A very good fellow in his way was Montagu Plumley, and Sir John was anxious that Sydney Campion, now a connection as well as a friend, should be brought within the influence of one whom the baronet had always regarded as the Young Man of the future. Sydney had been wont to sneer a little, after his fashion, at the individuals who interpreted the new ideas, though he accepted the ideas themselves as irrefragable.

The nation must be saved by its young men--yes, certainly. As a young man he saw that plainly enough, but it was not going to be saved by any young man who could be named in his presence. He had said something like this to Sir John Pynsent, not many days before his marriage, and Sir John, who had taken Sydney's measure to a nicety, had resolved that his promising brother-in-law should be converted at the earliest possible opportunity into a faithful follower and henchman of Lord Montagu Plumley.

Another old friend of the reader was amongst the guests who sat over their wine round Sir John's hospitable board. This was the Honorable Tom Willoughby, whom his host had initiated at the Oligarchy into the art of fishing for men in the troubled waters of Liberalism. Tom Willoughby was, and always would be, a light weight in the political arena, but he was very useful when put to work that he could do. He was the spoiled child of Sir John Pynsent, and was fast earning a character as the chartered libertine of the House of Commons, where his unfailing good humor made him friends on both sides. Sir John told him one day that he was cut out to be an envoy extraordinary from the Conservative to the Liberal ranks, whereupon the Honorable Tom had answered that he did not mind discharging the function for his party to-day if he could see his way to doing the same thing for his country hereafter. Whereat Sir John laughed, and told him that if he wanted a mission of that kind he must bow down to the rising sun; and it was then that he asked his friend to come and dine with Lord Montagu.

Gradually, after the ladies had gone, the conversation shifted round to politics, and Sir John began to draw his guests out. People had been talking a good deal during the last few days about the resignation of Mr. Bright, which, coming in the same session with that of Mr. Forster, had made something of a sensation.

"How long will you give them now, Lord Montagu?" said the baronet. "Two of their strongest men are gone--one over Ireland and the other over Egypt. If the country could vote at this moment, I verily believe that we should get a majority. It almost makes one wish for annual Parliaments."

"I have more than once thought, Sir John, that the Tories would have had a much longer aggregate of power in the past fifty years if there had been a general election every year. When we come into office we make things perfectly pleasant all round for the first twelve month. When they come in, it rarely takes them a year to set their friends at loggerheads. As it is, they will stick in to the last moment--certainly until they have pa.s.sed a Franchise Act."

"I suppose so. We must not go to the country on the Franchise."

"Rather not."

"And it will be too late to rely on Egypt."

"Heaven only knows what they are yet capable of in Egypt. But we shall have something stronger than that to go upon--as you know very well."

"Ireland," said Campion.

"Not exactly Ireland, though the seed may spring up on Irish soil. The main thing to do, the thing that every patriotic man ought to work for, is to break down the present One Old Man system of government in this country. The bane of Great Britain is that we are such hero-worshippers by nature that we can only believe in one man at a time. We get hold of a Palmerston or a Gladstone, and set him on a pedestal, and think that everybody else is a pygmy. It may be that our idol is a tolerably good one--that is, not mischievously active. In that case he cannot do much harm. But when, as in the case of Gladstone, you have a national idol who is actively mischievous, it is impossible to exaggerate the evil which may be done. Therefore the object which we should all pursue in the first instance is to throw off the old man of the sea, and not merely to get the better of him in parliament, but to cover him with so much discredit that he cannot wheedle another majority from the country.

It does not signify whether we do this through Irish or Egyptian affairs, so long as we do it. Mr. Campion has shown us how seats are to be won. We want fifty or sixty men at least to do the same thing for us at the next election."

"There is no doubt," said Campion, "that with the present electorate we might safely go to the poll at once. Liberalism, minus Bright, Forster, and Goschen, and plus Alexandria and Phoenix Park, is no longer what it was in 1880. I had the most distinct evidence of that at Vanebury."

"There was a considerable turnover of votes, I suppose?"

"Unquestionably, and amongst all cla.s.ses."

"Yes, that is encouraging, so far. But in view of the new franchise, it does not go nearly far enough. The idol must be overthrown."

"Who is to do it?" Sydney asked.

"That is hardly for me to say. But it will be done."

"The idol is doing it very fairly," said Willoughby, "on his own account, especially in London. Wherever I go his popularity is decidedly on the wane amongst his old supporters."

"Let that go on for a year or two," said Lord Montagu, "and then, when the inevitable compact is made with Parnell, the great party which has had its own way in England for so many years, at any rate up to 1874, will crumble to pieces."

The talk was commonplace as beseemed the occasion; but Sir John's object in bringing his men together was practically gained. Before the evening was over, Lord Montagu was favorably impressed by Campion's ability and shrewdness, whilst Sydney was more disposed from that time to regard Plumley as one of the most likely aspirants for the leadership of his party.

In the drawing-room, Nan had made herself as popular as her husband was making himself in the dining-room. She was greatly improved by her marriage, many of the matrons thought; she was more dignified and far less abrupt than she used to be. She had always been considered pretty, and her manners were gaining the finish that they had once perhaps lacked; in fact, she had found out that Sydney set a high value on social distinction and prestige; and, resolving to please him in this as in everything else, she had set herself of late to soften down any girlish harshness or brusquerie, such as Lady Pynsent used sometimes to complain of in her, and to develop the gracious softness of manner which Sydney liked to see.

