George Tressady

“ 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." ”

“ By the time she had ranged through every note of entreaty and consolation, Marcella had almost persuaded herself and Letty that George Tressady had never said a word to her beyond the commonplaces of an ordinary friendship; she had passionately determined that this blurred and spoiled marriage could and should be mended, and that it lay with her to do it; and in the spirit of her audacious youth she had taken upon herself the burden of Letty's character and fate, vowing herself to a moral mission, to a long patience. ”

“ She beckoned to the handsome child of sixteen who had sat on George Tressady's left hand at dinner, and, taking up a pinch of rose-leaves that had dropped from a vase beside her, she flung them at the dog, calling him to her. Instead of going to her, however, the dog slowly curled himself up on the rug, and, laying his nose along his front paws, stared at her steadily with the expression of one mounting guard.
"He never will make friends with you, Letty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Betty looked behind her, saw that Lady Kent had gone into the house, and let herself drop into the corner of Naseby's bench with a sigh of fatigue.
"One feels as though one were a sort of house-dog tussling with a burglar. I have been keeping her off all my friends' secrets by main force; so she had to fall back on George Tressady, and tell me ugly tales of his mamma."
"George Tressady! Why on earth should she do him an ill turn? ”

“ 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." ”

“ Maxwell stood at the foot of her sofa, considering, a host of perplexed and unwelcome notions flitting across his mind. In spite of his idealist absorption in his work, his political aims, and the one love of his life, he had the training of a man of the world, and could summon the shrewdness of one when he pleased. He had liked this young Tressady, for the first time, at Castle Luton, and had seen him fall under Marcella's charm with some amusement. But this haunting of their camp in the East End, at such a marked and critical moment, was strange, to say the least of it. ”

“ George smiled at the poor thing's madness, and touched her kindly on the shoulder.
"Don't you trouble yourself, Mary; all that can be done will be done—for everybody. We are only giving Mr. Dixon another minute; then we go down. Look here"—he drew her inside the door of the lamproom, which happened to be close by, for an open-mouthed group, eager to hear whatever he might be saying, had begun to press about them. "Can you take this message from me up to the house? There'll be no news here, you know, for a long time, and I left Lady Tressady asleep." ”

“ George received a lightning impression of beauty, of a kind of anxious joy, and recognised Marcella Maxwell.
She held out her hand.
"Well, the first stage is over!" she said.
"Yes, and well over," he said, smiling. "But you have shed a great many men already."
"Oh! I know—I know. The next few weeks will be intolerable; one will feel sure of nobody." Then her voice changed—took a certain shyness. "A good many people from here are coming down to us at Mile End during the next few weeks—will you come some time, and bring Lady Tressady?"
"Thank you," said George, rather formally. ”

“ To his disgust, Tressady saw the reporters scribbling away—no doubt they knew their business! Aye, there was the secret. The wife's adoration showed through her very failure—through this strange conversion of all that was manly, solid, and effective in Maxwell, into a confused mass of facts and figures, pedantic, colourless, and cold!
Edward Watton began to look desperately unhappy. "Too long," he said, whispering in Tressady's ear, "and too technical. They can't follow." ”

“ CHAPTER II George Tressady came down very late for dinner, and found his hostess on the verge of annoyance. Mrs. Watton was a large, commanding woman, who seldom thought it worth while to disguise any disapproval she might feel—and she had a great deal of that commodity to expend, both on persons and institutions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII Letty Tressady sat beside the doorway of one of the small red-brick houses that make up the village of Ferth. It was a rainy October afternoon, and through the door she could see the black main street —houses and road alike bedabbled in wet and mire. At one point in the street her eye caught a small standing crowd of women and children, most of them with tattered shawls thrown over their heads to protect them from the weather. ”

