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Demos

by George Gissing · English · Gutenberg #4309 · 1,102,060 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Demos

Author: George Gissing


        
Release date: August 1, 2003 [eBook #4309]
                Most recently updated: June 2, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4309

Credits: Charles Aldarondo and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEMOS ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo





DEMOS

By George Gissing


     [Editor’s Note: There are two chapters in this book with the
     same number: XXVI.; on looking up other print copies, I find
     the same numbering error also present.]





CHAPTER I



Stanbury Hill, remote but two hours’ walk from a region blasted with
mine and factory and furnace, shelters with its western slope a fair
green valley, a land of meadows and orchard, untouched by poisonous
breath. At its foot lies the village of Wanley. The opposite side of the
hollow is clad with native wood, skirting for more than a mile the bank
of a shallow stream, a tributary of the Severn. Wanley consists in the
main of one long street; the houses are stone-built, with mullioned
windows, here and there showing a picturesque gable or a quaint old
chimney. The oldest buildings are four cottages which stand at the end
of the street; once upon a time they formed the country residence of the
abbots of Belwick. The abbey of that name still claims for its ruined
self a portion of earth’s surface; but, as it had the misfortune to be
erected above the thickest coal-seam in England, its walls are blackened
with the fume of collieries and shaken by the strain of mighty engines.
Climb Stanbury Hill at nightfall, and, looking eastward, you behold far
off a dusky ruddiness in the sky, like the last of an angry sunset; with
a glass you can catch glimpses of little tongues of flame, leaping and
quivering on the horizon. That is Belwick. The good abbots, who were
wont to come out in the summer time to Wanley, would be at a loss to
recognise their consecrated home in those sooty relics. Belwick, with
its hundred and fifty fire-vomiting blast-furnaces, would to their eyes
more nearly resemble a certain igneous realm of which they thought much
in their sojourn upon earth, and which, we may assure ourselves, they
dream not of in the quietness of their last long sleep.

A large house, which stands aloof from the village and a little above
it, is Wanley Manor. The county history tells us that Wanley was given
in the fifteenth century to that same religious foundation, and that at
the dissolution of monasteries the Manor passed into the hands of Queen
Catherine. The house is half-timbered; from the height above it looks
old and peaceful amid its immemorial trees. Towards the end of the
eighteenth century it became the home of a family named Eldon, the
estate including the greater part of the valley below. But an Eldon who
came into possession when William IV. was King brought the fortunes
of his house to a low ebb, and his son, seeking to improve matters by
abandoning his prejudices and entering upon commercial speculation, in
the end left a widow and two boys with little more to live upon than the
income which arose from Mrs. Eldon’s settlements. The Manor was shortly
after this purchased by a Mr. Mutimer, a Belwick ironmaster; but Mrs.
Eldon and her boys still inhabited the house, in consequence of certain
events which will shortly be narrated. Wanley would have mourned their
departure; they were the aristocracy of the neighbourhood, and to have
them ousted by a name which no one knew, a name connected only with
blast-furnaces, would have made a distinct fall in the tone of Wanley
society. Fortunately no changes were made in the structure by its new
owner. Not far from it you see the church and the vicarage, these also
unmolested in their quiet age. Wanley, it is to be feared, lags far
behind the times--painfully so, when one knows for a certainty that
the valley upon which it looks conceals treasures of coal, of
ironstone--blackband, to be technical--and of fireclay. Some ten years
ago it seemed as if better things were in store; there was a chance
that the vale might for ever cast off its foolish greenery, and begin
vomiting smoke and flames in humble imitation of its metropolis beyond
the hills. There are men in Belwick who have an angry feeling whenever
Wanley is mentioned to them.

After the inhabitants of the Manor, the most respected of those who
dwelt in Wanley were the Walthams. At the time of which I speak, this
family consisted of a middle-aged lady; her son, of one-and-twenty; and
her daughter, just eighteen. They had resided here for little more than
two years, but a gentility which marked their speech and demeanour, and
the fact that they were well acquainted with the Eldons, from the first
caused them to be looked up to. It was conjectured, and soon confirmed
by Mrs. Waltham’s own admissions, that they had known a larger way of
living than that to which they adapted themselves in the little house on
the side of Stanbury Hill, whence they looked over the village street.
Mr. Waltham had, in fact, been a junior partner in a Belwick firm,
which came to grief. He saved enough out of the wreck to: make a modest
competency for his family, and would doubtless in time have retrieved
his fortune, but death was beforehand with him. His wife, in the second
year of her widowhood, came with her daughter Adela to Wanley; her
son Alfred had gone to commercial work in Belwick. Mrs. Waltham was a
prudent woman, and tenacious of ideas which recommended themselves to
her practical instincts; such an idea had much to do with her settlement
in the remote village, which she would not have chosen for her abode out
of love of its old-world quietness. But at the Manor was Hubert Eldon.
Hubert was four years older than Adela. He had no fortune of his own,
but it was tolerably certain that some day he would be enormously rich,
and there was small likelihood that he would marry till that expected
change in his position came about.

On the afternoon of a certain Good Friday, Mrs. Waltham sat at her open
window, enjoying the air and busy with many thoughts, among other things
wondering who was likely to drop in for a cup of tea. It was a late
Easter, and warm spring weather had already clothed the valley with
greenness; to-day the sun was almost hot, and the west wind brought
many a sweet odour from gardens near and far. From her sitting-room Mrs.
Waltham had the best view to be obtained from any house in Wanley; she
looked, as I have said, right over the village street, and on either
hand the valley spread before her a charming prospect. Opposite was the
wooded slope, freshening now with exquisite shades of new-born
leafage; looking north, she saw fruit-gardens, making tender harmonies;
southwards spread verdure and tillage. Yet something there was which
disturbed the otherwise perfect unity of the scene, an unaccustomed
trouble to the eye. In the very midst of the vale, perhaps a quarter
of a mile to the south of the village, one saw what looked like the
beginning of some engineering enterprise--a great throwing-up of earth,
and the commencement of a roadway on which metal rails were laid. What
was being done? The work seemed too extensive for a mere scheme of
drainage. Whatever the undertaking might be, it was now at a standstill,
seeing that old Mr. Mutimer, the owner of the land, had been in his
grave just three days, and no one as yet could say whether his heir
would or would not pursue this novel project. Mrs. Waltham herself felt
that the view was spoilt, though her appreciation of nature was not of
the keenest, and she would never have thought of objecting to a scheme
which would produce money at the cost of the merely beautiful.

‘I scarcely think Hubert will continue it,’ she was musing to
herself. ‘He has enough without that, and his tastes don’t lie in that
direction.’

She had on her lap a local paper, at which she glanced every now and
then; but her state of mind was evidently restless. The road on either
side of which stood the houses of the village led on to the Manor, and
in that direction Mrs. Waltham gazed frequently. The church clock chimed
half-past four, and shortly after a rosy-cheeked young girl came at
a quick step up the gravelled pathway which made the approach to the
Walthams’ cottage. She saw Mrs. Waltham at the window, and, when she was
near, spoke.

‘Is Adela at home?’

‘No, Letty; she’s gone for a walk with her brother.’

‘I’m so sorry!’ said the girl, whose voice was as sweet as her face was
pretty. ‘We wanted her to come for croquet. Yet I was half afraid to
come and ask her whilst Mr. Alfred was at home.’

She laughed, and at the same time blushed a little.

