CHAPTER X

MR. LUDOVIC QUAYLE AMONG THE PROPHETS

That same luncheon party at Brockhurst, if not notably satisfactory to

the hosts, afforded much subsequent food for meditation to one at least

of the guests. During the evening immediately following it, and even in

the watches of the night, Lady Louisa Barking's thought was

persistently engaged with the subject of Richard Calmady, his looks,

his character, his temper, his rent-roll, the acreage of his estates,

and his prospects generally. Nor did her interest remain hidden and

inarticulate. For, finding that in various particulars her knowledge

was superficial and clearly insufficient, on her journey from

Westchurch up to town next day, in company with her brother Ludovic,

she put so many questions to that accomplished young gentleman that he

shortly divined some serious purpose in her inquiry.

"We all recognise, my dear Louisa," he remarked presently, laying aside

the day's Times, of which he had vainly essayed the study, with an air

of gentle resignation, crossing his long legs and leaning back in his

corner of the railway carriage, "that you are the possessor of an

eminently practical mind. You have run the family for some years now,

not without numerous successes, among which may be reckoned your

running of yourself into the arms--if you will pardon my mentioning

them--of my estimable brother-in-law, Barking."

"Really, Ludovic!" his sister protested.

"Let me entreat you not to turn restive, Louisa," Mr. Quayle rejoined

with the utmost suavity. "I am paying a high compliment to your

intelligence. To have run into the arms of Mr. Barking, or indeed of

anybody else, casually and involuntarily, to have blundered into

them--if I may so express myself--would have been a stupidity. But to

run into them intentionally and voluntarily argues considerable powers

of strategy, an intelligent direction of movement which I respect and

admire."

"You are really exceedingly provoking, Ludovic!"

Lady Louisa pushed the square, leather-covered dressing-case, on which

her feet had been resting, impatiently aside.

"Far from it," the young man answered. "Can I put that box anywhere

else for you? You like it just where it is?--Yes? But I assure you I am

not provoking. I am merely complimentary. Conversation is an art,

Louisa. None of my sisters ever can be got to understand that. It is

dreadfully crude to rush in waist-deep at once. There should be feints

and approaches. You should nibble at your sugar with a graceful

coyness. You should cut a few frills and skirmish a little before

setting the battle actively in array. And it is just this that I have

been striving to do during the last five minutes. But you do not appear

to appreciate the commendable style of my preliminaries. You want to

engage immediately. There is usually a first-rate underlying reason for

your interest in anybody----"

Again the lady shifted the position of the dressing-case.

"To the right?" inquired Mr. Quayle extending his hand, his head a

little on one side, his long neck directed forward, while he regarded

first his sister and then the dressing-case with infuriating urbanity.

"No? Let us come to Hecuba, then. Let us dissemble no longer, but put

it plainly. What, oh, Louisa! what are you driving at in respect of my

very dear friend, Dickie Calmady?"

Now it was unquestionably most desirable for her to keep on the

fair-weather side of Mr. Quayle just then. Yet the flesh is weak. Lady

Louisa Barking could not control a movement of self-justification. She

spoke with dignity, severely.

"It is all very well for you to say those sort of things, Ludovic----"

"What sort of things?" he inquired mildly.

"But I should be glad to know what would have become of the family by

now, unless some one had come forward and taken matters in hand? Of

course one gets no thanks for it. One never does get any thanks for

doing one's duty, however wearing it is to oneself and however much

others profit. But somebody had to sacrifice themselves. Mama is

unequal to any exertion. You know what papa is----"

"I do, I do," murmured Mr. Quayle, raising his gaze piously to the roof

of the railway carriage.

"If he has one of the boys to tramp over the country with him at

Whitney, and one of the girls to ride with him in London, he is

perfectly happy and content. He is alarmingly improvident. He would

prefer keeping the whole family at home doing nothing----"

"Save laughing at his jokes. My father craves the support of a

sympathetic audience."

"Shotover is worse than useless."

"Except to the guileless Israelite he is. Absolutely true, Louisa."

"Guy would never have gone into the army when he left Eton unless I had

insisted upon it. And it was entirely through the Barkings'

influence--at my representation of course--that Eddie got a berth in

that Liverpool cotton-broker's business. I am sure Alicia is very

comfortably married. I know George Winterbotham is not the least

interesting, but he is perfectly gentlemanlike and presentable, and so

on, and he makes her a most devoted husband. And from what Mr. Barking

heard the other day at the Club from somebody or other, I forget who,

but some one connected with the Government, you know, there is every

probability of George getting that permanent under-secretaryship."

