He welcomed the visitor with warmth, at the same time obviously suppressing a smile of other than merely polite significance: then he began at once to speak of electioneering matters, and did so, pacing the carpet, for the next half hour. Wilfrid listened with such show of interest as he could command; his thoughts were elsewhere, and weariness was beginning to oppress him.
Shortly after dinner fatigue passed the point at which it could be struggled against. Long waking, the harassment of fears at length consoled, and the exhaustion consequent upon his journey, besieged him with invincible drowsiness. Mrs. Baxendale, observing it, begged him to discard ceremony and go to rest. Gladly he suffered himself to be led to his room; once there, he could not note the objects about him; the very effort of taking off his clothes was almost beyond his strength. Sleep was binding his brows with oblivion, and relaxing every joint. His dearest concerns were nothing to him; with a wave of the hand he would have resigned an eternity of love; cry to him blood-chilling horrors, and his eyelids would make no sign. The feather-softness moulded itself to his limbs; the pillows pressed a yielding coolness to his cheek; his senses failed amid faint fresh odours. Blessed state! How enviable above all waking joys the impotence which makes us lords of darkness, the silence which suffers not to reach our ears so much as an echo of the farce of life.
CHAPTER XV
MRS. BAXENDALE’S QUESTS
A servant went to Banbrigg each morning for tidings; Emily, so the report said, moved steadily towards recovery. On the second day after Wilfrid’s arrival Mrs. Baxendale took him with her in the brougham, and let him wait for her whilst she made a call upon Mrs. Hood; Wilfrid saw an upper window of which the blind was down against the sun, and would gladly have lingered within sight of it. Beatrice had excused herself from accompanying the two.
‘I believe,’ Mrs. Baxendale said on the way, ‘she has gone to some special service at St. Luke’s.’ She was mistaken, though Beatrice had in truth been diligent at such services of late. ‘Now there,’ she added, ‘is a kind of infatuation I find it difficult even to understand. How can a girl of her sense and education waste her time in that way? Don’t think I have no religious belief, Mr. Athel; I’m not strong-minded enough for that. But this deliberate working of oneself into a state of nervous excitement seems to me, to speak plainly, indecent. Dr. Wardle, with whom I chat rather wickedly now and then, tells me the revivals are quite a windfall, subsequently, to him and his brethren. And, do you know, I begin to see bad results even in my niece. I certainly wouldn’t have had her down just at this time if I had suspected her leanings that way. Didn’t you notice how absent she was last night, and again at breakfast this morning? All revival, I assure you.’
‘It’s the want of a serious interest in life,’ remarked Wilfrid, remembering, with a smile, a certain conversation between Beatrice and himself.
‘Then it’s so inconsistent,’ continued the lady, ‘for—you won’t abuse my confidence—a more worldly girl I never knew. In her heart I am convinced she thinks nothing so important as the doings of fashionable society. She asked me, the first day she was here, how I lived without—what was it? I quite forget, but some paper or other which is full of what they call fashionable intelligence. “My dear,” I said, “I know none of those people, and care not one grain of salt about their flutterings hither and thither, their marryings and givings ill marriage, their dresses and their—never mind what.” And what do you think she answered? “But you will care when my name begins to be mentioned.” And she went off with—just so much—toss of the head; you know how Beatrice does it. Well, I suppose she really does to me an honour by coming down to my poor dull house; no doubt she’s very brilliant in the world I know nothing about. I suppose you have seen her at her best? She won’t waste her graces upon me, wise girl; only the—you know the movement—when I’ve shown my ignorance now and then. Did you ever dance with her?’
‘Oh, yes; frequently.’
‘I should like to see her in a ball-room. Certainly there are few girls more handsome; I suppose that is admitted?’
‘Certainly; she queens it everywhere.’
‘And her singing is lovely! Do you know a thought I often have? When I hear her singing it seems to me as if she were not quite the same person as at other times; she affects me, I can’t quite tell you how; it’s a sort of disenchantment to talk to her immediately afterwards.’
Wilfrid liked Mrs. Baxendale the more, the more he talked with her; in a day or two the confidence between them was as complete as if their acquaintance had been lifelong. With her husband, too, he came to be on an excellent footing. Mr. Baxendale got him into the library when the ladies retired for the night, and expatiated for hours on the details of his electoral campaign. At first Wilfrid found the subject tedious, but the energy and bright intelligence of the man ended by stirring his interest in a remarkable way. It was new to Wilfrid to be in converse with such a strenuously practical mind; the element of ambition in him, of less noble ambition which had had its share in urging him to academic triumphs, was moved by sympathetic touches; he came to understand the enthusiasm which possessed the Liberal candidate, began to be concerned for his success, to feel the stirrings of party spirit. He aided Baxendale in drawing up certain addresses for circulation, and learned the difference between literary elegance and the tact which gets at the ear of the multitude. A vulgar man could not have moved him in this way, and Baxendale was in truth anything but vulgar. Through his life he had been, on a small scale, a ruler of men, and had ruled with conspicuous success, yet he had preserved a native sincerity and wrought under the guidance of an ideal. Like all men who are worth anything, either in public or private, he possessed a keen sense of humour, and was too awake to the ludicrous aspects of charlatanry to fall into the pits it offered on every band. His misfortune was the difficulty with which he uttered himself; even when he got over his nervousness, words came to him only in a rough-and-tumble fashion; he sputtered and fumed and beat his forehead for phrases, then ended with a hearty laugh at his own inarticulateness, Something like this was his talk in the library of nights:
‘There’s a man called Rapley, an old-clothes dealer—fellow I can’t get hold of. He’s hanging midway—what do you call it?—trimming, with an eye to the best bargain. Invaluable, if only I could get him, but a scoundrel. Wants pay, you know; do anything for pay; win the election for me without a doubt, if only I pay him; every blackguard in Dunfield hand and glove with him. Now pay I won’t, yet I’m bound to get that man. Talked to him yesterday for two hours and thirty-five minutes by the parish church clock, just over his shop—I mean the clock is. The fellow hasn’t a conviction, yet he can talk you blue; if I had his powers of speech—there it is I fail, you see. I have to address a meeting tomorrow; Rapley ‘ll be up at me, and turn me inside out. He’d do as much for the other man, if only I’d pay him. That isn’t my idea; I’m going to win the election clean-handed; satisfaction in looking back on an honest piece of work; what? I’ll have another talk with him tomorrow. Now look at this map of the town; I’ve coloured it with much care. There you see the stronghold of the Blues. I’m working that district street by street—a sort of moral invasion. No humbug; I set my face against humbug. If a man’s a rogue, or a sot, or a dirty rascal, I won’t shake hands with him and pretend—you know—respect, friendship, how are your wife and children, so on. He’s a vote, and I’ve only to deal with him as a vote. Can he see that two and two make four? Good; I’m at him by that side. There are my principles; what have you to urge against them? He urges damned absurdities. Good; I prove to him that they are damned absurdities.’