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The writer referred slightly to their previous acquaintance, and to a remote family connection between himself and Tressady; dwelt in flattering terms on the reports which had reached him from many quarters of Tressady's opinions and abilities; described the genesis and aims of the new Parliamentary party, of which the writer was the founder and head; and finally urged him to come home at once, and to stand for Parliament as a candidate for the Market Malford division, where the influence of Fontenoy's family was considerable.
A half-contemptuous smile crossed Lord Fontenoy's worn face. "Well, really, I'm not inclined to make Lady Maxwell the scapegoat. Let them bear their own misdeeds." "Besides, what worse can you say of English Ministers than that they should be led by a woman?" said Mr. Watton, from the bottom of the table, in a piping voice. "In my young days such a state of things would have been unheard of.
She grew white; she wavered. Tressady saw that she was making great efforts, and all in vain. The division between her and her audience widened with every sentence, and Fontenoy's lady-organiser, in the background, sat smilingly erect. Tressady, who had been at first inclined to hate the thought of her success in this Inferno, grew hot with wrath and irritation.
So that when her cards, those of her son Lord Ancoats, and a little accompanying note in thin French handwriting Mrs. Allison had been brought up in Paris arrived, Letty had a start of pleasure. "To meet a few friends of mine" that meant, of course, one of the parties. She supposed it was Lord Fontenoy's doing. He was said to ask whom he would to Castle Luton.
For it was the direct fruit of an agitation that, as Tressady knew, was in particular Fontenoy's agitation. The Free Workers' League, which had called upon the trade-unionist of Mile End to summon the meeting, and to hear therein what both sides had to say, was, in fact, Fontenoy's creation. It had succeeded especially in organising the women home-workers of Mile End and Poplar.
Tressady had already partly from private talk, partly from the newspapers learnt the main outlines of Lord Fontenoy's later story. The first political speech of Fontenoy's he had ever read made a half-farcical impression on him let Dicky stick to his two-year-olds!
A howling hubbub arose, a confused sound of booing and groaning, and the carriage was soon surrounded by grimed men, gesticulating and shouting. "Yer bloated parasites, yer!" cried a young fellow, catching at the door-handle on Lord Fontenoy's side; "we'll make a d d end o' yer afore we've done wi' yer. Who asked yer to come meddlin in Malford d n yer!"
But he was not so ready as usual to shelter himself under the big words of controversy. Fontenoy's favourite arguments had momentarily no savour for a kind of moral nausea. "I begin to see it was a 'cursed spite' that drove me into the business at all," he said to himself, as he stood under the trees.
On the other hand, the instinctive strength and acuteness of Fontenoy's judgment were unmatched, according to Tressady's belief, in the House of Commons. He was hardly ever deceived in a man, or in the significant points of a situation. His followers never dreamt of questioning his verdict on a point of tactics. They followed him blindly; and if the gods sent defeat, no one blamed Fontenoy.
"She's just Vinie Mocket," answered the boy. "There's a girl who stays sometimes at Mrs. Selden's, on the Three-Notched Road. She's not freckled, and her eyes are big, and she never goes barefoot. I reckon it's silk she wears." "What's her name?" asked the hunter, filling his pipe. "Jacqueline Jacqueline Churchill. She lives at Fontenoy." "Fontenoy's a mighty fine place," remarked Gaudylock.
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