"Did I not start by declaring you had achieved numerous successes?"

Ludovic inquired. "Yet we stray from the point, Louisa. For do I not

still remain ignorant of the root of your sudden interest in my friend

Dickie Calmady? And I thirst to learn how you propose to work him into

the triumphant development of our family fortunes."

The proportions of Lady Louisa's small mouth contracted still further

into an expression of great decision, while she glanced at the

landscape reeling away from the window of the railway carriage. In the

past twelve hours autumn had given place to winter. The bare hedges

showed black, while the fallen leaves of the hedgerow trees formed

unsightly blotches of sodden brown and purple upon the dirty green of

the pastures. Over all brooded an opaque, gray-brown sky, sullen and

impenetrable. Lady Louisa saw all this. But she was one of those

persons happily, for themselves, unaffected by such abstractions as the

aspects of nature. Her purposes were immediate and practical. She

followed them with praiseworthy persistence. The landscape merely

engaged her eyes because she preferred, just now, looking out of the

window to looking her brother in the face.

"Something must be done for the younger girls," she announced. "I feel

pretty confident about Emily's future. We need not go into that.

Maggie, if she marries at all--and she really is very useful at home,

in looking after the servants and entertaining, and so on--if she

marries at all, will marry late. She has no particular attractions as

girls go. Her figure is too solid, and she talks too much. But she will

make a very presentable middle-aged woman--sensible, dependable, an

excellent _menagere_. Certainly she had better marry late."

"A mature clergyman when she is rising forty--a widowed bishop, for

instance. Yes, I approve that," Mr. Quayle rejoined reflectively. "It

is well conceived, Louisa. We must keep an eye on the Bench and

carefully note any episcopal matrimonial vacancy. Bishops have a little

turn, I observe, for marrying somebody who _is_ somebody--specially _en

secondes noces_, good men. Yes, it is well thought of. With careful

steering we may bring Maggie to anchor in a palace yet. Maggie is

rather dogmatic, she would make not half a bad Mrs. Proudie. So she is

disposed of, and then?"

For a few seconds the lady held silent converse with herself. At last

she addressed her companion in tones of unwonted cordiality.

"You are by far the most sensible of the family, Ludovic," she began.

"And in a family so renowned for intellect, so conspicuous for 'parts

and learning,' as Macaulay puts it, that is indeed a distinction!"--Mr.

Quayle bowed slightly in his comfortable corner. "A thousand thanks,

Louisa," he murmured.

"I would not breathe a syllable of this to any of the others," she

continued. "You know how the girls chatter. Alicia, I am sorry to say,

is as bad as any of them. They would discuss the question without

intermission--simply, you know, talk the whole thing to death."

"Poor thing!--Yet, after all, what thing?" the young man inquired

urbanely.

Lady Louisa bit her lip. He was very irritating, while she was very

much in earnest. It was her misfortune usually to be a good deal in

earnest.

"There is Constance," she remarked, somewhat abruptly.

"Precisely--there is poor, dear, innocent, rather foolish, little

Connie. It occurred to me we might be coming to that."

In his turn Mr. Quayle fell silent, and contemplated the reeling

landscape. Pasture had given place to wide stretches of dark moorland

on either side the railway line, with a pallor of sour bog-grasses in

the hollows. The outlook was uncheerful. Perhaps it was that which

caused the young man to shake his head.

"I recognize the brilliancy of the conception, Louisa. It reflects

credit upon your imagination and--your daring," he said presently. "But

you won't be able to work it."

"Pray why not?" almost snapped Lady Louisa.

Mr. Quayle settled himself back in his corner again. His handsome face

was all sweetness, indulgent though argumentative. He was nothing,

clearly, unless reasonable.

"Personally, I am extremely fond of Dickie Calmady," he began. "I

permit myself--honestly I do--moments of enthusiasm regarding him. I

should esteem the woman lucky who married him. Yet I could imagine a

prejudice might exist in some minds--minds of a less emancipated and

finely comprehensive order than yours and my own of course--against

such an alliance. Take my father's mind, for instance--and unhappily my

father dotes on Connie. And he is more obstinate than nineteen

dozen--well, I leave you to fill in the comparison mentally, Louisa. It

might be slightly wanting in filial respect to put it into words."

Again he shook his head in pensive solemnity.

"I give you credit for prodigious push and tenacity, for a remarkable

capacity of generalship, in short. Yet I cannot disguise from myself

the certainty that you would never square my father."

