CHAPTER XIX.

MR. ST. PAUL'S MYSTERY.

Two events occurring almost together affected a good deal some of the people of this story. The first was the death of Mrs. Saulsbury.

Miss Grey was at once invited by the lawyers who had the charge of her father's affairs to visit Keeton, in order to become fully acquainted with the new disposition of things in which she had so much interest. Thereupon Mr. Money announced that, as Miss Grey had no very close friend to look after her interests, he was resolved to put himself in the place of a parent or some near relation, and go with her and see that all her interests were properly cared for. Minola was unwilling to put him to so much trouble and loss of time, well knowing how absorbed in business he was; but he set all her remonstrances aside with blunt, good-humored kindness.

"Lucy is coming with us," he said, "if you don't think her in the way; it might be pleasant for you to have a companion."

"I should so much like to go with Nola," pleaded Lucy.

"Oh, I shall be delighted if Lucy will go," Minola said, not well knowing how to put into words her sense of all their kindness. It was really a great relief to her to have Lucy's companionship in such a visit. Mary Blanchet did not like to go back even for a few days to Keeton. The poetess objected to seeing ever again the place where she considered that art and she had been degraded by her servitude in the court-house. So the conditions of the visit were all settled.

But there arose suddenly some new conditions which Minola had never expected. The long looked-for vacancy at length occurred in the representation of Keeton. The sitting member announced his determination to resign his seat as soon as the necessary arrangements for such a step could be put into effect. It was imperative that Victor Heron should lose no time in throwing himself upon the vacant borough. Mr. Money and Lucy rattled up to Minola's door one breathless morning with the news. Lucy's eyes were positively dancing with excitement and delight.

"It seems to me that there's going to be a regular invasion of your borough, Miss Grey," Mr. Money said. "We're all going to be there. You see that you are under no manner of compliment to me. I must have gone down to Keeton in any case; it's one of the lucky things that don't often befall a busy man like me to be able to kill the two birds with the one stone. I must take care of our friend Heron as well as of you. He would be doing some ridiculous thing if there were no elder to look after him. He is as innocent of the dodges of an English election as you are of the ways of English lawyers. So we'll be all together; that will be very pleasant. Of course we'll not interfere with you. You shall be just as quiet as you like while we are doing our electioneering."

What could Minola say against all this arrangement, which seemed so satisfactory and so delightful to her friends? It was not pleasant for her to be brought thus into a sort of companionship with Victor Heron. But it would be far less pleasant, it would indeed be intolerable and not to be thought of, that she should in any way raise an objection or make a difficulty which might hint of the feelings that possessed her.

"After all, what does it matter?" she asked herself as Mr. Money was speaking. "I shall have to suffer this kind of thing in some way for half my life, I suppose. It is no one's fault but my own. Why should I disturb the arrangements of these kind people because of any weaknesses of mine? If women will be fools, at least they ought to try to hide their folly. This is as good practice for me as I could have."

So she told Mr. Money and Lucy that any arrangement that suited them would suit her, and that she would be ready to go the moment he gave the word. Then Mr. Money hastened away to look after other things, and Lucy remained behind "to help Nola with her preparations," as she insisted on putting it, but partly, as Minola felt only too sure, to talk with her about Victor Heron.

Since Heron had offered her his advice in the park, and she had put it aside, Minola and he had only met once or twice. Then he had attempted, the first time of their meeting, to renew his apologies, and she had put them lightly away, as she already had done the advice, and had given him to understand that she wished to hear no more of the matter. She had hoped that by assuming a manner of indifference she might lead him to forget the whole affair. But he did not understand her, and really believed that he had lost her friendship for ever by the manner in which he had spoken against Herbert Blanchet. He was troubled for her much more than for himself, believing, or at least fearing, that she had set her heart on a man unworthy of her. He kept away from her therefore, assuming that his society was no longer welcome, and resolute not to intrude on her.

Minola had hoped that the worst was over, and that he and she were likely to settle gradually and unnoticed by others into a condition of ordinary acquaintanceship. This melancholy hope, to her a cruel necessity in itself, but yet the best hope she could see now left for her, was likely to be disturbed for a while by this ill-omened visit to Keeton.