‘Why should you be afraid of Alfred?’ asked Mrs. Waltham graciously.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

She turned it off and spoke quickly of another subject.

‘How did you like Mr. Wyvern this morning?’

It was a new vicar, who had been in Wanley but a couple of days, and had
this morning officiated for the first time at the church.

‘What a voice he has!’ was the lady’s reply.

‘Hasn’t he? And such a hairy man! They say he’s very learned; but his
sermon was very simple--didn’t you think so?’

‘Yes, I liked it. Only he pronounces certain words strangely.’

‘Oh, has Mr. Eldon come yet?’ was the young lady’s next question.

‘He hadn’t arrived this morning. Isn’t it extraordinary? He must be out
of England.’

‘But surely Mrs. Eldon knows his address, and he can’t be so very far
away.’

As she spoke she looked down the pathway by which she had come, and of a
sudden her face exhibited alarm.

‘Oh, Mrs. Waltham!’ she whispered hurriedly. ‘If Mr. Wyvern isn’t coming
to see you! I’m afraid to meet him. Do let me pop in and hide till I can
get away without being seen.’

The front door stood ajar, and the girl at once ran into the house. Mrs.
Waltham came into the passage laughing.

‘May I go to the top of the stairs?’ asked the other nervously. ‘You
know how absurdly shy I am. No, I’ll run out into the garden behind;
then I can steal round as soon as he comes in.’

She escaped, and in a minute or two the new vicar presented himself at
the door. A little maid might well have some apprehension in facing him,
for Mr. Wyvern was of vast proportions and leonine in aspect. With the
exception of one ungloved hand and the scant proportions of his face
which were not hidden by hair, he was wholly black in hue; an enormous
beard, the colour of jet, concealed the linen about his throat, and a
veritable mane, dark as night, fell upon his shoulders. His features
were not ill-matched with this sable garniture; their expression was
a fixed severity; his eye regarded you with stern scrutiny, and passed
from the examination to a melancholy reflectiveness. Yet his appearance
was suggestive of anything but ill-nature; contradictory though it may
seem, the face was a pleasant one, inviting to confidence, to respect;
if he could only have smiled, the tender humanity which lurked in the
lines of his countenance would have become evident. His age was probably
a little short of fifty.

A servant replied to his knock, and, after falling back in a momentary
alarm, introduced him to the sitting-room. He took Mrs. Waltham’s hand
silently, fixed upon her the full orbs of his dark eyes, and then,
whilst still retaining her fingers, looked thoughtfully about the room.
It was a pleasant little parlour, with many an evidence of refinement
in those who occupied it. Mr. Wyvern showed something like a look of
satisfaction. He seated himself, and the chair creaked ominously beneath
him. Then he again scrutinised Mrs. Waltham.

She was a lady of fair complexion, with a double chin. Her dress
suggested elegant tastes, and her hand was as smooth and delicate as
a lady’s should be. A long gold chain descended from her neck to the
watch-pocket at her waist, and her fingers exhibited several rings. She
bore the reverend gentleman’s scrutiny with modest grace, almost as if
it flattered her. And indeed there was nothing whatever of ill-breeding
in Mr. Wyvern’s mode of instituting acquaintance with his parishioner;
one felt that he was a man of pronounced originality, and that he might
be trusted in his variance from the wonted modes.

The view from the windows gave him a subject for his first remarks. Mrs.
Waltham had been in some fear of a question which would go to the roots
of her soul’s history; it would have been in keeping with his visage.
But, with native acuteness, she soon discovered that Mr. Wyvern’s gaze
had very little to do with the immediate subject of his thought, or,
what was much the same thing, that he seldom gave the whole of his
attention to the matter outwardly calling for it. He was a man of
profound mental absences; he could make replies, even put queries, and
all the while be brooding intensely upon a wholly different subject.
Mrs. Waltham did not altogether relish it; she was in the habit of
being heard with deference; but, to be sure, a clergyman only talked
of worldly things by way of concession. It certainly seemed so in this
clergyman’s case.

‘Your prospect,’ Mr. Wyvern remarked presently, ‘will not be improved by
the works below.’

His voice was very deep, and all his words were weighed in the
utterance. This deliberation at times led to peculiarities of emphasis
in single words. Probably he was a man of philological crotchets; he
said, for instance, ‘pro-spect.’

‘I scarcely think Mr. Eldon will go on with the mining,’ replied Mrs.
Waltham.

‘Ah! you think not?’

‘I am quite sure he said that unconsciously,’ the lady remarked to
herself. ‘He’s thinking of some quite different affair.’

‘Mr. Eldon,’ the clergyman resumed, fixing upon her an absent eye, ‘is
Mr. Mutimer’s son-in-law, I understand?’

‘His brother, Mr. Godfrey Eldon, was.’ Mrs. Waltham corrected.

‘Ah! the one that died?’

He said it questioningly; then added--

‘I have a difficulty in mastering details of this kind. You would do me
a great kindness in explaining to me briefly of whom the family at the
Manor at present consists?’

Mrs. Waltham was delighted to talk on such a subject.

‘Only of Mrs. Eldon and her son, Mr. Hubert Eldon. The elder son,
Godfrey, was lost in a shipwreck, on a voyage to New Zealand.’

‘He was a sailor?’

‘Oh, no!’ said the lady, with a smile. ‘He was in business at Belwick.
It was shortly after his marriage with Miss Mutimer that he took the
voyage--partly for his health, partly to examine some property his
father had had an interest in. Old Mr. Eldon engaged in speculations--I
believe it was flax-growing. The results, unfortunately, were
anything but satisfactory. It was that which led to his son entering
business--quite a new thing in their family. Wasn’t it very sad? Poor
Godfrey and his young wife both drowned! The marriage was, as you may
imagine, not altogether a welcome one to Mrs. Eldon; Mr. Mutimer was
quite a self-made man, quite. I understand he has relations in London of
the very poorest class--labouring people.’

‘They probably benefit by his will?’

‘I can’t say. In any case, to a very small extent. It has for a long
time been understood that Hubert Eldon inherits.’

‘Singular!’ murmured the clergyman, still in the same absent way.

‘Is it not? He took so to the young fellows; no doubt he was flattered
to be allied to them. And then he was passionately devoted to his
daughter; if only for her sake, he would have done his utmost for the
family.’

‘I understand that Mr. Mutimer purchased the Manor from them?’

‘That was before the marriage. Godfrey Eldon sold it; he had his
father’s taste for speculation, I fancy, and wanted capital. Then
Mr. Mutimer begged them to remain in the house. He certainly was a
wonderfully kind old--old gentleman; his behaviour to Mrs. Eldon was
always the perfection of courtesy. A stranger would find it difficult
to understand how she could get on so well with him, but their sorrows
brought them together, and Mr. Mutimer’s generosity was really noble.
If I had not known his origin, I should certainly have taken him for a
county gentleman.’

‘Yet he proposed to mine in the valley,’ observed Mr. Wyvern, half to
himself, casting a glance at the window.

Mrs. Waltham did not at first see the connection between this and
what she had been saying. Then it occurred to her that Mr. Wyvern was
aristocratic in his views.

‘To be sure,’ she said, ‘one expects to find a little of the
original--of the money-making spirit. Of course such a thing would never
have suggested itself to the Eldons. And in fact very little of the
lands remained to them. Mr. Mutimer bought a great deal from other
people.’

