aback. "Sir Charles will stand by me," he said, after
a pause, with assumed confidence, but with an anxious glance at the
baronet.

"If he does, after witnessing the return you have made me for standing
by you, he is a greater fool than I take him to be."

"Gently, gently," said the clergyman. "There is much excuse to be made
for the poor fellow."

"As gently as you please with any man that is a free man at heart," said
Trefusis; "but slaves must be driven, and this fellow is a slave to the
marrow."

"Still, we must be patient. He does not know--"

"He knows a great deal better than you do," said Lady Brandon,
interrupting. "And the more shame for you, because you ought to know
best. I suppose you were educated somewhere. You will not be satisfied
with yourself when your bishop hears of this. Yes," she added, turning
to Trefusis with an infantile air of wanting to cry and being forced
to laugh against her will, "you may laugh as much as you please--don't
trouble to pretend it's only coughing--but we will write to his bishop,
as he shall find to his cost."

"Hold your tongue, Jane, for God's sake," said Sir Charles, taking her
horse by the bridle and backing him from Trefusis.

"I will not. If you choose to stand here and allow them to walk away
with the walls in their pockets, I don't, and won't. Why cannot you make
the police do something?"

"They can do nothing," said Sir Charles, almost beside himself with
humiliation. "I cannot do anything until I see my solicitor. How can you
bear to stay here wrangling with these fellows? It is SO undignified!"

"It's all very well to talk of dignity, but I don't see the dignity of
letting people trample on our grounds without leave. Mr. Smilash,
will you make them all go away, and tell them that they shall all be
prosecuted and put in prison?"

"They are going to the crossroads, to hold a public meeting and--of
course--make speeches. I am desired to say that they deeply regret that
their demonstration should have disturbed you personally, Lady Brandon."

"So they ought," she replied. "They don't look very sorry. They are
getting frightened at what they have done, and they would be glad to
escape the consequences by apologizing, most likely. But they shan't. I
am not such a fool as they think."

"They don't think so. You have proved the contrary."

"Jane," said Sir Charles pettishly, "do you know this gentleman?"

"I should think I do," said Lady Brandon emphatically.

Trefusis bowed as if he had just been formally introduced to the
baronet, who, against his will, returned the salutation stiffly, unable
to ignore an older, firmer, and quicker man under the circumstances.

"This seems an unneighborly business, Sir Charles," said Trefusis, quite
at his ease; "but as it is a public question, it need not prejudice our
private relations. At least I hope not."

Sir Charles bowed again, more stiffly than before.

"I am, like you, a capitalist and landlord."

"Which it seems to me you have no right to be, if you are in earnest,"
struck in Chester, who had been watching the scene in silence by Sir
Charles's side.

"Which, as you say, I have undoubtedly no right to be," said Trefusis,
surveying him with interest; "but which I nevertheless cannot help
being. Have I the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Chichester Erskine, author
of a tragedy entitled 'The Patriot Martyrs,' dedicated with enthusiastic
devotion to the Spirit of Liberty and half a dozen famous upholders of
that principle, and denouncing in forcible language the tyranny of the
late Tsar of Russia, Bomba of Naples, and Napoleon the Third?"

"Yes, sir," said Erskine, reddening; for he felt that this description
might make his drama seem ridiculous to those present who had not read
it.

"Then," said Trefusis, extending his hand--Erskine at first thought for
a hearty shake--"give me half-a-crown towards the cost of our expedition
here to-day to assert the right of the people to tread the soil we are
standing upon."

"You shall do nothing of the sort, Chester," cried Lady Brandon. "I
never heard of such a thing in my life! Do you pay us for the wall and
fence your people have broken, Mr. Smilash; that would be more to the
purpose."

"If I could find a thousand men as practical as you, Lady Brandon,
I might accomplish the next great revolution before the end of this
season." He looked at her for a moment curiously, as if trying to
remember; and then added inconsequently: "How are your friends? There
was a Miss--Miss--I am afraid I have forgotten all the names except your
own."

"Gertrude Lindsay is staying with us. Do you remember her?"

"I think--no, I am afraid I do not. Let me see. Was she a haughty young
lady?"

"Yes," said Lady Brandon eagerly, forgetting the wall and fence. "But
who do you think is coming next Thursday? I met her accidentally the
last time I was in town. She's not a bit changed. You can't forget her,
so don't pretend to be puzzled."

"You have not told me who she is yet. And I shall probably not remember
her. You must not expect me to recognize everyone instantaneously, as I
recognized you."

"What stuff! You will know Agatha fast enough."

"Agatha Wylie!" he said, with sudden gravity.

"Yes. She is coming on Thursday. Are you glad?"

"I fear I shall have no opportunity of seeing her."