Minola was busy making her preparations for going to Keeton, and with a very heavy heart. Everything about the visit was now distressing to her. The occasion was mournful; she dreaded long talks and discussions with Mr. Saulsbury; she dreaded meeting old acquaintances in Keeton; she shrank from the responsibilities of various kinds that seemed to be thrust upon her. When she left Keeton she thought she had done with it for ever. Where was the free life she had arranged for herself? Nothing seemed to turn out as she had expected.

Meanwhile Mary Blanchet and Lucy Money were both delighted, and in their different ways, at the prospect of Minola's visit to Keeton. Mary saw her leader and patroness come back rich, and ready to be distinguished and to confer distinction. Lucy Money had the prospect of variety, of a holiday with Minola, whom she loved, and of being very often in the society of Victor Heron. Minola was, if anything, made additionally sad by the thought that it was not in her power to share their feelings, and the fear that she might seem a wet blanket sometimes on their happiness.

Lucy had been with her all the morning, helping her with Mary to make preparations for the journey. Minola was glad when it was found that some things were wanting, and Lucy and Mary offered to go out and buy them in Oxford street.

Minola was enjoying the sense of being alone, and was, at the same time, secretly accusing herself of want of friendship because she enjoyed it, when a card was brought to her, and she was told that the gentleman said he wanted to speak to her, if she pleased, "rather particular." The card was that of Mr. St. Paul. He had never visited Minola before, nor was she even aware that he knew where she lived. She was surprised, but she did not know of any reason why she might not see him. She hastened down to her sitting-room, and there she found Mr. St. Paul, as she had found Mr. Blanchet once before. Mr. St. Paul looked even a stranger figure in her room than Mr. Blanchet had done, she thought. He seemed far too tall for the place, and had a heedless, lounging, half-swaggering way, which appeared as if it were compounded of the old manner of the cavalry man and the newer habits of the western hunter. Nothing, however, could have been more easy, confident, and self-possessed than the way in which he came forward to greet Minola. If he had been visiting her every day for a month before, he could not have been more friendly and at his ease.

"How d'ye do, Miss Grey? Just in time to see you, I suppose, before you go? I've been down to Keeton already. I'm going down again--I mean to make my mark there somehow."

Minola thought, with a certain half-amused, half-abashed feeling, of the remarks she had heard concerning herself and Mr. St. Paul; but she did not show any embarrassment in her manner. Indeed, Mr. St. Paul was not a person to allow any one to feel much embarrassed in his presence. He was entirely easy, self-satisfied, and unaffected, and he had a way of pouring out his confidences as though he had known Minola from her birth upward.

"I hope you found a pleasant reception there?"

"Yes, well enough for that matter. I find my brother and his wife are not anything like so popular as I was given to understand that they were. I saw my brother in London--didn't I tell you?--before I went down to Keeton, you know."

"No, I did not know that you had seen him; I hope he was glad to see you, Mr. St. Paul?"

"Not he; I dare say he was very sorry I hadn't been wiped out by the Indians. Do you know what being wiped out means?"

"Yes, I think I could guess that much. I suppose it means being killed?"

"Of course. I mean to teach you all the slang of the West; I think a nice girl never looks so nice as when she is talking good expressive slang. Our British slang is all unmeaning stuff, you know; only consists in calling a thing by some short vulgar word--or some long and pompous word, the fun being in the pompousness; but the western slang is a sort of picture-writing, don't you know?--a kind of compressed metaphor, answering the purposes of an intellectual pemmican or charqui. Do you know what these things are, Miss Grey?"

"Oh, yes; compressed meats of some kind, I suppose. But I don't think I care about slang very much."

"You may be sure you will when you get over the defects of your Keeton bringing up. But what was I going to tell you? Let me see. Oh, yes, about my brother and his wife. The honest Keeton folks seem to have forgotten them. But I was speaking, too, about my going to see my brother in town. Oh, yes, I went to see him; he didn't want me, and he made no bones about letting me know it. He thinks I have disgraced the family; it was quite like the scene in the play--whose play is it?--I am sure I don't remember--where Lord Foppington's brother goes to see him, and is taken so coolly. I haven't read the play for more years than you have lived in the world, I dare say, but it all came back upon me in a moment. I felt like saying, 'Good-by, Foppington,' only that he would never have understood the allusion, and would think I meant to say he was a 'fop,' which he is not, bless him."

"Then your visit did not bring you any nearer to a reconciliation with your brother?"