As Mr. Wyvern sat brooding, Mrs. Waltham asked--

‘You have seen Mrs. Eldon?’

‘Not yet. She is too unwell to receive visits.’

‘Yes, poor thing, she is a great invalid. I thought, perhaps, you--. But
I know she likes to be very quiet. What a strange thing about Mr.
Eldon, is it not? You know that he has never come yet; not even to the
funeral.’

‘Singular!’

‘An inexplicable thing! There has never been a shadow of disagreement
between them.’

‘Mr. Eldon is abroad, I believe?’ said the clergyman musingly.

‘Abroad? Oh dear, no! At least, I--. Is there news of his being abroad?’

Mr. Wyvern merely shook his head.

‘As far as we know,’ Mrs. Waltham continued, rather disturbed by the
suggestion, ‘he is at Oxford.’

‘A student?’

‘Yes. He is quite a youth--only two-and-twenty.’

There was a knock at the door, and a maid-servant entered to ask if
she should lay the table for tea. Mrs. Waltham assented; then, to her
visitor--

‘You will do us the pleasure of drinking a cup of tea, Mr. Wyvern? we
make a meal of it, in the country way. My boy and girl are sure to be in
directly.’

‘I should like to make their acquaintance,’ was the grave response.

‘Alfred, my son,’ the lady proceeded, ‘is with us for his Easter
holiday. Belwick is so short a distance away, and yet too far to allow
of his living here, unfortunately.’

‘His age?’

‘Just one-and-twenty.’

‘The same age as my own boy.’

‘Oh, you have a son?’

‘A youngster, studying music in Germany. I have just been spending a
fortnight with him.’

‘How delightful! If only poor Alfred could have pursued some more--more
liberal occupation! Unhappily, we had small choice. Friends were good
enough to offer him exceptional advantages not long after his father’s
death, and I was only too glad to accept the opening. I believe he is
a clever boy; only such a dreadful Radical.’ She laughed, with a
deprecatory motion of the hands. ‘Poor Adela and he are at daggers
drawn; no doubt it is some terrible argument that detains them now on
the road. I can’t think how he got his views; certainly his father never
inculcated them.’

‘The air, Mrs. Waltham, the air,’ murmured the clergyman.

The lady was not quite sure that she understood the remark, but the
necessity of reply was obviated by the entrance of the young man in
question. Alfred was somewhat undergrown, but of solid build. He walked
in a sturdy and rather aggressive way, and his plump face seemed to
indicate an intelligence, bright, indeed, but of the less refined order.
His head was held stiffly, and his whole bearing betrayed a desire to
make the most of his defective stature. His shake of the hand was an
abrupt downward jerk, like a pull at a bell-rope. In the smile with
which he met Mr. Wyvern a supercilious frame of mind was not altogether
concealed; he seemed anxious to have it understood that in _him_ the
clerical attire inspired nothing whatever of superstitious reverence.
Reverence, in truth, was not Mr. Waltham’s failing.

Mr. Wyvern, as his habit was at introductions, spoke no words, but held
the youth’s hand for a few moments and looked him in the eyes. Alfred
turned his head aside uneasily, and was a trifle ruddy in the cheeks
when at length he regained his liberty.

‘By-the-by,’ he remarked to his mother when he had seated himself, with
crossed legs, ‘Eldon has turned up at last. He passed us in a cab, or so
Adela said. I didn’t catch a glimpse of the individual.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed Mrs. Waltham. ‘He was coming from Agworth station?’

‘I suppose so. There was a trunk on the four-wheeler. Adela says he
looked ill, though I don’t see how she discovered so much.’

‘I have no doubt she is right. He must have been ill.’

Mr. Wyvern, in contrast with his habit, was paying marked attention;
he leaned forward, with a hand on each knee. In the meanwhile the
preparations for tea had progressed, and as Mrs. Waltham rose at the
sight of the teapot being brought in, her daughter entered the room.
Adela was taller by half a head than her brother; she was slim and
graceful. The air had made her face bloom, and the smile which was added
as she drew near to the vicar enhanced the charm of a countenance at all
times charming. She was not less than ladylike in self-possession,
but Mr. Wyvern’s towering sableness clearly awed her a little. For an
instant her eyes drooped, but at once she raised them and met the severe
gaze with unflinching orbs. Releasing her hand, Mr. Wyvern performed
a singular little ceremony: he laid his right palm very gently on her
nutbrown hair, and his lips moved. At the same time he all but smiled.

Alfred’s face was a delightful study the while; it said so clearly,
‘Confound the parson’s impudence!’ Mrs. Waltham, on the other hand,
looked pleased as she rustled to her place at the tea-tray.

‘So Mr. Eldon has come?’ she said, glancing at Adela. ‘Alfred says he
looks ill.’

‘Mother,’ interposed the young man, ‘pray be accurate. I distinctly
stated that I did not even see him, and should not have known that it
was he at all. Adela is responsible for that assertion.’

‘I just saw his face,’ the girl said naturally. ‘I thought he looked
ill.’

Mr. Wyvern addressed to her a question about her walk, and for a few
minutes they conversed together. There was a fresh simplicity in Adela’s
way of speaking which harmonised well with her appearance and with the
scene in which she moved. A gentle English girl, this dainty home, set
in so fair and peaceful a corner of the world, was just the abode one
would have chosen for her. Her beauty seemed a part of the burgeoning
spring-time, She was not lavish of her smiles; a timid seriousness
marked her manner to the clergyman, and she replied to his
deliberately-posed questions with a gravity respectful alike of herself
and of him.

In front of Mr. Wyvern stood a large cake, of which a portion was
already sliced. The vicar, at Adela’s invitation, accepted a piece of
the cake; having eaten this, he accepted another; then yet another.
His absence had come back upon him, and he talked he continued to
eat portions of the cake, till but a small fraction of the original
structure remained on the dish. Alfred, keenly observant of what was
going on, pursed his lips from time to time and looked at his mother
with exaggerated gravity, leading her eyes to the vanishing cake. Even
Adela could not but remark the reverend gentleman’s abnormal appetite,
but she steadily discouraged her brother’s attempts to draw her into the
joke. At length it came to pass that Mr. Wyvern himself, stretching his
hand mechanically to the dish, became aware that he had exhibited his
appreciation of the sweet food in a degree not altogether sanctioned by
usage. He fixed his eyes on the tablecloth, and was silent for a while.

As soon as the vicar had taken his departure Alfred threw himself into a
chair, thrust out his legs, and exploded in laughter.

‘By Jove!’ he shouted. ‘If that man doesn’t experience symptoms of
disorder! Why, I should be prostrate for a week if I consumed a quarter
of what he has put out of sight.’

‘Alfred, you are shockingly rude,’ reproved his mother, though herself
laughing. ‘Mr. Wyvern is absorbed in thought.’

‘Well, he has taken the best means, I should say, to remind himself
of actualities,’ rejoined the youth. ‘But what a man he is! How did he
behave in church this morning?’

‘You should have come to see,’ said Mrs. Waltham, mildly censuring her
son’s disregard of the means of grace.

‘I like Mr. Wyvern,’ observed Adela, who was standing at the window
looking out upon the dusking valley.

‘Oh, you would like any man in parsonical livery,’ scoffed her brother.

Alfred shortly betook himself to the garden, where, in spite of a
decided freshness in the atmosphere, he walked for half-an-hour smoking
a pipe. When he entered the house again, he met Adela at the foot of the
stairs.

