But meanwhile the "game," as Coryston was playing it?—what was to be done as to this episode and that?
She sat down to her writing-table, still busily thinking, and reminding herself that her agent Mr. Page was to come and see her at twelve. She had hoped to get some counsel and help out of Arthur, now that the House was up for a fortnight. But Arthur had really been very inconsiderate and tiresome so far. He had arrived so late for dinner on the Saturday that there had been no time for talk, especially as there was a large party in the house. On Sunday he had taken a motor, and had been away all day, paying—he said—some constituency visits. And now this morning with the earliest train he was off to London, though there was really no occasion for him whatever to go up there. He seemed rather unlike himself. His mother wondered if he was ill. And she fell into some indignant reflections on the stuffy atmosphere and bad lighting of the House of Commons. But ever since he knew that he was to have the estates his manner seemed to have changed; not certainly in the direction of triumph or satisfaction. On the contrary, he had once or twice said irritably to his mother that the will was ridiculous and ought not to stand. She had been obliged to make it clear to him that the matter was not to be discussed.
Suddenly, as she sat there, distress seized her at the bare thought of any shadow between herself and Arthur—Arthur, her darling, who was upholding his father's principles and hers in Parliament with so much zeal and good feeling; who had never all his life—till these latter weeks—given her so much as a cross word. Yet now that she could no longer chase the thought quite away, she admitted, more and more frankly, that she was anxious. Was he in any money difficulties? She must get James to find out. In love? She smiled. There were very few maidens in England, whatever their pretensions, who would be likely to refuse Arthur Coryston. Let him only throw the handkerchief, and his mother would soon do the rest. And indeed it was high time he set up house for himself. There is a restlessness in a man which means—marriage; and a mother soon becomes aware of it.
Recalling her thoughts to the letters before her, Lady Coryston perceived among them a note from Lady William Newbury asking her and Marcia to spend a week-end at Hoddon Grey. Lady Coryston rather wearily reflected that she must no doubt accept. That young man was clearly in pursuit of Marcia. What Marcia's own views were, her mother had not yet discovered. She seemed sometimes glad to see him; sometimes entirely indifferent; and Lady Coryston thought she had observed that her daughter's vacillations tried Edward Newbury's pride sorely, at times. But it would end in a match—it was pretty certain to end in a match. Marcia was only testing her power over a strong-willed man, who would capture her in the end. That being so, Lady Coryston acknowledged that the necessary tiresome preliminaries must be gone through.
She hastily scrawled a note of acceptance, without any of the fond imaginings that would have accompanied the act in the ordinary mother. Like all imperious women she disliked staying in other people's houses, where she could not arrange her hours. And she had a particularly resentful memory of a visit which she had paid with her husband to Lord and Lady William Newbury when they were renting a house in Surrey, before they had inherited Hoddon Grey, and while Marcia was still in the schoolroom. Never in her life had she been so ordered about. The strict rules of the house had seemed to her intolerable. She was a martinet herself, and inclined to pay all due attention to the observances of religion; but they must be her own observances, or at least approved by her. To be expected to follow other people's observances set her aflame. To make such a fuss, also, about your religion seemed to her indecorous and absurd. She remembered with a satisfaction which was half ashamed, that she—who was always down at home to a half-past-eight breakfast, and was accustomed to walk a mile to church—had insisted on breakfasting in her own room, on Sunday, under the Newburys' roof, and had quite enjoyed Lady William's surprised looks when they met at luncheon.
Well, now the thing had to be done again—for the settling of Marcia. Whether the atmosphere of the family or the house would suit Marcia, her mother did not inquire. In the matters of birth and money, nothing could be more appropriate. Lady Coryston, however, was mostly concerned in getting it through quickly, lest it should stand in the way of things more important. She was fond of Marcia; but her daughter occupied, in truth, only the fringe of her thoughts.
However, she duly put up her letter, and was addressing the envelope, when the door opened to admit the head agent of the estate, Mr. Frederick Page.
Mr. Page was, in Lady Coryston's eyes, a prince of agents. Up till now she had trusted him entirely, and had been more largely governed by his advice than her pride of rule would ever have allowed her to confess. Especially had she found reason to be grateful to him for the large amount of money he had lately been able to provide her with from the savings of the Coryston estates, for political purposes. Lady Coryston was one of the largest subscribers to the party funds in the kingdom; the coming election demanded an exceptional effort, and Page's economies had made it almost easy. She greeted him with a peculiarly gracious smile, remembering perhaps the letter of thanks she had received only the day before from the party headquarters.
The agent was still a young man, not much over forty, ruddy, good-looking, inclined to be plump, and possessed of a manner calculated to win the confidence of any employer. He looked the pink of discretion and capacity, and Lady Coryston had never discovered in him the smallest flaw with regard to any of the orthodoxies she required, political or religious. He was a widower, with two girls, who had often been allowed to play with Marcia.