“Do you know of any good house
to let in or near the town?” inquired Denzil
of his sister the next morning, as they chatted after
Toby’s departure to business.
“A house! What do you want with one?”
“Oh, I must have a local habitation the
more solid the better.”
Mrs. Liversedge examined him.
“What is going on, Denzil?”
“My candidature that’s
all. Any houses advertised in this rag?”
He took up yesterday’s Examiner, and
began to search the pages.
“You can live very well with us.”
Denzil did not reply, and his sister,
summoned by a servant, left him. There was indeed
an advertisement such as he sought. An old and
pleasant family residence, situated on the outskirts
of Polterham (he remembered it very well), would be
vacant at Christmas. Application could be made
on the premises. Still in a state of very high
pressure, unable to keep still or engage in any quiet
pursuit, he set off the instant to view this house.
It stood in a high-walled garden, which was entered
through heavy iron-barred gates, one of them now open.
The place had rather a forlorn look, due in part to
the decay of the foliage which in summer shaded the
lawn; blinds were drawn on all the front windows;
the porch needed repair. He rang at the door,
and was quickly answered by a dame of the housekeeper
species. On learning his business, she began
to conduct him through the rooms, which were in habitable
state, though with furniture muffled.
“The next room, sir, is the
library. A lady is there at present. Perhaps
you know her? Mrs. Wade.”
“Mrs. Wade! Yes, I know her slightly.”
The coincidence amused him.
“She comes here to study, sir being
a friend of the family. Will you go in?”
Foreseeing a lively dialogue, he released
his attendant till she should hear his voice again,
and, with preface of a discreet knock, entered the
room. An agreeable warmth met him, and the aspect
of the interior contrasted cheerfully with that of
the chambers into which he had looked. There
was no great collection of books, but some fine engravings
filled the vacancies around. At the smaller of
two writing-tables sat the person he was prepared
to discover; she had several volumes open before her,
and appeared to be making notes. At his entrance
she turned and gazed at him fixedly.
“Forgive my intrusion, Mrs.
Wade,” Denzil began, in a genial voice.
“I have come to look over the house, and was
just told that you were here. As we are not absolute
strangers”
He had never met her in the social
way, though she had been a resident at Polterham for
some six years. Through Mrs. Liversedge, her repute
had long ago reached him; she was universally considered
eccentric, and, by many people, hardly proper for
an acquaintance. On her first arrival in the
town she wore the garb of recent widowhood; relatives
here she had none, but an old friendship existed between
her and the occupants of this house, a childless couple
named Hornibrook. Her age was now about thirty.
Quarrier was far from regarding her
as an attractive woman. He thought better of
her intelligence than before hearing her speak, and
it was not difficult for him to imagine that the rumour
of Polterham went much astray when it concerned itself
with her characteristics; but the face now directed
to him had no power whatever over his sensibilities.
It might be that of a high-spirited and large-brained
woman; beautiful it could not be called. There
was something amiss with the eyes. All the other
features might pass: they were neither plain nor
comely: a forehead of good type, a very ordinary
nose, largish lips, chin suggesting the masculine;
but the eyes, to begin with, were prominent, and they
glistened in a way which made it very difficult to
determine their colour. They impressed Denzil
as of a steely-grey, and seemed hard as the metal
itself. His preference was distinctly for soft
feminine eyes such as Lilian gazed with.
Her figure was slight, but seemed
strong and active. He had noticed the evening
before that, in standing to address an audience, she
looked anything but ridiculous spite of
bonnet. Here too, though allowing her surprise
to be seen, she had the bearing of perfect self-possession,
and perhaps of conscious superiority. Fawn-coloured
hair, less than luxuriant, lay in soft folds and plaits
on the top of her head; possibly (the thought was
not incongruous) she hoped to gain half an inch of
seeming stature.
They shook hands, and Denzil explained
his object in calling.
“Then you are going to settle at Polterham?”
“Probably that is, to keep an abode
here.”
“You are not married, I think, Mr. Quarrier?”
“No.”
“There was a report at the Institute last night may
I speak of it?”
“Political? I don’t
think it need be kept a secret. My brother-in-law
wishes me to make friends with the Liberals, in his
place.”
“I dare say you will find them
very willing to meet your advances. On one question
you have taken a pretty safe line.”
“Much to your disgust,”
said Denzil, who found himself speaking very freely
and inclined to face debatable points.