‘Mrs. Mewling has just come in,’ she whispered.

‘All right, I’ll come up with you,’ was the reply. ‘Heaven defend me
from her small talk!’

They ascended to a very little room, which made a kind of boudoir
for Adela. Alfred struck a match and lit a lamp, disclosing a nest of
wonderful purity and neatness. On the table a drawing-board was slanted;
it showed a text of Scripture in process of ‘illumination.’

‘Still at that kind of thing!’ exclaimed Alfred. ‘My good child, if you
want to paint, why don’t you paint in earnest? Really, Adela, I must
enter a protest! Remember that you are eighteen years of age.’

‘I don’t forget it, Alfred.’

‘At eight-and-twenty, at eight-and-thirty, you propose still to be at
the same stage of development?’

‘I don’t think we’ll talk of it,’ said the girl quietly. ‘We don’t
understand each other.’

‘Of course not, but we might, if only you’d read sensible books that I
could give you.’

Adela shook her head. The philosophical youth sank into his favourite
attitude--legs extended, hands in pockets, nose in air.

‘So, I suppose,’ he said presently, ‘that fellow really has been ill?’

Adela was sitting in thought; she looked up with a shadow of annoyance
on her face.

‘That fellow?’

‘Eldon, you know.’

‘I want to ask you a question,’ said his sister, interlocking her
fingers and pressing them against her throat. ‘Why do you always speak
in a contemptuous way of Mr. Eldon?’

‘You know I don’t like the individual.’

‘What cause has “the individual” given you?’

‘He’s a snob.’

‘I’m not sure that I know what that means,’ replied Adela, after
thinking for a moment with downcast eyes.

‘Because you never read anything. He’s a fellow who raises a great
edifice of pretence on rotten foundations.’

‘What can you mean? Mr. Eldon is a gentleman. What pretence is he guilty
of?’

‘Gentleman!’ uttered her brother with much scorn. ‘Upon my word,
that _is_ the vulgarest of denominations! Who doesn’t call himself so
nowadays! A man’s a man, I take it, and what need is there to lengthen
the name? Thank the powers, we don’t live in feudal ages. Besides, he
doesn’t seem to me to be what you imply.’

Adela had taken a book; in turning over the pages, she said--

‘No doubt you mean, Alfred, that, for some reason, you are determined to
view him with prejudice.’

‘The reason is obvious enough. The fellow’s behaviour is detestable; he
looks at you from head to foot as if you were applying for a place in
his stable. Whenever I want an example of a contemptible aristocrat,
there’s Eldon ready-made. Contemptible, because he’s such a sham; as if
everybody didn’t know his history and his circumstances!’

‘Everybody doesn’t regard them as you do. There is nothing whatever
dishonourable in his position.’

‘Not in sponging on a rich old plebeian, a man he despises, and living
in idleness at his expense?’

‘I don’t believe Mr. Eldon does anything of the kind. Since his
brother’s death he has had a sufficient income of his own, so mother
says.’

‘Sufficient income of his own! Bah! Five or six hundred a year; likely
he lives on that! Besides, haven’t they soaped old Mutimer into leaving
them all his property? The whole affair is the best illustration one
could possibly have of what aristocrats are brought to in a democratic
age. First of all, Godfrey Eldon marries Mutimer’s daughter; you are at
liberty to believe, if you like, that he would have married her just the
same if she hadn’t had a penny. The old fellow is flattered. They see
the hold they have, and stick to him like leeches. All for want of
money, of course. Our aristocrats begin to see that they can’t get on
without money nowadays; they can’t live on family records, and they find
that people won’t toady to them in the old way just on account of their
name. Why, it began with Eldon’s father--didn’t he put his pride in his
pocket, and try to make cash by speculation? Now I can respect him: he
at all events faced the facts of the case honestly. The despicable thing
in this Hubert Eldon is that, having got money once more, and in the
dirtiest way, he puts on the top-sawyer just as if there was nothing to
be ashamed of. If he and his mother were living in a small way on their
few hundreds a year, he might haw-haw as much as he liked, and I should
only laugh at him; he’d be a fool, but an honest one. But catch them
doing that! Family pride’s too insubstantial a thing, you see. Well,
as I said, they illustrate the natural course of things, the transition
from the old age to the new. If Eldon has sons, they’ll go in for
commerce, and make themselves, if they can, millionaires; but by that
time they’ll dispense with airs and insolence--see if they don’t.’

Adela kept her eyes on the pages before her, but she was listening
intently. A sort of verisimilitude in the picture drawn by her
Radical-minded brother could not escape her; her thought was troubled.
When she spoke it was without resentment, but gravely.

‘I don’t like this spirit in judging of people. You know quite well,
Alfred, how easy it is to see the whole story in quite another way. You
begin by a harsh and worldly judgment, and it leads you to misrepresent
all that follows. I refuse to believe that Godfrey Eldon married Mrs.
Mutimer’s daughter for her money.’

Alfred laughed aloud.

‘Of course you do, sister Adela! Women won’t admit such things; that’s
_their_ aristocratic feeling!’

‘And that is, too, worthless and a sham? Will that, too, be done away
with in the new age?’

‘Oh, depend upon it! When women are educated, they will take the world
as it is, and decline to live on illusions.’

‘Then how glad I am to have been left without education!’

In the meantime a conversation of a very lively kind was in progress
between Mrs. Waltham and her visitor, Mrs. Mewling. The latter was a
lady whose position much resembled Mrs. Waltham’s: she inhabited a small
house in the village street, and spent most of her time in going about
to hear or to tell some new thing. She came in this evening with a look
presageful of news indeed.

‘I’ve been to Belwick to-day,’ she began, sitting very close to Mrs.
Waltham, whose lap she kept touching as she spoke with excited fluency.
‘I’ve seen Mrs. Yottle. My dear, what do you think she has told me?’

Mrs. Yottle was the wife of a legal gentleman who had been in Mr.
Mutimer’s confidence. Mrs. Waltham at once divined intelligence
affecting the Eldons.

‘What?’ she asked eagerly.

‘You’d never dream such a thing! what _will_ come to pass! An
unthought-of possibility!’ She went on _crescendo_. ‘My dear Mrs.
Waltham, Mr. Mutimer has left no will!’

It was as if an electric shock had passed from the tips of her fingers
into her hearer’s frame. Mrs. Waltham paled.

‘That cannot be true!’ she whispered, incapable of utterance above
breath.

‘Oh, but there’s not a doubt of it!’ Knowing that the news would be
particularly unpalatable to Mrs. Waltham, she proceeded to dwell upon it
with dancing eyes. ‘Search has been going on since the day of the death:
not a corner that hasn’t been rummaged, not a drawer that hasn’t been
turned out, not a book in the library that hasn’t been shaken, not a
wall that hasn’t been examined for secret doors! Mr. Mutimer has died
intestate!’

The other lady was mute.

‘And shall I tell you how it came about? Two days before his death, he
had his will from Mr. Yottle, saying he wanted to make change--probably
to execute a new will altogether. My dear, he destroyed it, and death
surprised him before he could make another.’

‘He wished to make changes?’