"Not a bit of it--pushed us further asunder, I think. The odd thing was that I told him I wanted nothing from him, and that I had made money enough for myself in the West. You would have thought that would have fetched him, wouldn't you? Not the least in life, I give you my word." And Mr. St. Paul laughed good-humoredly at the idea.

"I am sorry to hear it," said Minola. "I think there are quarrels and spites enough in the world, without brothers joining in with all the rest."

"Bad form, isn't it--don't you think? But I don't suppose in real life brothers and sisters ever do care much for each other--do you think they do? I haven't known any such cases--have you?"

Minola could not contribute much from her own family history to demonstrate the affection and devotion of brothers, but she had no idea of agreeing in the truth of Mr. St. Paul's philosophic reflections for all that.

"I believe what you say is true enough as regards the brothers, but I can't admit it of the sisters."

"Come now, you don't really believe that nonsense, I know."

"Believe what nonsense? That sisters may be fond of their brothers sometimes?"

"No, I don't mean that; but that there is any real difference between men and women in these ways--that men are all bad and women all good, and that sort of thing. One's as bad as the other, Miss Grey. When you have lived as long in the world as I have you'll find it, I tell you. But I don't find much fault with either lot. I think they are both right enough all things considered, don't you know?"

"I am sure Mary Blanchet is devoted to her brother," Miss Grey said warmly.

"That little old maid? Well, now, do you know, I shouldn't wonder. That's just the sort of woman to be devoted to a brother, and, of course, he doesn't care twopence about her."

"Oh, for shame!" said Minola, not, however, feeling quite satisfied about the strength of Herbert Blanchet's affection for his sister, even while she felt bound, for Mary's sake, to utter her protest against his being set down as wholly undeserving.

"But, I say," Mr. St. Paul observed, "what a fool he is! I don't think I ever saw a more conceited cad and idiot."

"He is a very particular friend of mine, Mr. St. Paul," Miss Grey began. "At least, his sister is one of my oldest friends."

"Yes, yes; just so. The good old spinster is a friend of yours, and you try to like the cad brother on her account. All quite right, of course. I should say he was just the sort of fellow to borrow the poor old girl's money, if she had any."

"Oh, Mary has no money, and I am sure if she had she would be only too glad to give it to him."

"Very likely; anyhow he would be only too glad to take it, you may be sure. But I don't want to say anything against your friends, Miss Grey, if you don't like it. Only women generally do like it, you know--and then you may say anything you please, in your turn, against any of my friends or relatives. I shan't be offended one bit, I can assure you."

Minola had nothing to say, and therefore said nothing. Her new acquaintance did not allow any silence to spring up.

"Talking of friends," he said, "there is one of your friends who politely declines any helping hand of mine in the election business at Keeton, although I think I could do him a good turn with some of the fellows who are out of humor with my brother. Our quixotic young friend will have none of the help of brothers who quarrel with brothers, it seems. Easy to see that he never had a brother."

"Mr. Heron is a man of very sensitive nature, I believe," Minola said; "he will not do anything that he does not think exactly right, Mr. Money says."

"Yes, so I hear. Odd, is it not? Heron always was a confounded young fool, you know. He got into all his difficulties by bothering about things that oughtn't to have concerned him one red cent. Well, he won't have my disinterested assistance. There again he is a fool, for I could have done something for him, and Money knows it--it was partly on Money's account that I thought of taking up Heron's side of the affair, because, so far as I am concerned, anybody else would do me just as well so long as he opposed my brother's man."

"I can quite understand that Mr. Heron would not allow himself to be made a mere instrument to work out your quarrel with your brother. I think he was quite right."

The good-humored St. Paul laughed.

"All very fine, Miss Grey, and it does for a lady uncommonly well, no doubt; but if you want to get into Parliament, it won't do to be quite so squeamish. I am sure I should be only too happy to get the help of Cain against Abel or Abel against Cain if I could in such a case."

"Most men would, I dare say," Minola answered, with as much severity as she could assume under the possible penalty of Mr. St. Paul's laughter. "But I am glad that there are some men, or that there is one man, at least, who thinks there is some object in life higher than that of getting into Parliament."

"Oh, as far as that goes, I quite agree with you, Miss Grey; I shouldn't care twopence myself about a seat in Parliament--a confounded bore, I think. But if you go in for playing a game, why, you ought to play it, you know."

"But are there not rules in every game? Are there not such things as fair and unfair?"

