Mrs. Warren's Daughter Part 15

I'll tell you about David by and bye, Frank."

At this interchange of Christian names Mrs. Rossiter thinks she understands the situation: they are engaged, have been since last night's rescue. But what _extraordinary_ people the dear Professor _does_ pick up! Have _they_ got ductless glands, she wonders?

Rossiter who has been fidgeting through this dialogue considers that lunch is ready, so they proceed to the small dining-room, "the breakfast-room." Mrs. Rossiter was always very proud of having a _small_ drawing-room (otherwise, "me boudwor") and a _small_ dining-room. It prepared the way for greater magnificence at big parties and also enabled one to be cosier with a few friends.

At luncheon:

_Mrs. Rossiter_ to _Frank Gardner_, archly: "I suppose you've come home to be married?"

_Frank_: "Oh no! I'm not a bigamist, I've got a wife already and four children, and jolly glad I shall be to get back to 'em. I can't stand much of the English climate, after getting so used to South African suns.h.i.+ne. No. I came on a business trip to England, leaving my old dear out at the farm near Salisbury, with the kids--we've got a nice English governess who helps her to look after 'em. A year or two hence I hope to bring 'em over to see the old country and we may have to put the eldest to school: children run wild so in South Africa. As to Miss Warren, she's an old friend of mine and a very dear one. I hadn't seen her for--for--thirteen years, when the sound of her voice--She's got one of those voices you never forget--the sound of her voice came up out of that beastly crowd of gladiators yesterday, and I found her being hammered by two policemen. I pretty well laid one out, though I hadn't used my fists for a matter of ten years. Then I got knocked over myself, I pa.s.sed a night in a police cell feeling pretty sick and positively maddened at not being able to ask any questions. Then at last morning came, I had a wash and brush up--the police after all aren't bad chaps, and most of 'em seemed jolly well ashamed of last night's doin's--Then I met Vivie in Court and your husband too. He took me on trust and I'm awfully grateful to him. I've got a dear old mater down in Kent--Margate, don't you know--my dad's still alive, Vivie!--and she'd have been awfully cut up at hearing her son had been spending the night in a police cell and was goin' to be fined for rioting, only fortunately the Home Secretary said we weren't to be punished.... But Professor Rossiter's coming on the scene was a grand thing. Besides being an M.P., I needn't tell _you_, Mrs. Rossiter, he has a world-wide reputation. Oh, we read your books, sir, out in South Africa, _I_ can tell you--Well--er--and here we are--and I'm monopolizing the conversation."

Vivie sat opposite her old lover, and near to the man who loved her now with such ill-concealed pa.s.sion that his hand trembled for her very proximity. She felt strangely elated, strangely gay, at times inclined to laugh as she caught sight of her bruised and puffy face in an opposite mirror, yet happy in the knowledge that notwithstanding the thirteen years of separation, her repeated rejection of his early love, her battered appearance, Frank still felt tenderly towards her, still remembered the timbre of her voice.

Her mouth was too sore and swollen to make eating very pleasant. She trifled with her food but she felt young and full of gay adventure.

Mrs. Rossiter a little overwhelmed with all the information Gardner had poured out, a little irritated also at the dancing light in Vivie's eyes, turned her questionings on her.

_Mrs. Rossiter_: "I suppose you are the Miss Warren who speaks so much. I often see your name in the papers, especially in _Votes for Women_ that the Professor takes in. Isn't it funny that a man should care so much about women getting the vote? I'm sure _I_ don't want it. I'm _quite_ content to exercise _my_ influence through _him_, especially now he's in Parliament. But then I have my home to look after, and I'm _much_ too busy to go out and about and mix myself up in politics. I'm quite content to leave all that to the menfolk."

_Vivie_: "Quite so. In your position no doubt I should do the same; but you see I haven't any menfolk. There is my mother, but she prefers to live abroad, and as she is comfortably off she can employ servants to look after her." (This hint of wealth a little rea.s.sured Mrs. Rossiter, who believed most Suffragettes to be adventuresses.) "So, as I have no ties I prefer to give myself up to the service of women in general. When they have the vote and other privileges of men, then of course I can attend to my private interests and pursuits--mathematical calculations, insurance risks--"

_Mrs. Rossiter_: "It is _extraordinary_ how like your voice is to your cousin's. If I shut my eyes I could think he was back again.