"But suppose she wishes it herself. Papa would deny Connie nothing,"

the other objected. She was obliged to raise her voice to a point of

shrillness, hardly compatible with the dignity of the noble house of

Fallowfeild, _double_ with all the gold of all the Barkings, for the

train was banging over the points and roaring between the platforms of

a local junction. Mr. Quayle made a deprecating gesture, put his hands

over his ears, and again gently shook his head, intimating that no

person possessed either of nerves or self-respect could be expected to

carry on a conversation under existing conditions. Lady Louisa

desisted. But, as soon as the train passed into the comparative quiet

of the open country, she took up her parable again, and took it up in a

tone of authority.

"Of course I admit there is something to get over. It would be

ridiculous not to admit that. And I am always determined to be

perfectly straightforward. I detest humbug of any kind. So I do not

deny for a moment that there is something. Still it would be a very

good marriage for Constance, a very good marriage, indeed. Even papa

must acknowledge that. Money, position, age, everything of that kind,

in its favour. One could not expect to have all that without some

make-weight. I should not regret it, for I feel it might really be bad

for Connie to have so much without some make-weight. And I remarked

yesterday--I could not help remarking it--that she was very much

occupied about Sir Richard Calmady."

"Connie is a little goose," Mr. Quayle permitted himself to remark, and

for once there was quite a sour edge to his sweetness.

"Connie is not quick, she is not sensitive," his sister continued.

"And, really, under all the circumstances, that perhaps is just as

well. But she is a good child, and would believe almost anything you

told her. She has an affectionate and obedient disposition, and she

never attempts to think for herself. I don't believe it would ever

occur to her to object to his--his peculiarities, unless some

mischievous person suggested it to her. And then, as I tell you, I

remarked she was very much occupied about him."

Once again Mr. Quayle sought counsel of the landscape which once again

had changed in character. For here civilisation began to trail her

skirts very visibly, and the edges of those skirts were torn and

frayed, notably unhandsome. The open moorland had given place to flat

market-gardens and leafless orchards sloppy with wet. Innumerable

cabbages, innumerable stunted, black-branched apple and pear trees,

avenues of dilapidated pea and bean sticks, reeled away to right and

left. The semi-suburban towns stretched forth long, rawly-red arms of

ugly, little, jerry-built streets and terraces. Tall chimneys and

unlovely gasometers--these last showing as collections of some

monstrous spawn--rose against the opaque sky, a sky rendered

momentarily more opaque, dirtier and more dingy, by the masses of

London smoke hanging along the eastern horizon.

Usually Ludovic knew his own mind clearly enough. The atmosphere of it

was very far from being hazy. Now that atmosphere bore annoying

resemblance to the opacity obtaining overhead and along the eastern

horizon. The young man's sympathies--or were they his prejudices?--had

a convenient habit of ranging themselves immediately on one side or

other of any question presenting itself to him. But in the present case

they were mixed. They pulled both ways, and this vexed him. For he

liked to suppose himself very ripe, cynical, and disillusioned, while,

in good truth, sentiment had more than a word to say in most of his

opinions and decisions. Now sentiment ruled him strongly and pushed

him--but, unfortunately, in diametrically opposite directions. The

sentiment of friendship compelled him hitherward. While another

sentiment, which he refused to define--he recognised it as wholesome,

yet he was a trifle ashamed of it--compelled him quite other-where. He

took refuge in an adroit begging of the question.

"After all are you not committing the fundamental error of reckoning

without your host, Louisa?" he inquired. "Connie may be a good deal

occupied about Calmady, but thereby may only give further proof of her

own silliness. I certainly discovered no particular sign of Calmady

being occupied about Connie. He was very much more occupied about the

fair cousin, Helen de Vallorbes, than about any one of us, my

illustrious self included, as far as I could see."

In her secret soul his hearer had to own this statement just. But she

kept the owning to herself, and, with a rapidity upon which she could

not help congratulating herself, instituted a flanking movement.

"You hear all the gossip, Ludovic," she said. "Of course it is no good

my asking Mr. Barking about that sort of thing. Even if he heard it he

would not remember it. His mind is too much occupied. If a woman

marries a man with large political interests she must just give herself

to them generously. It is very interesting, and one feels, of course,

one is helping to make history. But still one has to sacrifice

something. I hear next to nothing of what is going on--the gossip, I

mean. And so tell me, what do you hear about her, about Madame de

Vallorbes?"

"At first hand only that which you must know perfectly well yourself,

my dear Louisa. Didn't you sit opposite to her at luncheon,

yesterday?--That she is a vastly good-looking and attractive woman."

"At second hand, then?"

"At second hand? Oh! at second hand I know various amiable little odds

and ends such as are commonly reported by the uncharitable and

censorious," Ludovic answered mildly. "Probably more than half of these

little treasures are pure fiction, generated by envy, conceived by

malice."