"She will be quite the _grande dame_, by and by," said one lady, watching her that night. "She has some very stately airs already, and yet she is absolutely without affectation. Mr. Campion is a very lucky man."

Nan was asked to play; but, although she acknowledged that she still kept up her practising, she had not brought her violin with her. She was half afraid, moreover, that Sydney did not like her to perform. She fancied that he had an objection to any sort of display of either learning or accomplishment on a woman's part; she had gathered this impression from the way in which he spoke of his sister Lettice. And she did not want to expose herself to the same sort of criticism.

One of the younger ladies at Lady Pynsent's that night was a Mrs.

Westray, wife of the eminently respectable member for Bloomsbury, who, as a city merchant of great wealth and influence, was one of the invited guests. Mrs. Westray was by way of being a literary lady, having printed a volume of her "Travels." Unfortunately she had only traveled in France, over well-worn tracks, and her book appeared just after those of two other ladies, with whom the critics had dealt very kindly indeed; so that the last comer had not been treated quite so well as she deserved.

Nevertheless she keenly enjoyed her reputation as a woman of letters; and having found on inquiry that Sydney Campion was the brother of the lady whose novel had gained such a brilliant success in the spring, she asked her husband to bring him to her.

"Oh, why does Miss Campion live out of England?" Mrs. Westray asked him, after gushing a little about his sister's "exquisite romance". "Surely she does not mean to do so always?"

"No," said Sydney. "I hope not. She was rather seriously ill last Christmas, and we thought it best for her to live in Italy until she quite recovered. I trust that we shall have her back again before the end of the year." He was as yet unacquainted with the history of his sister's movements.

"I am so glad to hear it. I want very much to make her acquaintance."

"We hope that my sister will come to stay with us for a time," said Sydney, "and in that case you will be sure to see her."

"That will be so very nice," said the lady; "I am quite certain I shall like her immensely."

Sydney felt a little doubtful whether Lettice would like Mrs. Westray; and he also doubted whether his wife and his sister would be found to have much in common. But he was more or less consciously building on the hope that Dalton's suit would prosper, and that Lettice would settle down quietly as the mistress of Angleford Manor, and so be weaned from the somewhat equivocal situation of a successful author. It did not so much as enter his mind, by the way, that there was anything equivocal in Mrs. Westray's authorship. Her book had failed, and her husband was very wealthy, so that she could not be suspected of having earned money by her pen. But Lettice had cheques for _her_ romances!

The dinner was very successful, and the Pynsents were charmed with the result. "It is a most suitable union," said Sir John, alluding to Nan's marriage to Sydney Campion, and hoping to crush his wife a little, seeing that she had objected to it: "it does great credit to my discernment in bringing them together. I always knew that Campion would get on. Lord Montagu was very much pleased with him."

"Nan looked lovely," said Lady Pynsent, ignoring her husband's innuendo.

"She tells me that Sydney is very particular about her dress, and she seems perfectly happy."

Meanwhile, as Sydney and his wife were driving home, Nan nestled up to him and said coaxingly,

"Now tell me, dear, just what you were thinking of to-night."

"I was thinking that my wife was the most beautiful woman in the room."

"Oh, I did not mean anything of that kind. When you were talking at dinner-time, and after we had gone up stairs, what was really the uppermost thought in your mind?"

"Well," said Sydney laughing, "you deserve all my candor, Nan. I was thinking, if you must know, that I could meet any one of those men in debate, or in council, and hold my own against him. There's vanity for you! Now it is your turn."

"Mine?" she said. "Why, it was just the same as your own. That you were as wise and great as any of them----"

"Ah, I didn't say that."

"--And that when you are a Minister of State, and I threw open my drawing-room, we will challenge comparison with any other house in London. Do you like the idea?"

He put his arm round her and kissed her very fondly. She had a.s.similated his ambitions to a remarkable degree, and he was as surprised as he was delighted to find her almost as eager for his success as he himself could be. The two were by no means dest.i.tute of that community of interests and pursuits which has been said to const.i.tute the best hope of wedded bliss. But Nan's hopes were less material than Sydney's. It was as yet a doubtful matter whether he would draw her down from her high standard, or whether she would succeed in raising him to hers. At present, satisfied with themselves and with each other, they were a thoroughly happy couple.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

AT MRS. CHIGWIN'S COTTAGE.

Birchmead in the summer and autumn is a very different place from the Birchmead which Alan Walcott saw when he came down to visit his aunt in the early days of February. Then the year had not begun to move; at most there was a crocus or a snowdrop in the sheltered corners of Mrs.

Chigwin's garden; and, if it had not been for a wealth of holly round the borders of the village green, the whole place would have been dest.i.tute of color.

But, in the summer, all is color and brightness. The blue sky, the emerald lawns, the dull red earth, the many-hued ma.s.ses of foliage, from the dark copper beech to the light greys of the limes and poplars, mingle their broad effects upon their outspread canvas of Nature, and in the foreground a thousand flowers glow warmly from the well-kept gardens or the fertile meadow-side. Nowhere do the old-fashioned flowers of the field and garden seem to flourish more luxuriantly than at Birchmead, or come to fuller bloom, or linger for a longer season. Here, as elsewhere in the south of England, June and July are the richest months for profusion and color; but the two months that follow July may be made, with very little trouble, as gay and varied in their garden-show, if not so fragrant and exquisite. The glory of the roses and lilies has departed, but in their place is much to compensate all simple and unsophisticated lovers of their mother-earth.