Not," (she added hastily) "that he has not, no doubt, _plenty_ to do abroad. Do you ever see him now? Why does he not marry and settle down? One never hears of him now as a barrister. But then he used to _feel_ his cases too much. The last time he was here he fainted and had to stay here all night.

"And yet he had won his case and got his--what do you say? client?

off--I dare say you remember it? She was my husband's cousin though we hardly liked to say so at the time: it is so unpleasant having a murder in the family. Fortunately she was let off; I mean, the jury said 'not guilty,' though personally I--However that is neither here nor there, and since then she's married Colonel Kesteven--Won't you have some pheasant? No? I remember your cousin used to have a very poor appet.i.te, especially when one of his cases was on. _How_ he used--excuse my saying so--how he used to tire poor Michael--Mr.

Rossiter! Talk, talk, talk! in the evenings, and I knew the Professor had his lectures to prepare, but hints were thrown away on Mr. David."

Rossiter broke in:

"Now what would you like to do in the afternoon, Miss Warren? And Gardner? You, by the bye, have the first claim on our hospitality.

You have just arrived from Africa and the only thing we have done for you, so far, is to drag you into a disgraceful row."

_Frank_: "Well, _I_ should like a glimpse of the Zoo. I'm quite willing to pay my s.h.i.+lling and give no more trouble, but if Vivie is going there too we could all walk up together. After that I'm going to revisit an old acquaintance of mine and Vivie's, Praed the architect--lives somewhere in Chelsea if I remember right--"

_Vivie_: "In Hans Place. I don't particularly want to go to the Zoo.

I look so odd I might over-excite the monkeys. I think I should like to try a restful visit to the Royal Botanic. I'm so fond of their collection of weird succulent plants--things that look like stones and suddenly produce superb flowers."

_Mrs. Rossiter_: "We belong to the Botanic as well as to the Zoo.

_I_ could take you there after lunch."

_Rossiter_: "You forget, dearie, you've got to open that Bazaar in Marylebone Town Hall--"

_Linda_: "Oh, have I? To be sure. But it's Lady Goring that does the opening, I'm _much_ too nervous. Still I promised to come. Would Miss Warren care to come with me?"

_Vivie_: "I should have liked to awfully: I love bazaars; but just at this moment I'm thinking more of those succulent plants ... and my battered face."

_Rossiter_: "I'll make up your minds for you. We'll _all_ drive to the Zoo in Linda's motor. Gardner shall look at the animals and then find his way to Hans Place. I'll escort Miss Warren to the Botanic, and then come on and pick you up, Linda, at the Town Hall."

That statement seemed to satisfy every one, so after coffee and a glance round the laboratory and the last experiments, they proceeded to the Zoo, with at least an hour's daylight at their disposal.

Rossiter and Vivie were at last alone within the charmed circle of the Botanic Gardens. They made their way slowly to the great Palm House and thence up twisty iron steps to a nook like a tree refuge in New Guinea, among palm boles and extravagant aroid growths.

"Now Michael," said Vivie--despite her bruised face she looked very elegant in her grey costume, grey hat, and grey suede gloves, and he had to exercise great self-restraint, remember that he was known by sight to most of the gardeners and to the ubiquitous secretary, in order to refrain from crus.h.i.+ng her to his side: "Now Michael: I want a serious talk to you, a talk which will last for another eighteen months--which is about the time that has elapsed since we had our last--You're _not_ keeping the pact we made."

"What was that?"

"Why you promised me that your--your--love--No! I won't misuse that word--Your friends.h.i.+p for me should not spoil your life, your career, or make Linda unhappy. Yet it is doing all three. You've lived in a continual agitation since you got into Parliament, and now you'll be involved in more electioneering in order to be returned once more. Meantime your science has come to a dead stop.

And it's so far more important for us than getting the Vote. All this franchise agitation is on a much lower plane. It amuses and interests me. It keeps me from thinking too much about you.

