Ancestors: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  XIV

  That night had also been one of triumph for Elton Gwynne. He had dinedat the castle, and--his Julia having flitted to anothercountry-house--spent the greater part of the evening in the smoking-roomwith half a score of the most eminent men in political England; andothers whose recognition was not to be despised.

  As there were many guests at the castle the dinner took place in thebanquet-hall, but at six or eight round tables, and Gwynne had foundhimself distinguished above all the other young men present by beingseated at that of the duchess. The prime-minister, the chancellor of theexchequer, two other members of the cabinet, and an ambassador were hiscompanions. All the women were of exalted station, but for this factGwynne cared nothing, being entirely free of that snobbery which sooften agitates even the best-born of the world; indeed, would have beenresentful of the ripe age of the ladies--accumulated with theirpolitical values--had it not been for the tremendous compliment paid tohis personal achievement.

  He could not sit beside her grace in that nest of titles, but at thesuggestion of the duke he had been placed as nearly opposite her as theround table permitted, and he soon forgot the broken circle ofimmemorial bosoms in the manifest disapproval of the Conservativepremier towards himself, and in the attitude of the other men, which,whether hostile or friendly, evinced a recognition of the rising starand a tolerance of his ideas.

  There is always a glamour about a very young man who has givencumulative evidence of genius and compelled the attention of the world,always distrustful of youth. His enemies had long since--and he was butthirty--admitted his gift for letters, fiercely as they might scoff athis conclusions; and his rewards for bravery in the field had aroused noadverse comment. But while his most persistent critics had neverdiscovered him truthless and corruptible, his political sincerity hadbeen called into question even by his colleagues, and almost unanimouslyby the opposition. His principles were by no means so rigidly outlinedas those of the great Whig families, nor of the men who belonged to theLiberal party as a natural result of their more modest station andprotesting spirit. He was strong on the fundamental principles of theparty, and far more energetic in his advocacy of the rights and needs ofthe working-man than any Liberal of his own class, but he rarely, ifever, alluded to the question of Home Rule; a question somnolent but byno means dead; and the omission savored of Unionism, in spite of hisavowed scorn of all compromises.

  These facts, taken in connection with the pride and arrogance of theyoung scion of the house of Strathland and Zeal, generated the suspicionthat he had allied himself with the Liberal party for two reasons only:its weakness in first-class men, and his passion for self-advertising.No one disputed his pre-eminence in this branch of industrial art, foralthough he never descended to commonplace methods, and the interviewer,far from being sought, rather dreaded him than otherwise, there was noman in England who was such a mine for "copy," nor of a perenniallygreener growth in the select front lawn of "news." When he attacked thegovernment he was eminently quotable, and this endeared him to bothreporters and editors. When he was interviewed, fearsome in manner as hewas, he sent the worm away packed with ideas and phrases. But althoughhe was almost continuously on the tongue, and the object of moreacrimonious discussion than any young man in England, distrust of himhad grown to such proportions that he had been dropped after one briefsojourn in the House; and to regain his seat had taken two years of thehardest and most brilliant fighting Great Britain had seen since theConservative majority of 1874 permitted Disraeli to rest on his pricklylaurels. But this memorable battle of one young man against a mightyphalanx of enemies and doubting friends had battered down the prejudicesof his own party, and won a meed of applause from even those of stoutold Tory principles. The humbler class, upon whom the election largelydepended, were captivated by his eloquence, his insidious manipulationof the best in their natures, filling them with a judicious mixture ofideals and self-approval; while the phenomenon he invariably presentedon the platform of the gradual awakening into life of a warm-bloodedgenerous magnetic and earnest inner man, so effectually concealed atother times within a repellent exterior, never failed to induce in themthe belief that something responsive in their own personalities awakenedthat rare spirit from its stifled sleep. That the glamour of his birthand condescension to their plane had aught to do with the dazzlingquality of his charm, they might have admitted had their minds beendriven by the enemy into the regions of self-analysis, but in any casehe was the theme of two-thirds of the "pubs" and reading-rooms inEngland. He had achieved a sweeping victory that loomed portentously asa forerunner of greater triumphs in the future; for the personalpopularity he had achieved, the gift for leadership he had demonstrated,the self-control he showed at all times, and the fatally adhesivequality of his biting wit, had strengthened the Liberal party and causedthe Conservative to wish that he had never been born.

  And flushed with self-love and the conquest of the woman of his desire,he had never talked better than on that night at Arcot; nor lessoffensively, for his arrogance and assertiveness were tempered by thewarm high tide of his emotions. It was a magnificent room, thebanquet-hall at Arcot, as large as that of many royal palaces, hung withold Gobelins and frescoed by a pupil of Giotto. It was a fit setting forthe triumphant hour of the "most remarkable young man since the youngerPitt," a phrase which, if not notably suave, at least possessed anastonishing vigor, and was almost as familiar in American andcontinental newspapers as in his own proud nation; a nation always sokeen to possess the first in all departments of excellence--creatingthem out of second-class material when the first is lacking--that thewonder was she had been so long accepting Elton Gwynne. Nothing,perhaps, but a noble desire for a really great man restrained her.