“Disgust is hardly the word.
Will you sit down? In Mrs. Hornibrook’s
absence, I must represent her. They are good enough
to let me use the library; my own is poorly supplied.”
Denzil took a chair.
“Are you busy with any particular subject?”
he asked.
“The history of woman in Greece.”
“Profound! I have as good
as forgotten my classics. You read the originals?”
“After a fashion. I don’t
know much about the enclitic de, and I couldn’t
pass an exam. in the hypothetical sentences; but I
pick up the sense as I read on.”
Her tone seemed to imply that, after
all, she was not ill-versed in grammatical niceties.
She curtailed the word “examination” in
an off-hand way which smacked of an undergraduate,
and her attitude on the chair suggested that she had
half a mind to cross her legs and throw her hands
behind her head.
“Then,” said Quarrier,
“you have a good deal more right to speak of
woman’s claims to independence than most female
orators.”
She looked at him with a good-humoured curl of the
lip.
“Excuse me if I mention it your
tone reminds me of that with which you began last
evening. It was rather patronizing.”
“Heaven forbid! I am very
sorry to have been guilty of such ill-manners.”
“In a measure you atoned for
it afterwards. When I got up to offer you my
thanks, I was thinking of the best part of your lecture that
where you spoke of girls being entrapped into monstrous
marriages. That was generous, and splendidly
put. It seemed to me that you must have had cases
in mind.”
For the second time Denzil was unable
to meet the steely gaze. He looked away and laughed.
“Oh, of course I had; who hasn’t that
knows anything of the world? But,” he changed
the subject, “don’t you find it rather
dull, living in a place like Polterham?”
“I have my work here.”
“Work? the work of propagandism?”
“Precisely. It would be
pleasant enough to live in London, and associate with
people of my own way of thinking; but what’s
the good? there’s too much of that
centralization. The obscurantists take very good
care to spread themselves. Why shouldn’t
those who love the light try to keep little beacons
going in out-of-the-way places?”
“Well, do you make any progress?”
“Oh, I think so. The mere
fact of my existence here ensures that. I dare
say you have heard tell of me, as the countryfolk say?”
The question helped Denzil to understand
why Mrs. Wade was content with Polterham. He
smiled.
“Your influence won’t
be exerted against me, I hope, when the time comes?”
“By no means. Don’t
you see that I have already begun to help you?”
“By making it clear that my
Radicalism is not of the most dangerous type?”
They laughed, together, and Quarrier,
though the dialogue entertained him, rose as if to
depart.
“I will leave you with your
Greeks, Mrs. Wade; though I fear you haven’t
much pleasure in them from that special point of view.”
“I don’t know; they have
given us important types of womanhood. The astonishing
thing is that we have got so little ahead of them in
the facts of female life. Woman is still enslaved,
though men nowadays think it necessary to disguise
it.”
“Do you really attach much importance
to the right of voting, and so on?”
“‘And so on!’ That
covers a great deal, Mr. Quarrier. I attach all
importance to a state of things which takes for granted
that women stand on a level with children.”
“So they do with
an inappreciable number of exceptions. You must
be perfectly well aware of that.”
“And so you expect me to be
satisfied with it? I insist on the franchise,
because it symbolizes full citizenship. I won’t
aim at anything less than that. Women must be
taught to keep their eyes on that, as the irreducible
minimum of their demands.”
“We mustn’t argue.
You know that I think they must be taught to look at
quite different things.”
“Yes; but what those things
are you have left me in doubt. We will talk it
over when you have more time to spare. Do you
know my address? Pear-tree Cottage, Rickstead
Road. I shall be very glad to see you if ever
you care to call.”
Denzil made his acknowledgments, shook
hands, and left the room.
When his step sounded in the hall,
the housekeeper appeared and conducted him to the
upper stories. He examined everything attentively,
but in silence; his features expressed grave thought.
Mr. and Mrs. Hornibrook, he was told, were living
in Guernsey, and had resolved to make that island
their permanent abode. A Polterham solicitor was
their agent for the property.
Denzil was given to acting on the
spur of the moment. There might be dwellings
obtainable that would suit him better than this, but
he did not care to linger in the business. As
he passed out of the iron gates he made up his mind
that the house, with necessary repairs, would do very
well; and straightway he turned his steps to the office
of the agent.