"Of course, yes; but I fancy the strong players generally make the rules to suit their own ideas in the end. Anyhow, I never heard of any one playing at electioneering who would have hesitated for a moment about accepting the hand I offered to our quixotic young friend."

"I am glad he is quixotic," Minola said eagerly. "I like to think of a man who ventures to be a Quixote."

"Very sorry to hear it, Miss Grey, for I am afraid you won't like much to think about me. Yet, do you know, I came here to make a sort of quixotic offer about this very election."

"I am glad to hear it; the more quixotic it is the more I shall like it. To whom is the offer to be made? To Mr. Heron?"

"Oh, no, by Jove!--excuse me, Miss Grey--nothing of the sort. The offer is to be made to you."

"To me?" Minola was a little surprised, but she did not color or show any surprise. She knew very well that it was not an offer of himself Mr. St. Paul was about to make, but it amused her to think of the interpretation Mary Blanchet, if she could have been present, would at once have put on his words.

"Yes, indeed, Miss Grey, to you. I have it in my power to make you returning officer for Keeton. Do you understand what that means?"

"I know in a sort of way what a returning officer is; but I don't at all understand how I can do his office."

"I'll show you. You shall have the fate of Keeton as much in your hands as if you owned the whole concern--a deuced deal more, in fact, than if you owned the whole concern, in days of ballot like these. I believe you do own a good many of the houses there now, don't you?"

"I hardly know; but I know that if I do, I wish I didn't."

"Very well; just you try what you can get out of your influence over your tenants--that's all."

"Then how am I to become returning officer for Keeton?"

"That's quite another thing. That depends on me."

"On you, Mr. St. Paul?"

"On me. Just listen." St. Paul had been seated in his favorite attitude of careless indolence in a very low chair, so low that his long legs seemed as if they stretched half way across the room. His position, joined with an expression of self-satisfied lawlessness in his face, might have whimsically suggested a sort of resemblance to Milton's arch fiend "stretched out huge at length," in one of his less malign humors. He now jumped up and stood on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fireplace, his slightly stooping shoulders only seeming to make him look taller than otherwise, because they might set people wondering as to the height he would have reached if he had only stood erect and made the most of his inches. His blue eyes had quite a sparkle of excited interest in them, and his prematurely bald forehead looked oddly infantine over these eyes and that keen, fearless mouth.

"Look here, Miss Grey, it's all in your hands. You know both these fellows, don't you?"

"Both what fellows?"

"These fellows who want to get in for Keeton. You know them both. Now which of them do you want to win?"

"What can it matter which way my wishes go--if they went any way?"

"How like a woman! How very like a woman!" and he laughed.

"What is like a woman? I know when a man says anything is like a woman, he means to say that it is ridiculous."

"Well, that's true enough; that is about what we do mean in most cases. What I meant in this case was only that you would not answer my question. I put a plain direct question, to which you must have some answer to give, and you only asked me a question in return which had nothing to do with mine."

"Perhaps I have no answer to give. I may have the answer in my own mind, and yet not have it to give to any one else."

"Oh, but you may really give it to me! In strictest confidence I assure you; no living soul shall ever know from me. Come, Miss Grey, let me know the truth. It can't possibly do you any harm--or anybody harm for that matter, except the wrong man for I take it for granted that the man you don't favor must be the wrong man."

"But I don't know that I ought to have anything to do with such a matter----"

"Never mind these scruples; it's nothing; there's to be no treason in the business, nor any unfair play. It's only this; I couldn't get in for the borough myself, even if I tried my best, but I can send in the one of the two whom I prefer--or, in this case, whom you prefer. I can do this as certainly as anything in this uncertain world can be certain."

"But how could that be?"

"_That_ it would not suit me to tell you just at present. I know a safe way, that's all. In the teeth of the ballot I can promise you that. Now, Miss Grey, who is to have the seat?"

"Are you really serious in this, Mr. St. Paul?"

"As serious as I ever was in my life about anything--a good deal more serious, I dare say, than I often was about graver things and more important men. Now then, Miss Grey, which of these two fellows is to sit for Keeton?"

"But why do you make this offer to me?" she asked, with some hesitation. "What have I to do with it?" There was something alarming to her in his odd proposition, about which he was evidently quite serious now.

