George Tesman

“ Letty won't take it like a lamb—you'll see!"
"What can a woman do?" said his mother, scornfully. "A decent woman, I mean, whom one can still have in one's house. All she can do is to cry, and take a district."
When they reached Upper Brook Street, the butler reported that his mistress had just come in. He made, of course, no difficulty about admitting Lady Tressady's aunt, and Mrs. Watton sailed up to the drawing-room, followed by Harding, who carried his head poked forward, as was usual to him, an opera-hat under his arm, and an eyeglass swinging from a limp wrist. ”

“ Tressady looked at her; he saw the moisture in the eyes, the reddening of the cheek, the effort for self-control.
"Why do you let yourself feel it so much?" he said resentfully; "it is not natural, nor right."
"That's our old quarrel, isn't it?" she answered, smiling.
He was staring at the ground again, poking with his stick.
"There are so many things one must feel," he said in a bitter low voice; "one may as well try to take politics calmly." ”

“ Lady Tressady's dimples were in full play as she settled herself into her seat and began to gather a supply of provisions. But as he returned to his place, and she glanced at him, she saw that he was not in a mood to be bantered, and understood that he was not going to let her force his confidence, however shrewdly she might guess at his affairs. So she controlled herself, and began to chatter about the Corfields and their party. He responded, and by the end of breakfast they were on much better terms than they had been for some weeks. ”

“ Just as the speaker was coming to his peroration Tressady suddenly caught sight of a delicate upraised profile on the platform, behind Naseby. The repressed smile on it set him smiling, too.
"What on earth do they make Naseby speak for!" said Watton, indignantly. "Idiocy! He spoils everything he touches. Let him give the money, and other people do the talking. You can see the people here don't know what to make of him in the least. ”

“ Tressady knew a good many of them by sight—sullen, quick-eyed folk, who buy their "greeners" at the docks, and work them day and night at any time of pressure; whose workshops are still flaring at two o'clock in the morning, and alive again by the winter dawn; who fight and flout the law by a hundred arts, and yet, brutal and shifty as many of them are, have a curious way of winning the Gentile inspector's sympathy, even while he fines and harasses them, so clearly are they and their "hands" alike the victims of a huge world-struggle that does but toss them on its surge. ”

“ His father, Sir William, the owner of Ferth Place, in West Mercia, died in the year that George, his only surviving child and the son of his old age, left college. The son, finding his father's debts considerable and his own distaste for the law, to which he had been destined, amazingly increased by his newly acquired freedom to do what he liked with himself, turned his mind at once towards travelling. Travel he must if he was ever to take up public and parliamentary life, and for no other profession—so he announced—did he feel the smallest vocation. Moreover, economy was absolutely necessary. ”

“ The men working the morning shift had just come back from the pits, and their wives were preparing to wash their blackened lords, before the whole family sat down to tea. But both tea and ablutions were forgotten, so long as the owner of Ferth Place and the new Lady Tressady were in sight. The village eyes took note of everything; of the young man's immaculate serge suit and tan waistcoat, his thin, bronzed face and fair moustache; of the bride's grey gown, the knot of airy pink at her throat, the coils of bright brown hair on which her hat was set, and the buckles on her pretty shoes. ”

“ Perhaps Lady Tressady felt vaguely that he looked like a boy and spoke like a master, for her pride rose.
"You have no right to speak to me like that, George! I did everything for the best. I always do everything for the best. It is my misfortune to be so—so confiding, so hopeful. I must always believe in someone—that's what makes my friends so extremely fond of me. You and your poor darling father were never the least like me—" And she went off into a tearful comparison between her own character and the characters of her husband and son—in which of course it was not she that suffered. ”

“ A certain academic quality prevailed among them, which made them peculiarly sensitive to the absurdities of men who had not been to Oxford or Cambridge; while some, like Tressady, had been travellers, and wore an Imperialist heart upon their sleeve. The group possessed an unusual share of debating and oratorical ability, and they had never attracted so much attention as now that they were about to make the Maxwell Bill their prey. ”