“ Lady Tressady was sitting upright on the straight-backed sofa of George's smoking-room. George, who was walking up and down the room, thought, with discomfort, as he glanced at her from time to time, that she looked curiously old and dishevelled. She had thrown a piece of white lace round her head, in place of the more elaborate preparation for the world's gaze that she was wont to make. Her dress—a study in purples—had been a marvel, but was now old, and even tattered; the ruffles at her wrist were tumbled; and the pencilling under her still fine eyes had been neglected. ”

“ But, manoeuvre as she would, George would not be drawn into further discussion. She could only show him offended airs, and rack her brains morning and night as to how best to help herself.
Meanwhile George had never been so little pleased with living as during these few days. He was overwhelmed with congratulations; and, to judge from the newspapers, "all England," as Lady Tressady said, "was talking of him." It seemed to him ridiculous that a man should derive so little entertainment from such a fact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Throughout there had been this half-bitter glorying in the strangeness of his own case. The common judgment in its common vileness mattered nothing to him. He had been in love with love, with grace, with tenderness, with delight. He had seen, too late, a vision of the best; had realised what things of enchantment life contains for the few, for the chosen—what woman at her richest can be to man. And there had been a cry of personal longing—personal anguish.
Well!—it was all done with. As for friendship, it was impossible, grotesque. Let him go home, appease Letty, and mend his life. ”

“ The man addressed bent forward, with his hands on his knees, to look eagerly at the speaker.
"I knew there was something up," he said. "Every time I have come across Tressady to-day he has been deep with one or other of those fellows"—he jerked his head towards the Liberal benches. "I saw him buttonholing Green in the Library, then with Speedwell on the Terrace. And just look at their benches! They're as thick as bees! Yes, by George! there is something up."
His young sportsman's face flushed with excitement, and he tried hard through the intervening heads to get a glimpse of Fontenoy. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The gentlemen, deep in election incident and gossip, were, in the view chiefly of the successful candidate, unreasonably long in leaving the dining-room. When they appeared at last, George Tressady once more made an attempt to talk to someone else than Letty Sewell, and once more failed. ”

“ George. "That good man really can't earn his pay."
"Oh! but of course you knew it was High Church—all split up into little bits," said Letty, unappeased. "But naturally—"
She was about to add some jealous sarcasm when it was arrested by the arrival of Sir Philip Wentworth and Watton, whose figures appeared in a side-archway close to her.
"Ah! well guessed," said Sir Philip. "I thought we should find you among the paeonies. Lady Tressady, did you ever see such a show? Ancoats, is your head gardener visible on a Sunday? I ask with trembling, for there is no more magnificent member of creation. ”

“ She found herself sobbing in Lady Maxwell's embrace, while all the healing, all the remorse, all the comfort that self-abandonment and pity can pour out on such a plight as hers, descended upon her from Marcella's clinging touch, her hurried, fragmentary words. Assurances that all could be made right entreaties for gentleness and patience—revelations of her own inmost heart as a wife, far too sacred for the ears of Letty Tressady—little phrases and snatches of autobiography steeped in an exquisite experience: the nature Letty had rained her blows upon, kept nothing back, gave her all its best. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Burrows had to put his ear close to the scorched lips.
"No," he said gloomily, "I don't leave a man while there's any life in him. Besides, there's no chance—I don't know the mine."
Suddenly, as though answering to the other's despair, a throb of such agony rose in George it seemed to rive body and soul asunder. His poor Letty!—his child that was to be!—his own energy of life, he had been so conscious of at the very moment of descending to this hideous death—all gone, all done!—his little moment of being torn from him by the inexorable force that restores nothing and explains nothing. ”

“ Infinitely touched and bewildered, the young man approached her, and, kneeling down again beside her, took her in his arms. He felt a quick sobbing breath pass through her; then she pushed him lightly away, and, putting up the slim, pink-nailed hand of which she was so proud, she patted him on the cheek.
"There—go along! I don't like that coat of yours, you know. I told you so the other day. If your figure weren't so good, you'd positively look badly dressed in it. You should try another man."
Tressady hailed a hansom outside, and drove back to Brook Street. ”

“ 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. ”