"Why do I make the offer to you? Well, because I should like to please you, because you are a sort of woman I like--a regular good girl, I think, without any nonsense or affectation about you. Now that's the whole reason why I offer this to you. I don't care much myself either way, except to annoy my brother, and that can be done in fifty other ways without half the trouble to me. I was inclined to draw out of the whole affair, until I remembered that you knew both the fellows, and I thought you might have a wish for one of them to go in in preference to the other--they can't both go in, you see--and so I made up my mind to give you the chance of saying which it should be. Now then, Miss Grey, name your man."

He put his hands into his pockets, and coolly waited for an answer. He had not the appearance of being in the least amused at her perplexity. He took the whole affair in a calm, matter-of-fact way, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Minola was perplexed. She did not see what right he could have to control the coming contest in any way, and still less, what right she could have to influence him in doing so. The dilemma was one in which no previous experience could well guide her. She much wished she had Mr. Money at hand to give her a word of counsel.

"Come, Miss Grey, make up your mind--or rather tell me what you have already made up your mind to, for I am sure you have not been waiting until now to form an opinion. Which of these two men do you want to see in Parliament?"

There did not seem any particular reason why Minola or any girl might not say in plain words which of two candidates she would rather see successful.

Mr. St. Paul appeared to understand her difficulty, for he said in an encouraging way--

"After all, you know, if you had women's rights and all that sort of thing, you would have to give your vote for one or other of these fellows, and I dare say you would be expected to take the stump for your favorite candidate. So there really can't be any very serious objection to your telling me in confidence which of the two you want to win."

Minola could not see how there could be any objection on any moral principle she could think of just then--being in truth a little confused and puzzled--to her giving a voice to the wish she had formed about the election.

"It's not the speaking out of my wish that gives me any doubt," she said; "it is the condition under which you want me to speak. I seem to be doing something that I have no right to do--that is, Mr. St. Paul, if you are serious."

"I remember reading, long ago," he said, "some Arabian Nights' story, or something of the kind, about a king, I think it was, who was brought at night to some mysterious place and told to cut a rope there, and that something or other would happen, he did not know what or when. The thing seemed very simple, and yet he didn't quite like to do it without knowing why, and how, and all about it. It strikes me that you seem to be in the same sort of fix."

"So I am; just the same. Why can't you tell me what you are going to do?"

"I like that! That is my secret for the present."

"And your king--the king in your story--did he cut the rope at last?"

"I am afraid I have forgotten that; but I have no doubt he did, for he was a reasonable sort of creature, being a man, and I know that everything came right with him in the end."

"Very well; I accept the omen of your king, and I too will cut the rope without asking why. Of course I wish that Mr. Heron should be elected. He is a Liberal in politics. Why do you laugh when I say that, Mr. St. Paul?"

"Well, I didn't know that you cared much for that sort of thing, and women are generally supposed to be reactionaries all the world over, are they not? Well, anyhow, that's one reason, his being a Liberal. What next?"

"I don't know that any next is wanting. But of course I think Mr. Heron is a much cleverer man, and is likely to be much better able to get on in the House of Commons; and then he has his complaint to make against the government----"

"Yes; and then?"

"Then he is very much liked by people whom I like--and I like him very much myself." Minola spoke out with perfect frankness, believing that that was the best thing she could do, and not showing the least sign of embarrassment.

Mr. St. Paul laughed.

"You don't like the other fellow so well?" he said.

"I am sure he is a very good man----"

"That's enough; you need not say another word. We all can tell what a critic means when he speaks of some actor as a careful and painstaking performer. It's just the same when a woman says a man is very good. Then you pronounce for Heron?"

"I pronounce for Mr. Heron decidedly, if you call saying what I should like to happen pronouncing for any one."

"In this case it is of more effect than many other pronunciamentos. You have elected Heron, Miss Grey, if I am not much more out in my calculations than I have been this some time. All right, I am satisfied. If you have money to throw away, just back what's-his-name?--Sheppard--heavily, and you are sure to get rid of it."

"And you won't tell me what all this means?"

"Not I indeed: not likely. Good day, Miss Grey. You have elected your friend Heron, I can tell you. Odd, isn't it, that he should come to be elected after all by me?"

He bade her good day again, and strode and shambled out of the room and down stairs, leaving Minola much perplexed, and not quite pleased, and yet full of a secret wonder and pride at the possibility of her having helped to do Mr. Heron a service.

"I wonder what he would say if he knew of it?" she asked herself, and she could hardly think that he would be greatly delighted with the promise of such influence.