“ Tressady knew that the thought of this monotony, and of the thousands under its yoke, was to Watton a constant sting and oppression; he knew, too, or guessed, the religious effects it produced in him. For Watton was a religious man, and the action of the dream within showed itself in him and all he did. But why should everyone make a grief of East London? He was in the mood again to-night to feel it a kind of impertinence, this endless, peering anxiety about a world you never planned and cannot mend. Whose duty is it to cry for the moon? ”

“ Yet there are only a few men and women in each generation who really pass into the eclipsing shadow of it. Others talk—they feel and struggle. There were many elements in Tressady's nature that might seem destined to force him into their company. Yet hitherto he had resolutely escaped his destiny—and enjoyed his life.
About supper-time he found himself near Lady Cathedine, a thin-faced, silent creature, whose eyes suddenly attracted him. He took her down to supper, and spent an exceedingly dull time. She had the air of one pining to talk, to confide herself. ”

“ There is a good man, one of those High Church clergymen who interest themselves specially in the stage, who has helped us many times already. I have telegraphed to him, and expect him here before long. We know that she has not yet left London, and it may be possible again, at the eleventh hour, to stop her. But that—"
"Is not enough," said Tressady, quickly, raising his head. "You want someone to grapple with Ancoats?"
Face and voice were those of another man—attentive, normal, sympathetic.
Maxwell observed him keenly.
"We want someone to go to Ancoats ”

“ But in the case of a character like Lady Tressady's, there are for long, recurrent, involuntary scepticisms on the part of the bystander. It seems impossible, unfitting, to grant to such persons le beau rôle they claim. It outrages a certain ideal instinct, even, to be asked to believe that they too can yield, in their measure, precisely the same tragic stuff as the hero or the saint.
Letty was at home, just about to share her lunch with Harding Watton, who had dropped in. Hearing her husband's voice, she came out to the stairhead to speak to him. ”

“ Tressady raised his shoulders as she came to the end of her tirade.
"Well, you know I don't believe all that—and I don't think Harding believes it. Lady Maxwell, as you once said yourself, is not, I suppose, a woman's woman. She gets on better, no doubt, with men than with women. These men you speak of are all personal and party friends. They support Maxwell, and they like her. But if anybody is jealous, I should think they might remember that there is safety in numbers." ”

“ George turned from her hurriedly to speak to Lord Fontenoy.
"What a fool that woman is!" thought Mrs. Watton to herself, as her sharp eye followed her guest. "She will make George positively dislike her soon—and all the time she is bound to get him to pay her debts, or there will be a smash. What! dinner? John, will you please take Lady Tressady; Harding, will you take Mrs. Hawkins"—pointing her second son towards a lady in black sitting stiffly on the edge of an ottoman; "Mr. Hawkins takes Florence; Sir George"—she waved her hand towards Miss Sewell. "Now, Lord Fontenoy, you must take me ”

“ Tressady gave an impatient shrug.
"Trample on him? Goodness, no! That's all part of the play, too—wifely affection and the rest of it. Why can't she keep out of sight a little? We don't want the women meddling."
"Thank you, my domestic tyrant!" said Letty, making him a little bow.
"How much tyranny will you want before you accept those sentiments?" he asked her, smiling tenderly into her eyes. Both had a moment's pleasant thrill; then George sprang up.
"Ah, here they are at last!—the General, and all the lot. Now, I hope, we shall get some dinner." ”

“ Is it starved tailoresses and shirtmakers alone who suffer? Is there no hunger of the heart, that matches and overweighs the physical? Is it not as easy for the rich as the poor to miss the one thing needful, the one thing that matters and saves? Angrily, and in a kind of protest, he put out his hand, as it were, to claim his own share of the common pain.
"Make way there! make way!" cried a police-sergeant, holding back the crowd, "and let the lady pass."
Tressady did his best to push through with Lady Maxwell on his arm. ”