  Opposite Gwynne, the duchess, sweet and tactful, if little more than anornamental husk in which the juices of her race possibly recuperated toinvigorate the future generations, was as fair and stately as her castledemanded; and if her gown was shabby her jewels were not. On eitherside of her table, which occupied the central position in the greatroom, were some of the most beautiful women in England, the smartest,the most politically important; all, without exception, of an inheritedstatus that brought them once a year as a matter of course within thesternly guarded portals of Arcot. Gwynne did not know that Mrs. Kaye hadknocked at these sacred portals in vain; for such gossip, if by chancehe heard it, made no impression upon him whatever. But he was by nomeans insensible to the salient fact that he was one among the chosen ofEarth to-night, and that it was good to be the hero of such an assembly.

  For that he was the hero there was no manner of doubt, and when thedinner was over he spent but half an hour in the drawing-room,preferring the conversation of the heads of state, who so seldomgratified the vanity of a man of his years, but whom he had the power tointerest whether they approved of him or not. He had many friends amongwomen, some conquered by the magic of notoriety, others, like FloraThangue, sensible of his finer side, or tolerant of him throughlife-long intimacy; and there were times when he was as alive to thepleasures of their society as any young sprig about town; but to-nighttheir admiration was too illogical to administer to the self-love whichin the last few days had palpitated with so exquisite a sense offruition. Moreover, it gave him the keenest satisfaction to read in themanner of these older and long-tried men the grudging belief in his ownsincerity.

  In reality his motives for joining a party at war with every traditionof his house had been, primarily, as mixed as are all motives that bringabout great voluntary changes in a man's life. It was quite true thathe was inordinately ambitious, that he had a distinct preference for thesensational method, as productive of speedier results; for he had nointention of waiting until middle-age for the activities and honors hecraved in his insatiable youth; and it was also true that he was evenmore of an aristocrat than many of his class, with whom a simplerattitude had become the fashion, even if it were not marrow-deep. Butthe ruling motive had been his passionate love of battle, a traitinherited pe
rhaps from his pioneer ancestors, whose roots were in thesoil. This desire to prove his mettle and fill his life with the onlyexcitement worthy of his gifts, would alone have made him turn from thebroad ancestral paths, but, like a lawyer fascinated by his brief, hehad long since been heart and soul with the party he had chosen, and,with the exercise of his faculties, become possessed of a mountingdesire not only to be of genuine use to his country, but to lift thefamily name from the comparative obscurity where it had rested duringthe half of a century.

  The present head of the family had been an invalid in his early life,and Italy had withered whatever ambitions may have pricked him in hisyouth. When he finally found himself able to live the year round inEngland he saw no fault in a nation so superior to any of his exile, andhe had settled down to the life of a country squire, devoted to sport,and supremely satisfied with himself. His eldest son, an estimable youngman, who had worked at Christ Church as if he had been qualifying for astatesman or a don, died of typhoid-fever before the birth of his boy.The present heir, brilliant, weak, cynical, absolutely selfish, hadrioted to such an extent that he had fatally injured his health andincurred the detestation of his grandfather; Lord Strathland was notonly a virtuous old gentleman but was also inclined to be miserly. Thesubjects upon which they did not quarrel bitterly every time they metwere those relating to Elton Gwynne, whom both loved, in so far as theyloved any one but themselves. Deeply as they disapproved of hispolitics, they respected his independence and were inordinately proud ofhim. Zeal's daughters, who bored him inexpressibly, were parcelled outamong relatives, and he led a roving life in search of beneficent airfor his weary lungs. All women had become hateful to him since he hadbeen forced to sit in the ashes of repentance, but he had consented toenter upon a second marriage through the most disinterested sentiment ofhis life, his love of his cousin, whose haunting fear of being shelvedin his youth had been poured into his ears many times. That he alsoenraged his grandfather, who wanted nothing so much as the assurancethat his favorite should inherit the territorial honors of his house,may have given zest to his act of renunciation. Not that he had theleast intention of giving his cousin a solid basis for despair for manyyears to come, for no mother ever nursed her babe more tenderly than hehis weak but by no means exhausted chest. During his last interview withElton in London he had assured his anxious relative that he was takingthe best of care of himself, and that, in spite of blood-shot eyes andhaggard cheeks, his disease was quiescent; although he had decided tostart for Davos or some other popular climate before the advent of harshweather. Davos is a word of hideous portent in English ears, but Gwynnehad expelled it with all other cares from his mind, and on this nightwhen he returned from Arcot feeling a far greater man than any of hishouse had ever dreamed of being, and with a song in his heart, theawful face of his cousin, whom in the shock of the moment he thoughtstricken with death, gave him the first stab of terror and doubt that hehad experienced in his triumphant life.