Besides, I am naturally rather combative; I secretly enjoy these rough-and-tumbles with const.i.tuted authority. I also really _do_ think it is a _beastly_ shame, this preference shown for man, in most of the careers and in the franchise. But don't you worry _yourself_ unduly about it. If I really thought that you cared so much about me that it was turning you away from _our_ religion, scientific research, I'd go over to Brussels to my mother and stay there. I really would; and I really will if you don't stop following me about from meeting to meeting and going mad over the Suffrage question in the House. Is it true that you struck a Cabinet minister the other day? Mr. ----?"

_Rossiter_: "Yes, it's true, and he asked for it. If I am unreasonable what are _they_? ----, ----, _and_ ----? Why have they such a bitter feeling against your s.e.x? Have they had no mothers, no sweethearts, no sisters, no wives? If I'd never met you I should still have been a Suffragist. I think I _was_ one, as a boy, watching what my mother suffered from my father, and how he collared all her money--I suppose it was before the Married Woman's Property Act--and grudged her any for her dress, her little comforts, her books, or even for proper medical advice. And to hear these Liberal Cabinet Ministers--_Liberal_, mind you--talk about women, often with the filthy phrases of the street--Well: he got a smack on the jaw and decided to treat the incident as a trifling one ... his private secretary patched it up somehow, but I expressed no regret....

"Well, darling, I'll try to do as you wish. I'll try to shut you out of my thoughts and return to my experiments, when I'm not on platforms or in the House. I think I shall get in again--it's a mere matter of money, and thanks to Linda that isn't wanting. I'm not going to withdraw from politics, you bet, however disenchanted I may be. It's because the decent, honest, educated men withdraw that legislation and administration are left to the case-hardened rogues ... and the uneducated ... and the cranks. But don't make things _too_ hard for me. Keep out of prison ... keep off hunger strikes--If you're going to be man-handled by the police--Ah! _why_ wasn't _I_ there, instead of in the House? Gardner had all the luck.... I was glad to hear he was married."

_Vivie_: "Oh you needn't be jealous of poor Frank. And he'll soon be back in South Africa. You needn't be jealous of _any_ one. I'm all yours--in spirit--for all time. Now we must be going: it's getting dusk and we should be irretrievably ruined if we were locked up in this dilapidated old palm house. Besides, I'm to meet Frank at Praddy's studio in order to tell him the history of the last thirteen years."

As they walked away: "You know, Michael, I'm still hoping we may be friends without being lovers. I wonder whether Linda would get to like me?"

At Praed's studio. Lewis Maitland Praed is looking older. He must be now--November, 1910--about fifty-eight or fifty-nine. But he has still a certain elegance, the look of a lesser Leighton about him.

Frank has been there already for half an hour, and the tea-table has been, so to speak, deflowered. Vivie accepts a cup, a m.u.f.fin, and a marron glace. Then says, "Now, dear Praddy, summon your mistress, _dons l'honnete sens du mot_, and have this tea-table cleared so that we can have a hugely long and uninterrupted talk. I have got to give Frank a summary of all that I've done in the past thirteen years. Meanwhile Frank, as your record, I feel convinced, is so blameless and normal that it could be told before any parlour-maid, you start off whilst she is taking away the tea, fiddling with the stove, and prolonging to the uttermost her services to a master who has become her slave."

The parlour-maid enters, and casts more than one searching glance at Vivie's bruised features, but performs her duties in a workmanlike manner.

_Frank_: "My story? Oh well, it's a happy one on the whole--very happy. Soon as the war was over, I got busy in Rhodesia and pitched on a perfect site for a stock and fruit farm. The B.S.A. Co. was good to me because I'd known Cecil Rhodes and Dr. Jim; and by nineteen four I was going well, they'd made me a magistrate, and some of my mining shares had turned out trumps. Then Westlock came out as Governor General, and Lady Enid had brought out with her a jolly nice girl as governess to her children. She was the daughter of a parson in Hertfords.h.i.+re near the Brinsley estates. Well, I won't say--bein' the soul of truth--that I fell in love with her--straight away--because I don't think I ever fell deep in love--straight away--with any girl but you, Vivie. But I did feel, as it was hopeless askin' you to marry me, here was the wife I wanted. She was good enough to accept me and the Westlocks were awfully kind and made everything easy. Lady Enid's a perfect brick--and, by the bye, she's a great Suffragist too. Well: we were married at Pretoria in 1904, and now we've got four children; a st.u.r.dy young Frank, a golupshous Vivie--oh, I told Muriel everything, she's the sort of woman you can--And the other two are called Bertha after my mother and Charlotte after Mrs. Bernard Shaw. I sent you, Vivie--a newspaper with the announcement of my marriage--Dj'ever get it?"