“ Maxwell sat patiently waiting for his reply; and for the first time Tressady received, as it were, a full impression of a personality he had till now either ignored or disliked. In youth Maxwell had never passed for a handsome man. But middle life and noble habit were every year giving increased accent and spiritual energy to the youth's pleasant features; and Nature as she silvered the brown hair, and drove deep the lines of thought and experience, was bringing more than she took away. A quiet, modest fellow Maxwell would be to the end ”

“ George and she had already met since the day when he had gone off to Paris in search of Ancoats. The telegram sent to him by Marcella on the night of his mother's violent illness had, indeed, been recalled next day. Lady Tressady, following the idiosyncrasies of her disease, sprang from death to life—and life of the sprightliest kind—in the course of a few hours. The battered, grey-haired woman—so old, do what she would, under the betraying hand of physical decay!—no sooner heard that George had been sent for than she at once and peremptorily telegraphed to him herself to stay away. ”

“ What if the landlords refused or neglected their part? Quis custodiet? And was Parliament going to make itself ridiculous by setting up a law, which, were it a thousand times desirable, you simply could not enforce?
The speech was delivered with amazing energy. It abounded in savage epigram and personality; and a month before it would have had great effect. Every Englishman has an instinctive hatred of paper reforms.
During the dinner-hour Tressady met Fontenoy in the Lobby, and suddenly stopped to speak. The young man was deeply flushed and holding himself stiffly erect. ”

“ Sir Philip Wentworth was not troubled with the boyish fastidiousness of Lord Naseby. He perceived merely that a pretty young woman wished to make friends with him, and met her wish at once. Moreover, he identified her as the wife of that "promising and well-informed fellow, Tressady," with whom he had first made friends in India, and had now—just before dinner—renewed acquaintance in the most cordial fashion.
He talked graciously to the wife, then, of Tressady's abilities and Tressady's career. Letty at first liked it. ”

“ We shall have to know them. She's not a woman's woman—that's all. Now, are we going to get some dinner, for Tully and I are famishing?"
"Come along, then, and I'll collect the party."
George had asked a few of his acquaintance in the House to meet his betrothed, together with an old General Tressady and his wife who were his distant cousins. The party were to assemble in the room of an under-secretary much given to such hospitable functions; and thither accordingly George led the way.
The room, when they reached it, was already fairly full of people, and alive with talk. ”

“ Very soon after the little conversation about the Corfields Lady Tressady withdrew to her room, sat thoughtful for a while, with her writing-block on her knee, then wrote a letter. She was perfectly aware of the fact that since George had come back to her she was likely to be welcome once more in many houses that for years had shown no particular desire to receive her. She took the situation very easily. It was seldom her way to be bitter. She was only determined to amuse herself, to enjoy her life in her own way. ”

“ Lady Tressady joined in with little shrieks and sallies, the other guests of the house gathered round, and the hero of the day was once more lost to sight and hearing amid the general hubbub of talk and laughter—for the young man in knickerbockers, at any rate, who stood a little way off from the rest. ”

“ Lady Tressady threw in affected comments from time to time, trying hard to hold her own in the conversation by a liberal use of fan and Christian names, and little personal audacities applied to each speaker in turn. Only Edward Watton, however, occasionally took civil or smiling notice of her; the others ignored her. They were engaged in a congenial task, the hunting of the one disaffected and insubordinate member of their pack, and had for the moment no attention to spare for other people. ”

“ It is like an animal—one wants to stroke her."
"Well, Naseby strokes her," said Watton, laughing. "Look at her; she brightens up directly he comes near."
Tressady thought of the tale Fontenoy had just told him, and wondered.
Consolation seemed to come easy to maidens of quality.
Meanwhile various trade-unionists—sturdy, capable men, in black coats—were moving and seconding resolutions; flinging resentful comments, too, at Naseby whenever occasion offered. Tressady heard very little of what they had to say. His eyes and thoughts were busy with the beautiful figure to the left of the chair. ”