‘Ah!’ Mrs. Mewling drew out the exclamation, shaking her raised finger,
pursing her lips. ‘And of that, too, I can tell you the reason. Mr.
Mutimer was anything but pleased with young Eldon. That young man,
let me tell you, has been conducting himself--oh, shockingly! Now you
wouldn’t dream of repeating this?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘It seems that news came not so very long ago of a certain actress,
singer,--something of the kind, you understand? Friends thought it their
duty--rightly, of course,--to inform Mr. Mutimer. I can’t say exactly
who did it; but we know that Hubert Eldon is not regarded affectionately
by a good many people. My dear, he has been out of England for more than
a month, living--oh, such extravagance! And the moral question, too? You
know--those women! Someone, they say, of European reputation; of course
no names are breathed. For my part, I can’t say I am surprised. Young
men, you know; and particularly young men of that kind! Well, it has
cost him a pretty penny; he’ll remember it as long as he lives.

‘Then the property will go--’

‘Yes, to the working people in London; the roughest of the rough, they
say! What _will_ happen? It will be impossible for us to live here
if they come and settle at the Manor. The neighbourhood will be
intolerable. Think of the rag-tag-and-bobtail they will bring with
them!’

‘But Hubert!’ ejaculated Mrs. Waltham, whom this vision of barbaric
onset affected little in the crashing together of a great airy castle.

‘Well, my dear, after all he still has more to depend upon than many we
could instance. Probably he will take to the law,--that is, if he ever
returns to England.’

‘He is at the Manor,’ said Mrs. Waltham, with none of the pleasure it
would ordinarily have given her to be first with an item of news. ‘He
came this afternoon.’

‘He did! Who has seen him?’

‘Alfred and Adela passed him on the road. He was in a cab.’

‘I feel for his poor mother. What a meeting it will be! But then we must
remember that they had no actual claim on the inheritance. Of course it
will be a most grievous disappointment, but what is life made of? I’m
afraid some people will be anything but grieved. We must confess that
Hubert has not been exactly popular; and I rather wonder at it; I’m
sure he might have been if he had liked. Just a little too--too
self-conscious, don’t you think? Of course it was quite a mistake, but
people had an idea that he presumed on wealth which was not his own.
Well, well, we quiet folk look on, don’t we? It’s rather like a play.’

Presently Mrs. Mewling leaned forward yet more confidentially.

‘My dear, you won’t be offended? You don’t mind a question? There wasn’t
anything definite?--Adela, I mean.’

‘Nothing, nothing whatever!’ Mrs. Waltham asserted with vigour.

‘Ha!’ Mrs. Mewling sighed deeply. ‘How relieved I am! I did so fear!’

‘Nothing whatever,’ the other lady repeated.

‘Thank goodness! Then there is no need to breathe a word of those
shocking matters. But they do get abroad so!’

A reflection Mrs. Mewling was justified in making.



CHAPTER II



The cab which had passed Adela and her brother at a short distance from
Wanley brought faces to the windows or door of almost every house as it
rolled through the village street. The direction in which it was going,
the trunk on the roof, the certainty that it had come from Agworth
station, suggested to everyone that young Eldon sat within. The occupant
had, however, put up both windows just before entering the village, and
sight of him was not obtained. Wanley had abundant matter for gossip
that evening. Hubert’s return, giving a keener edge to the mystery of
his so long delay, would alone have sufficed to wagging tongues; hut,
in addition, Mrs. Mewling was on the warpath, and the intelligence she
spread was of a kind to run like wildfire.

The approach to the Manor was a carriage-road, obliquely ascending the
bill from a point some quarter of a mile beyond the cottages which once
housed Belwick’s abbots. Of the house scarcely a glimpse could be caught
till you were well within the gates, so thickly was it embosomed in
trees. This afternoon it wore a cheerless face; most of the blinds were
still down, and the dwelling might have been unoccupied, for any sign of
human activity that the eye could catch. There was no porch at the main
entrance, and the heavy nail-studded door greeted a visitor somewhat
sombrely. On the front of a gable stood the words ‘Nisi Dominus.’

The vehicle drew up, and there descended a young man of pale
countenance, his attire indicating long and hasty travel. He pulled
vigorously at the end of a hanging bell-chain, and the door was
immediately opened by a man-servant in black. Hubert, for he it was,
pointed to his trunk, and, whilst it was being carried into the house,
took some loose coin from his pocket. He handed the driver a sovereign.

‘I have no change, sir,’ said the man, after examining the coin. But
Hubert had already turned away; he merely waved his hand, and entered
the house. For a drive of two miles, the cabman held himself tolerably
paid.

The hall was dusky, and seemed in need of fresh air. Hubert threw off
his hat, gloves, and overcoat; then for the first time spoke to the
servant, who stood in an attitude of expectancy.

‘Mrs. Eldon is at home?’

‘At home, sir, but very unwell. She desires me to say that she fears she
may not be able to see you this evening.’

‘Is there a fire anywhere?’

‘Only in the library, sir.’

‘I will dine there. And let a fire be lit in my bedroom.’

‘Yes, sir. Will you dine at once, sir?’

‘In an hour. Something light; I don’t care what it is.’

‘Shall the fire be lit in your bedroom at once, sir?’

‘At once, and a hot bath prepared. Come to the library and tell me when
it is ready.’

The servant silently departed. Hubert walked across the hall, giving a
glance here and there, and entered the library. Nothing had been
altered here since his father’s, nay, since his grandfather’s time.
That grandfather--his name Hubert--had combined strong intellectual
tendencies with the extravagant tastes which gave his already tottering
house the decisive push. The large collection of superbly-bound books
which this room contained were nearly all of his purchasing, for prior
to his time the Eldons had not been wont to concern themselves with
things of the mind. Hubert, after walking to the window and looking
out for a moment on the side lawn, pushed a small couch near to the
fireplace, and threw himself down at full length, his hands beneath his
head. In a moment his position seemed to have become uneasy; he turned
upon his side, uttering an exclamation as if of pain. A minute or two
and again he moved, this time with more evident impatience. The next
thing he did was to rise, step to the bell, and ring it violently.

The same servant appeared.

‘Isn’t the bath ready?’ Hubert asked. His former mode of speaking had
been brief and decided; he was now almost imperious.

‘I believe it will be in a moment, sir,’ was the reply, marked, perhaps,
by just a little failure in the complete subservience expected.

Hubert looked at the man for an instant with contracted brows, but
merely said--‘Tell them to be quick.’

The man returned in less than three minutes with a satisfactory
announcement, and Eldon went upstairs to refresh himself.

Two hours later he had dined, with obvious lack of appetite, and was
deriving but slight satisfaction from a cigar, when the servant entered
with a message from Mrs. Eldon: she desired to see her son.

Hubert threw his cigar aside, and made a gesture expressing his wish to
be led to his mother’s room. The man conducted him to the landing at the
head of the first flight of stairs; there a female servant was waiting,
who, after a respectful movement, led the way to a door at a few yards’
distance. She opened it and drew back. Hubert passed into the room.

It was furnished in a very old-fashioned style--heavily, richly, and
with ornaments seemingly procured rather as evidences of wealth than of
taste; successive Mrs. Eldons had used it as a boudoir. The present lady
of that name sat in a great chair near the fire. Though not yet fifty,
she looked at least ten years older; her hair had streaks of white, and
her thin delicate features were much lined and wasted. It would not be
enough to say that she had evidently once been beautiful, for in truth
she was so still, with a spiritual beauty of a very rare type. Just now
her face was set in a sternness which did not seem an expression natural
to it; the fine lips were much more akin to smiling sweetness, and the
brows accepted with repugnance anything but the stamp of thoughtful
charity.

