Sir George Tressady, vol 1 | Page 9

"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. No offence, my dear, no offence," he added
hastily, glancing at his wife.
Letty glanced at George, and put up a handkerchief to hide her own
merriment.
Mrs. Watton looked impatient.
"Plenty of English Cabinet Ministers have been led by women before
now," she said drily; "and no blame to them or anybody else. Only in
the old days you knew where you were. Women were corrupt--as they
were meant to be--for their husbands and brothers and sons. They
wanted something for somebody--and got it. Now they are corrupt--like
Lady Maxwell--for what they are pleased to call 'causes,' and it is that
which will take the nation to ruin."

At this there was an incautious protest from Edward Watton against the
word "corrupt," followed by a confirmatory clamour from his mother
and brother which seemed to fill the dining-room. Lady Tressady threw
in affected comments from time to time, trying hard to hold her own in
the conversation by a liberal use of fan and Christian names, and little
personal audacities applied to each speaker in turn. Only Edward
Watton, however, occasionally took civil or smiling notice of her; the
others ignored her. They were engaged in a congenial task, the hunting
of the one disaffected and insubordinate member of their pack, and had
for the moment no attention to spare for other people.
"I shall see the great lady, I suppose, in a week or two," said George to
Miss Sewell, under cover of the noise. "It is curious that I should never
have seen her."
"Who? Lady Maxwell?"
"Yes. You remember I have been four years out of England. She was in
town, I suppose, the year before I left, but I never came across her."
"I prophesy you will like her enormously," said Letty, with decision.
"At least, I know that's what happens to me when Aunt Watton abuses
anybody. I couldn't dislike them afterwards if I tried."
"That, allow me to impress upon you, is not my disposition! I am a
human being--I am influenced by my friends."
He turned round towards her so as to appropriate her again.
"Oh! you are not at all the poor creature you paint yourself!" said Letty,
shaking her head. "In reality, you are the most obstinate person I
know--you can never let a subject alone--you never know when you're
beaten."
"Beaten?" said George, reflectively; "by a headache? Well, there is no
disgrace in that. One will probably 'live to fight another day.' Do you
mean to say that you will take no notice--no notice--of all that array of
facts I laid before you this morning on the subject of Captain

Addison?"
"I shall be kind to you, and forget them. Now, do listen to Aunt Watton!
It is your duty. Aunt Watton is accustomed to be listened to, and you
haven't heard it all a hundred times before, as I have."
Mrs. Watton, indeed, was haranguing her end of the table on a subject
that clearly excited her. Contempt and antagonism gave a fine energy to
a head and face already sufficiently expressive. Both were on a large
scale, but without commonness. The old-lace coif she wore suited her
waved and grizzled hair, and was carried with conscious dignity; the
hand, which lay beside her on the table, though long and bony, was full
of nervous distinction. Mrs. Watton was, and looked, a tyrant--but a
tyrant of ability.
"A neighbour of theirs in Brookshire," she was saying, "was giving me
last week the most extraordinary account of the doings at Mellor. She
was the heiress of that house at Mellor"--here she addressed young
Bayle, who, as a comparative stranger in the house, might be supposed
to be ignorant of facts which everybody else knew--"a tumbledown
place with an income of about two thousand a year. Directly she
married she put a Socialist of the most unscrupulous type--so they tell
me--into possession. The man has established what they call a 'standard
rate' of wages for the estate--practically double the normal
rate--coerced all the farmers, and made the neighbours furious. They
say the whole district is in a ferment. It used to be the quietest part of
the world imaginable, and now she has set it all by the ears. She, having
married thirty thousand a year, can afford her little amusements; other
people, who must live by their land, have their lives worried out of
them."
"She tells me that