"Oh, of course you must see her. It will be so jolly for us all to meet
again just as we used. Why can't you come to luncheon on Thursday?"

"I shall be delighted, if you will really allow me to come after my
conduct here."

"The lawyers will settle that. Now that you have found out who we are
you will stop pulling down our walls, of course."

"Of course," said Trefusis, smiling, as he took out a pocket diary and
entered the engagement. "I must hurry away to the crossroads. They have
probably voted me into the chair by this time, and are waiting for me
to open their meeting. Good-bye. You have made this place, which I was
growing tired of, unexpectedly interesting to me."

They exchanged glances of the old college pattern. Then he nodded to
Sir Charles, waved his hand familiarly to Erskine, and followed the
procession, which was by this time out of sight.

Sir Charles, who, waiting to speak, had been repeatedly baffled by the
hasty speeches of his wife and the unhesitating replies of Trefusis, now
turned angrily upon her, saying:

"What do you mean by inviting that fellow to my house?"

"Your house, indeed! I will invite whom I please. You are getting into
one of your tempers."

Sir Charles looked about him. Erskine had discreetly slipped away, and
was in the road, tightening a screw in his bicycle. The few persons who
remained were out of earshot.

"Who and what the devil is he, and how do you come to know him?" he
demanded. He never swore in the presence of any lady except his wife,
and then only when they were alone.

"He is a gentleman, which is more than you are," she retorted, and, with
a cut of her whip that narrowly missed her husband's shoulder, sent the
bay plunging through the gap.

"Come along," she said to Erskine. "We shall be late for luncheon."

"Had we not better wait for Sir Charles?" he asked injudiciously.

"Never mind Sir Charles, he is in the sulks," she said, without abating
her voice. "Come along." And she went off at a canter, Erskine following
her with a misgiving that his visit was unfortunately timed, "unworthy of
yourself, and that a net is closing round you?"

"No. Nothing of the sort!"

"Then why are you so anxious to get away?"

"I don't know," said Agatha, affecting to laugh as he looked sceptically
at her from beneath his lowered eyelids. "Perhaps I do feel a little
like that; but not so much as you say."

"I will explain the emotion to you," he said, with a subdued ardor that
affected Agatha strangely. "But first tell me whether it is new to you
or not."

"It is not an emotion at all. I did not say that it was."

"Do not be afraid of it. It is only being alone with a man whom you have
bewitched. You would be mistress of the situation if you only knew how
to manage a lover. It is far easier than managing a horse, or skating,
or playing the piano, or half a dozen other feats of which you think
nothing."

Agatha colored and raised her head.

"Forgive me," he said, interrupting the action. "I am trying to offend
you in order to save myself from falling in love with you, and I have
not the heart to let myself succeed. On your life, do not listen to me
or believe me. I have no right to say these things to you. Some fiend
enters into me when I am at your side. You should wear a veil, Agatha."

She blushed, and stood burning and tingling, her presence of mind gone,
and her chief sensation one of relief to hear--for she did not dare
to see--that he was departing. Her consciousness was in a delicious
confusion, with the one definite thought in it that she had won her
lover at last. The tone of Trefusis's voice, rich with truth and
earnestness, his quick insight, and his passionate warning to her not to
heed him, convinced her that she had entered into a relation destined to
influence her whole life.

"And yet," she said remorsefully, "I cannot love him as he loves me.
I am selfish, cold, calculating, worldly, and have doubted until now
whether such a thing as love really existed. If I could only love him
recklessly and wholly, as he loves me!"

Smilash was also soliloquizing as he went on his way.

"Now I have made the poor child--who was so anxious that I should not
mistake her for a supernaturally gifted and lovely woman--as happy as
an angel; and so is that fine girl whom they call Jane Carpenter. I hope
they won't exchange confidences on the subject."



CHAPTER XII

On the following Thursday Gertrude, Agatha, and Jane met for the first
time since they had parted at Alton College. Agatha was the shyest of
the three, and externally the least changed. She fancied herself very
different from the Agatha of Alton; but it was her opinion of herself
that had altered, not her person. Expecting to find a corresponding
alteration in her friends, she had looked forward to the meeting with
much doubt and little hope of its proving pleasant.

She was more anxious about Gertrude than about Jane, concerning whom,
at a brief interview in London, she had already discovered that Lady
Brandon's manner, mind, and speech were just what Miss Carpenter's had
been. But, even from Agatha, Jane commanded more respect than before,
having changed from an overgrown girl into a fine woman, and made a
brilliant match in her first season, whilst many of her pretty, proud,
and clever contemporaries, whom she had envied at school, were still
unmarried, and were having their homes made uncomfortable by parents
anxious to get rid of the burthen of supporting them, and to profit in
purse or position by their marriages.