After the first glance at Hubert she dropped her eyes. He, stepping
quickly across the floor, put his lips to her cheek; she did not move
her head, nor raise her hand to take his.

‘Will you sit there, Hubert?’ she said, pointing to a chair which
was placed opposite hers. The resemblance between her present mode of
indicating a wish and her son’s way of speaking to the servant below was
very striking; even the quality of their voices had much in common, for
Hubert’s was rather high-pitched. In face, however, the young man did
not strongly evidence their relation to each other: he was not handsome,
and had straight low brows, which made his aspect at first forbidding.

‘Why have you not come to me before this?’ Mrs. Eldon asked when her son
had seated himself, with his eyes turned upon the fire.

‘I was unable to, mother. I have been ill.’

She cast a glance at him. There was no doubting the truth of what he
said; at this moment he looked feeble and pain-worn.

‘Where did your illness come upon you?’ she asked, her tone unsoftened.

‘In Germany. I started only a few hours after receiving the letter in
which you told me of the death.’

‘My other letters you paid no heed to?’

‘I could not reply to them.’

He spoke after hesitation, but firmly, as one does who has something to
brave out.

‘It would have been better for you if you had been able, Hubert. Your
refusal has best you dear.’

He looked up inquiringly.

‘Mr. Mutimer,’ his mother continued, a tremor in her voice, ‘destroyed
his will a day or two before he died.’

Hubert said nothing. His fingers, looked together before him, twitched a
little; his face gave no sign.

‘Had you come to me at once,’ Mrs. Eldon pursued, ‘had you listened
to my entreaties, to my commands’--her voice rang right queenly--‘this
would not have happened. Mr. Mutimer behaved as generously as he always
has. As soon as there came to him certain news of you, he told me
everything. I refused to believe what people were saying, and he too
wished to do so. He would not write to you himself; there was one all
sufficient test, he held, and that was a summons from your mother. It
was a test of your honour, Hubert--and you failed under it.’

He made no answer.

‘You received my letters?’ she went on to ask. ‘I heard you had gone
from England, and could only hope your letters would be forwarded. Did
you get them?’

‘With the delay of only a day or two.’

‘And deliberately you put me aside?’

‘I did.’

She looked at him now for several moments. Her eyes grew moist. Then she
resumed, in a lower voice--

‘I said nothing of what was at stake, though I knew. Mr. Mutimer was
perfectly open with me. “I have trusted him implicitly,” he said,
“because I believe him as staunch and true as his brother. I make no
allowances for what are called young man’s follies: he must be above
anything of that kind. If he is not--well, I have been mistaken in
him, and I can’t deal with him as I wish to do.” You know what he was,
Hubert, and you can imagine him speaking those words. We waited. The bad
news was confirmed, and from you there came nothing. I would not hint at
the loss you were incurring; of my own purpose I should have refrained
from doing so, and Mr. Mutimer forbade me to appeal to anything but your
better self. If you would not come to me because I wished it, I could
not involve you and myself in shame by seeing you yield to sordid
motives.’

Hubert raised his head. A choking voice kept him silent for a moment
only.

‘Mother, the loss is nothing to you; you are above regrets of that kind;
and for myself, I am almost glad to have lost it.’

‘In very truth,’ answered the mother, ‘I care little about the wealth
you might have possessed. What I do care for is the loss of all the
hopes I had built upon you. I thought you honour itself; I thought you
high-minded. Young as you are, I let you go from me without a fear.
Hubert, I would have staked my life that no shadow of disgrace would
ever fall upon your head! You have taken from me the last comfort of my
age.’

He uttered words she could not catch.

‘The purity of your soul was precious to me,’ she continued, her accents
struggling against weakness; ‘I thought I had seen in you a love of that
chastity without which a man is nothing; and I ever did my best to keep
your eyes upon a noble ideal of womanhood. You have fallen. The simpler
duty, the point of every-day honour, I could not suppose that you would
fail in. From the day when you came of age, when Mr. Mutimer spoke to
you, saying that in every respect you would be as his son, and you, for
your part, accepted what he offered, you owed it to him to respect the
lightest of his reasonable wishes. The wish which was supreme in him
you have utterly disregarded. Is it that you failed to understand him? I
have thought of late of a way you had now and then when you spoke to
me about him; it has occurred to me that perhaps you did him less than
justice. Regard his position and mine, and tell me whether you think he
could have become so much to us if he had not been a gentleman in the
highest sense of the word. When Godfrey first of all brought me that
proposal from him that we should still remain in this house, it seemed
to me the most impossible thing. You know what it was that induced me to
assent, and what led to his becoming so intimate with us. Since then it
has been hard for me to remember that he was not one of our family. His
weak points it was not difficult to discover; but I fear you did
not understand what was noblest in his character. Uprightness,
clean-heartedness, good faith--these things he prized before everything.
In you, in one of your birth, he looked to find them in perfection.
Hubert, I stood shamed before him.’

The young man breathed hard, as if in physical pain. His eyes were fixed
in a wide absent gaze. Mrs. Eldon had lost all the severity of her face;
the profound sorrow of a pure and noble nature was alone to be read
there now.

‘What,’ she continued--‘what is this class distinction upon which we
pride ourselves? What does it mean, if not that our opportunities lead
us to see truths to which the eyes of the poor and ignorant are blind?
Is there nothing in it, after all--in our pride of birth and station?
That is what people are saying nowadays: you yourself have jested to me
about our privileges. You almost make me dread that you were right. Look
back at that man, whom I came to honour as my own father. He began
life as a toiler with his hands. Only a fortnight ago he was telling
me stories of his boyhood, of seventy years since. He was without
education; his ideas of truth and goodness he had to find within his own
heart. Could anything exceed the noble simplicity of his respect for me,
for you boys? We were poor, but it seemed to him that we had from nature
what no money could buy. He was wrong; his faith misled him. No, not
wrong with regard to all of us; my boy Godfrey was indeed all that he
believed. But think of himself; what advantage have we over him? I know
no longer what to believe. Oh, Hubert!’

He left his chair and walked to a more distant part of the room, where
he was beyond the range of lamp and firelight. Standing here, he pressed
his hand against his side, still breathing hard, and with difficulty
suppressing a groan.

He came a step or two nearer.

‘Mother,’ he said, hurriedly, ‘I am still far from well. Let me leave
you: speak to me again to-morrow.’

Mrs. Eldon made an effort to rise, looking anxiously into the gloom
where he stood. She was all but standing upright--a thing she had not
done for a long time--when Hubert sprang towards her, seizing her hands,
then supporting her in his arms. Her self-command gave way at length,
and she wept.

Hubert placed her gently in the chair and knelt beside her. He could
find no words, but once or twice raised his face and kissed her.

‘What caused your illness?’ she asked, speaking as one wearied with
suffering. She lay back, and her eyes were closed.

‘I cannot say,’ he answered. ‘Do not speak of me. In your last letter
there was no account of how he died.’

‘It was in church, at the morning service. The pew-opener found him
sitting there dead, when all had gone away.’

‘But the vicar could see into the pew from the pulpit? The death must
have been very peaceful.’

‘No, he could not see; the front curtains were drawn.’

‘Why was that, I wonder?’

Mrs. Eldon shook her head.

‘Are you in pain?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Why do you breathe so
strangely?’

‘A little pain. Oh, nothing; I will see Manns to-morrow.’

His mother gazed long and steadily into his eyes, and this time he bore
her look.