"Pray, Ludovic!" his sister exclaimed. But she recovered herself, and

added:--"you may as well tell me all the same. I think, under the

circumstances, it would be better for me to hear."

"You really wish to hear? Well, I give it you for what it is worth. I

don't vouch for the truth of a single item. For all we can tell, nice,

kind friends may be recounting kindred anecdotes of Alicia and the

blameless Winterbotham, or even of you, Louisa, and Mr. Barking."

Mr. Quayle fixed a glance of surpassing graciousness upon his sister as

he uttered these agreeable suggestions, and fervid curiosity alone

enabled her to resist a rejoinder and to maintain a dignified silence.

"It is said--and this probably is true--that she never cared two straws

for de Vallorbes, but was jockeyed in the marriage--just as you might

jockey Constance, you know, Louisa--by her mother, who has the

reputation of being a somewhat frisky matron with a keen eye to the

main chance. She is not quite all, I understand, a tender heart could

desire in the way of a parent. It is further said that _la belle

Helene_ makes the dollars fly even more freely than did de Vallorbes in

his best days, and he has the credit of having been something of a

_viveur_. He knew not only his Paris, but his Baden-Baden, and his

Naples, and various other warm corners where great and good men do

commonly congregate. It is added that _la belle Helene_ already gives

promise of being playful in other ways beside that of expenditure. And

that de Vallorbes has been heard to lament openly that he is not a

native of some enlightened country in which the divorce court

charitably intervenes to sever overhard connubial knots. In short, it

is rumoured that de Vallorbes is not a conspicuous example of the

wildly happy husband."

"In short, she is not respec----"

But the young man held up his hands and cried out feelingly:--

"Don't, pray don't, my dear Louisa. Let us walk delicately as Agag--my

father's morning ministrations to the maids again! For how, as I

pointed out just now, do we know what insidious little tales may not be

in circulation regarding yourself and those nearest and dearest to

you?"

Ludovic Quayle turned his head and once again looked out of the window,

his beautiful mouth visited by a slightly malicious smile. The train

was sliding onward above crowded, sordid courts and narrow alleys,

festering, as it seemed, with a very plague of poverty-stricken and

unwholesome humanity. Here the line runs parallel to the river--sullen

to-day, blotted with black floats and lines of grimy barges, which

straining, smoke-vomiting steam-tugs towed slowly against a strong

flowing tide. On the opposite bank the heavy masses of the Abbey, the

long decorated facade and towers of the Houses of Parliament, stood out

ghostly and livid in a gleam of frail, unrelated sunshine against the

murk of the smoky sky.

"I should have supposed Sir Richard Calmady was steady," Lady Louisa

remarked, inconsequently and rather stiffly. Ludovic really was

exasperating.

"Steady? Oh! perfectly. Poor, dear chap, he hasn't had much chance of

being anything else as yet."

"Still, of course, Lady Calmady would prefer his being settled. Clearly

it would be much better in every way. All things considered, he is

certainly one of the people who should marry young. And Connie would be

an excellent marriage for him, excellent--thoroughly suitable, better,

really, than on the face of it he could hope for. Ludovic, just look

out please and see if the carriage is here. Pocock always loses her

head at a terminus, and misses the men-servants. Yes, there is

Frederic--with his back to the train, looking the wrong way, of course.

He really is too stupid."

Mr. Quayle, however, succeeded in attracting the footman's attention,

and, assisted by that functionary and the lean and anxious Pocock--her

arms full of bags and umbrellas--conveyed his sister out of the railway

carriage and into the waiting brougham. She graciously offered to put

him down at his rooms, in St. James's Place, on her way to the Barking

mansion in Albert Gate, but the young man declined that honour.

"Good-bye, Louisa," he said, leaning his elbows on the open window of

the brougham and thereby presenting the back view of an irreproachably

cut overcoat and trousers to the passers-by. "I have to thank you for a

most interesting and instructive journey. Your efforts to secure the

prosperity of the family are wholly praiseworthy. I commend them. I

have a profound respect for your generalship. Still, pauper though I

am, I am willing to lay you a hundred to one in golden guineas that you

will never square papa."

Subsequently the young man bestowed himself in a hansom, and rattled

away in the wake of the Barking equipage down the objectionably steep

hill which leads from the roar and turmoil of the station into the

Waterloo Bridge road.

"I might have offered heavier odds," he said to himself, "for never,

never will she square papa."

And, not without a light sense of shame, he was conscious that he made

this reflection with a measure of relief.