This was Gertrude's case. Like Agatha, she had thrown away her
matrimonial opportunities. Proud of her rank and exclusiveness, she had
resolved to have as little as possible to do with persons who did not
share both with her. She began by repulsing the proffered acquaintance
of many families of great wealth and fashion, who either did not know
their grandparents or were ashamed of them. Having shut herself out of
their circle, she was presented at court, and thenceforth accepted the
invitations of those only who had, in her opinion, a right to the same
honor. And she was far stricter on that point than the Lord Chamberlain,
who had, she held, betrayed his trust by practically turning Leveller.
She was well educated, refined in her manners and habits, skilled in
etiquette to an extent irritating to the ignorant, and gifted with
a delicate complexion, pearly teeth, and a face that would have been
Grecian but for a slight upward tilt of the nose and traces of a square,
heavy type in the jaw. Her father was a retired admiral, with sufficient
influence to have had a sinecure made by a Conservative government
expressly for the maintenance of his son pending alliance with some
heiress. Yet Gertrude remained single, and the admiral, who had formerly
spent more money than he could comfortably afford on her education,
and was still doing so upon her state and personal adornment, was
complaining so unpleasantly of her failure to get taken off his hands,
that she could hardly bear to live at home, and was ready to marry any
thoroughbred gentleman, however unsuitable his age or character, who
would relieve her from her humiliating dependence. She was prepared to
sacrifice her natural desire for youth, beauty, and virtue in a husband
if she could escape from her parents on no easier terms, but she was
resolved to die an old maid sooner than marry an upstart.

The difficulty in her way was pecuniary. The admiral was poor. He
had not quite six thousand a year, and though he practiced the utmost
economy in order to keep up the most expensive habits, he could not
afford to give his daughter a dowry. Now the well born bachelors of
her set, having more blue bood, but much less wealth, than they needed,
admired her, paid her compliments, danced with her, but could not afford
to marry her. Some of them even told her so, married rich daughters of
tea merchants, iron founders, or successful stocktrokers, and then tried
to make matches between her and their lowly born brothers-in-law.

So, when Gertrude met Lady Brandon, her lot was secretly wretched, and
she was glad to accept an invitation to Brandon Beeches in order to
escape for a while from the admiral's daily sarcasms on the marriage
list in the "Times." The invitation was the more acceptable because Sir
Charles was no mushroom noble, and, in the schooldays which Gertrude now
remembered as the happiest of her life, she had acknowledged that Jane's
family and connections were more aristocratic than those of any other
student then at Alton, herself excepted. To Agatha, whose grandfather
had amassed wealth as a proprietor of gasworks (novelties in his time),
she had never offered her intimacy. Agatha had taken it by force, partly
moral, partly physical. But the gasworks were never forgotten, and when
Lady Brandon mentioned, as a piece of delightful news, that she had
found out their old school companion, and had asked her to join them,
Gertrude was not quite pleased. Yet, when they met, her eyes were the
only wet ones there, for she was the least happy of the three, and,
though she did not know it, her spirit was somewhat broken. Agatha, she
thought, had lost the bloom of girlhood, but was bolder, stronger,
and cleverer than before. Agatha had, in fact, summoned all her
self-possession to hide her shyness. She detected the emotion of
Gertrude, who at the last moment did not try to conceal it. It would
have been poured out freely in words, had Gertrude's social training
taught her to express her feelings as well as it had accustomed her to
dissemble them.

"Do you remember Miss Wilson?" said Jane, as the three drove from the
railway station to Brandon Beeches. "Do you remember Mrs. Miller and
her cat? Do you remember the Recording Angel? Do you remember how I fell
into the canal?"

These reminiscences lasted until they reached the house and went
together to Agatha's room. Here Jane, having some orders to give in
the household, had to leave them--reluctantly; for she was jealous
lest Gertrude should get the start of her in the renewal of Agatha's
affection. She even tried to take her rival away with her; but in vain.
Gertrude would not budge.

"What a beautiful house and splendid place!" said Agatha when Jane was
gone. "And what a nice fellow Sir Charles is! We used to laugh at Jane,
but she can afford to laugh at the luckiest of us now. I always said she
would blunder into the best of everything. Is it true that she married
in her first season?"

"Yes. And Sir Charles is a man of great culture. I cannot understand it.
Her size is really beyond everything, and her manners are bad."

"Hm!" said Agatha with a wise air. "There was always something about
Jane that attracted men. And she is more knave than fool. But she is
certainly a great ass."

Gertrude looked serious, to imply that she had grown out of the habit
of using or listening to such language. Agatha, stimulated by this,
continued:

"Here are you and I, who consider ourselves twice as presentable and
conversable as she, two old maids." Gertrude winced, and Agatha hastened
to add: "Why, as for you, you are perfectly lovely! And she has asked us
down expressly to marry us."