‘Mother, you have not kissed me,’ he whispered.

‘And cannot, dear. There is too much between us.’

His head fell upon her lap.

‘Hubert!’

He pressed her hand.

‘How shall I live when you have gone from me again? When you say
good-bye, it will be as if I parted from you for ever.’

Hubert was silent.

‘Unless,’ she continued--‘unless I have your promise that you will no
longer dishonour yourself.’

He rose from her side and stood in front of the fire; his mother looked
and saw that he trembled.

‘No promise, Hubert,’ she said, ‘that you cannot keep. Rather than that,
we will accept our fate, and be nothing to each other.’

‘You know very well, mother, that that is impossible. I cannot speak to
you of what drove me to disregard your letters. I love and honour you,
and shall have to change my nature before I cease to do so.’

‘To me, Hubert, you seem already to have changed. I scarcely know you.’

‘I can’t defend myself to you,’ he said sadly. ‘We think so differently
on subjects which allow of no compromise, that, even if I could speak
openly, you would only condemn me the more.’

His mother turned upon him a grief-stricken and wondering face.

‘Since when have we differed so?’ she asked. ‘What has made us strangers
to each other’s thoughts? Surely, surely you are at one with me in
condemning all that has led to this? If your character has been too weak
to resist temptation, you cannot have learnt to make evil your good?’

He kept silence.

‘You refuse me that last hope?’

Hubert moved impatiently.

‘Mother, I can’t see beyond to-day! I know nothing of what is before me.
It is the idlest trifling with words to say one will do this or that,
when action in no way depends on one’s own calmer thought. In this
moment I could promise anything you ask; if I had my choice, I would be
a child again and have no desire but to do your will, to be worthy in
your eyes. I hate my life and the years that have parted me from you.
Let us talk no more of it.’

Neither spoke again for some moments; then Hubert asked coldly--

‘What has been done?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Mrs. Eldon, in the same tone. ‘Mr. Yottle has waited
for your return before communicating with the relatives in London.’

‘I will go to Belwick in the morning,’ he said. Then, after reflection,
‘Mr. Mutimer told you that he had destroyed his will?’

‘No. He had it from Mr. Yottle two days before his death, and on the day
after--the Monday--Mr. Yottle was to have come to receive instructions
for a new one. It is nowhere to be found: of course it was destroyed.’

‘I suppose there is no doubt of that?’ Hubert asked, with a show of
indifference.

‘There can be none. Mr. Yottle tells me that a will which existed.
before Godfrey’s marriage was destroyed in the same way.’

‘Who is the heir?’

‘A great-nephew bearing the same name. The will contained provision for
him and certain of his family. Wanley is his; the personal property will
be divided among several.’

‘The people have not come forward?’

‘We presume they do not even know of Mr. Mutimer’s death. There has been
no direct communication between him and them for many years.’

Hubert’s next question was, ‘What shall you do, mother?’

‘Does it interest you, Hubert? I am too feeble to move very far. I must
find a home either here in the village or at Agworth.’

He looked at her with compassion, with remorse.

‘And you, my boy?’ asked his mother, raising her eyes gently.

‘I? Oh, the selfish never come to harm, be sure! Only the gentle and
helpless have to suffer; that is the plan of the world’s ruling.’

‘The world is not ruled by one who thinks our thoughts, Hubert.’

He had it on his lips to make a rejoinder, but checked the impulse.

‘Say good-night to me,’ his mother continued. ‘You must go and rest. If
you still feel unwell in the morning, a messenger shall go to Belwick.
You are very, very pale.’

Hubert held his hand to her and bent his head. Mrs. Eldon offered her
cheek; he kissed it and went from the room.

At seven o’clock on the following morning a bell summoned a servant to
Hubert’s bedroom. Though it was daylight, a lamp burned near the bed;
Hubert lay against pillows heaped high.

‘Let someone go at once for Dr. Manns,’ he said, appearing to speak with
difficulty. ‘I wish to see him as soon as possible. Mrs. Eldon is to
know nothing of his visit--you understand me!’

The servant withdrew. In rather less than an hour the doctor made his
appearance, with every sign of having been interrupted in his repose. He
was a spare man, full bearded and spectacled.

‘Something wrong?’ was his greeting as he looked keenly at his summoner.
‘I didn’t know you were here.’

‘Yes,’ Hubert replied, ‘something is confoundedly wrong. I have been
playing strange tricks in the night, I fancy.’

‘Fever?’

‘As a consequence of something else. I shall have to tell you what must
be repeated to no one, as of course you will see. Let me see, when
was it?--Saturday to-day? Ten days ago, I had a pistol-bullet just
here,’--he touched his right side. ‘It was extracted, and I seemed to be
not much the worse. I have just come from Germany.’

Dr. Manns screwed his face into an expression of sceptical amazement.

‘At present,’ Hubert continued, trying to laugh, ‘I feel considerably
the worse. I don’t think I could move if I tried. In a few minutes, ten
to one, I shall begin talking foolery. You must keep people away; get
what help is needed. I may depend upon you?’

The doctor nodded, and, whistling low, began an examination.



CHAPTER III



On the dun borderland of Islington and Hoxton, in a corner made by
the intersection of the New North Road and the Regent’s Canal, is
discoverable an irregular triangle of small dwelling-houses, bearing the
name of Wilton Square. In the midst stands an amorphous structure, which
on examination proves to be a very ugly house and a still uglier Baptist
chapel built back to back. The pair are enclosed within iron railings,
and, more strangely, a circle of trees, which in due season do veritably
put forth green leaves. One side of the square shows a second place of
worship, the resort, as an inscription declares, of ‘Welsh Calvinistic
Methodists.’ The houses are of one storey, with kitchen windows looking
upon small areas; the front door is reached by an ascent of five steps.

The canal--_maladetta e sventurata fossa_--stagnating in utter foulness
between coal-wharfs and builders’ yards, at this point divides two
neighbourhoods of different aspects. On the south is Hoxton, a region of
malodorous market streets, of factories, timber yards, grimy warehouses,
of alleys swarming with small trades and crafts, of filthy courts and
passages leading into pestilential gloom; everywhere toil in its most
degrading forms; the thoroughfares thundering with high-laden waggons,
the pavements trodden by working folk of the coarsest type, the
corners and lurking-holes showing destitution at its ugliest. Walking
northwards, the explorer finds himself in freer air, amid broader ways,
in a district of dwelling-houses only; the roads seem abandoned to
milkmen, cat’s-meat vendors, and costermongers. Here will be found
streets in which every window has its card advertising lodgings: others
claim a higher respectability, the houses retreating behind patches of
garden-ground, and occasionally showing plastered pillars and a balcony.
The change is from undisguised struggle for subsistence to mean and
spirit-broken leisure; hither retreat the better-paid of the great
slave-army when they are free to eat and sleep. To walk about a
neighbourhood such as this is the dreariest exercise to which man can
betake himself; the heart is crushed by uniformity of decent squalor;
one remembers that each of these dead-faced houses, often each separate
blind window, represents a ‘home,’ and the associations of the word
whisper blank despair.