_Vivie_: "Never. But I was undergoing a sea-change of my own, just then, which I will tell you all about presently."

_Frank_: "Well then. I came back to England on a hurried visit. You remember, Praddy? But you were away in Italy and I couldn't find Vivie anywhere. I called round at where your office was--Fraser and Warren--where we parted in 1897--and there was no more Fraser and Warren. n.o.body knew anything about what had become of you. P'raps I might have found out, but I got a bit huffy, thought you might have written me a line about my marriage. I did write to Miss Fraser, but the letter was returned from the Dead Letter office," (_Vivie_: "She married Colonel Armstrong.") "Well, there it is! By some devilish lucky chance I had no sooner got to London from Southhampton, day before yesterday, than some one told me all about the expected row between the Suffragettes and the police. Thought I'd go and see for myself what this meant. No idea before how far the thing had gone, or what brutes the police could be. Had a sort of notion, don't know why, that dear old Viv would be in it, up to the neck. Got mixed up in the crowd and helped a woman or two out of it. Lady Feenix--they said it was--picked up some and took 'em into her motor. And then I heard a cry which could only be in Vivie's voice--dear old Viv--(leans forward with s.h.i.+ning eyes to press her hand) and ...

there we are. How're the bruises?"

_Vivie_: "Oh, they ache rather, but it is such _joy_ to have such friends as you and Praddy and Michael Rossiter, that I don't mind _what_ I go through..."

_Frank_: "But I say, Viv, about this Rossiter man. He seems awfully gone on you...?"

_Vivie_ (flus.h.i.+ng in the firelight): "Does he? It's only friends.h.i.+p.

I really don't see them often but he came to my a.s.sistance once at a critical time. And now that Praddy's all-powerful parlour-maid's definitely left us, I will tell you _my_ story."

So she does, between five and half-past six, almost without interruption from the spell-bound Frank--who says it licks any novel he ever read, and she ought to turn it into a novel--with a happy ending--or from Praed who is at times a little somnolent. Then at half-past six, the practical Frank says:

"Look here, you chaps, I could go on listening till midnight, but what's the matter with a bit of dinner? I dare say Praddy's parlour-maid might turn sour if we asked her at a moment's notice to find dinner for three. Why not come out and dine with me at the Hans Crescent Hotel? Close by. I'll get a quiet table and we can finish our talk there. To-morrow I must go down to Margate to see the dear old mater, and it may be a week before I'm up again."

They adjourn to the hostelry mentioned.

Over coffee and cigarettes, Vivie makes this appeal to Frank: "Now Frank, you know all my story. Tell me first, what really became of the real David Williams, the young man you met in the hospital and wrote to me about?"

_Frank_: "'Pon my life I don't know. I never heard one word about him after I got clear of the hospital myself. You know it fell into Boer hands during that rising in Cape Colony. I expect the 'real'

David Williams, as you call him, died from neglected wounds or typhoid--or recovered and took to drink, or went up country and got knocked on the head by the natives for interfering with their women--Good riddance of bad rubbish, I expect. What do you want me to do? I'll swear to anything in reason."

_Vivie_: "I want you to do this. Run down one day before you go back to Africa, to South Wales, to Pontystrad--It's not far from Swansea--And call at the Vicarage on the pretext that you've come to enquire about David Vavasour Williams whom you once knew in South Africa. It'll give verisimilitude to my stories. They'll probably say they haven't seen him for ever so long, but that you can hear of him through Professor Rossiter. I dare say it's a silly idea of mine, but what I fear sometimes--is that if the fact comes out that _I_ was David Williams, some Vaughan or Price or other Williams may call the old man's will in question and get it put into Chancery, get the money taken away from poor old Bridget Evanwy and the village hall which I've endowed. That's all. If it wasn't that I've disposed of my supposed father's money in the way I think he would have liked best, I shouldn't care a hang if they found out the trick I'd played on the Benchers. D'you see?"