Wilton Square is on the north side of the foss, on the edge of the
quieter district, and in one of its houses dwelt at the time of which
I write the family on whose behalf Fate was at work in a valley of
mid-England. Joseph Mutimer, nephew to the old man who had just died at
Wanley Manor, had himself been at rest for some five years; his widow
and three children still lived together in the home they had long
occupied. Joseph came of a family of mechanics; his existence was
that of the harmless necessary artisan. He earned a living by dint of
incessant labour, brought up his family in an orderly way, and departed
with a certain sense of satisfaction at having fulfilled obvious
duties--the only result of life for which he could reasonably look. With
his children we shall have to make closer acquaintance; but before doing
so, in order to understand their position and follow with intelligence
their several stories, it will be necessary to enter a little upon the
subject of ancestry.

Joseph Mutimer’s father, Henry by name, was a somewhat remarkable
personage. He grew to manhood in the first decade of our century, and
wrought as a craftsman in a Midland town. He had a brother, Richard,
some ten years his junior, and the two were of such different types of
character, each so pronounced in his kind, that, after vain attempts
to get along together, they parted for good, heedless of each other
henceforth, pursuing their sundered destinies. Henry was by nature a
political enthusiast, of insufficient ballast, careless of the main
chance, of hot and ready tongue; the Chartist movement gave him
opportunities of action which he used to the utmost, and he became a
member of the so-called National Convention, established in Birmingham
in 1839. Already he had achieved prominence by being imprisoned as
the leader of a torch-light procession, and this taste of martyrdom
naturally sharpened his zeal. He had married young, but only visited
his family from time to time. His wife for the most part earned her own
living, and ultimately betook herself to London with her son Joseph, the
single survivor of seven children. Henry pursued his career of popular
agitation, supporting himself in miscellaneous ways, writing his wife an
affectionate letter once in six months, and making himself widely known
as an uncompromising Radical of formidable powers. Newspapers of that
time mention his name frequently; he was always in hot water, and once
or twice narrowly escaped transportation. In 1842 he took active part in
the riots of the Midland Counties, and at length was unfortunate enough
to get his head broken. He died in hospital before any relative could
reach him.

Richard Mutimer regarded with detestation the principles to which Henry
had sacrificed his life. From childhood he was staid, earnest, and
iron-willed; to whatsoever he put his hand, he did it thoroughly, and it
was his pride to receive aid from no man. Intensely practical, he early
discerned the truth that a man’s first object must be to secure himself
a competency, seeing that to one who lacks money the world is but
a great debtors’ prison. To make money, therefore, was his aim, and
anything that interfered with the interests of commerce and industry
from the capitalist’s point of view he deemed unmitigated evil. When
his brother Henry was leading processions and preaching the People’s
Charter, Richard enrolled himself as a special constable, cursing the
tumults which drew him from business, but determined, if he got the
opportunity, to strike a good hard blow in defence of law and order.
Already he was well on the way to possess a solid stake in the country,
and the native conservatism of his temperament grew stronger as
circumstances bent themselves to his will; a proletarian conquering
wealth and influence naturally prizes these things in proportion to the
effort their acquisition has cost him. When he heard of his brother’s
death, he could in conscience say nothing more than ‘Serve him right!’
For all that, he paid the funeral expenses of the Chartist--angrily
declining an offer from Henry’s co-zealots, who would have buried the
martyr at their common charges--and proceeded to inquire after the widow
and son. Joseph Mutimer, already one- or two-and-twenty, was in no need
of help; he and his mother, naturally prejudiced against the thriving
uncle, declared themselves satisfied with their lot, and desired no
further connection with a relative who was practically a stranger to
them.

So Richard went on his way and heaped up riches. When already
middle-aged he took to himself a wife, his choice being marked with
characteristic prudence. The woman he wedded was turned thirty, had no
money, and few personal charms, but was a lady. Richard was fully able
to appreciate education and refinement; to judge from the course of
his later life, one would have said that he had sought money only as a
means, the end he really aimed at being the satisfaction of instincts
which could only have full play in a higher social sphere. No doubt the
truth was that success sweetened his character, and developed, as is
so often the case, those possibilities of his better nature which a
fruitless struggle would have kept in the germ or altogether crushed.
His excellent wife influenced him profoundly; at her death the work
was continued by the daughter she left him. The defects of his early
education could not of course be repaired, but it is never too late
for a man to go to school to the virtues which civilise. Remaining the
sturdiest of Conservatives, he bowed in sincere humility to those very
claims which the Radical most angrily disallows: birth, hereditary
station, recognised gentility--these things made the strongest demand
upon his reverence. Such an attitude was a testimony to his own capacity
for culture, since he knew not the meaning of vulgar adulation, and did
in truth perceive the beauty of those qualities to which the uneducated
Iconoclast is wholly blind. It was a joyous day for him when he saw his
daughter the wife of Godfrey Eldon. The loss which so soon followed was
correspondingly hard to bear, and but for Mrs. Eldon’s gentle sympathy
he would scarcely have survived the blow. We know already how his
character had impressed that lady; such respect was not lightly to be
won, and he came to regard it as the most precious thing that life had
left him.

But the man was not perfect, and his latest practical undertaking
curiously enough illustrated the failing which he seemed most completely
to have outgrown. It was of course a deplorable error to think of mining
in the beautiful valley which had once been the Eldons’ estate. Richard
Mutimer could not perceive that. He was a very old man, and possibly the
instincts of his youth revived as his mind grew feebler; he imagined it
the greatest kindness to Mrs. Eldon and her son to increase as much as
possible the value of the property he would leave at his death. They,
of course, could not even hint to him the pain with which they viewed so
barbarous a scheme; he did not as much as suspect a possible objection.
Intensely happy in his discovery and the activity to which it led, he
would have gone to his grave rich in all manner of content but for that
fatal news which reached him from London, where Hubert Eldon was sup
posed to be engaged in sober study in an interval of University work.
Doubtless it was this disappointment that caused his sudden death, and
so brought about a state of things which could he have foreseen it,
would have occasioned him the bitterest grief.

He had never lost sight of his relatives in London, and had made for
them such modest provision as suited his view of the fitness of things.
To leave wealth to young men of the working class would have seemed to
him the most inexcusable of follies; if such were to rise at all, it
must be by their own efforts and in consequence of their native merits;
otherwise, let them toil on and support themselves honestly. From secret
sources he received information of the capabilities and prospects of
Joseph Mutimer’s children, and the items of his will were regulated
accordingly.

So we return to the family in Wilton Square. Let us, before proceeding
with the story, enumerate the younger Mutimers. The first-born, now aged
five-and-twenty, had his great-uncle’s name; Joseph Mutimer, married,
and no better off in worldly possessions than when he had only himself
to support, came to regret the coldness with which he had received the
advances of his uncle the capitalist, and christened his son Richard,
with half a hope that some day the name might stand the boy in stead.
Richard was a mechanical engineer, employed in certain ironworks where
hydraulic machinery was made. The second child was a girl, upon whom had
been bestowed the names Alice Maud, after one of the Queen’s daughters;
on which account, and partly with reference to certain personal
characteristics, she was often called ‘the Princess.’ Her age was
nineteen, and she had now for two years been employed in the show-rooms
of a City warehouse. Last comes Henry, a lad of seventeen; he had been
suffered to aim at higher things than the rest of the family. In the
industrial code of precedence the rank of clerk is a step above that of
mechanic, and Henry--known to relatives and friends as ‘Arry--occupied
the proud position of clerk in a drain-pipe manufactory.



CHAPTER IV



At ten o’clock on the evening of Easter Sunday, Mrs. Mutimer was busy
preparing supper. She had laid the table for six, had placed at one
end of it a large joint of cold meat, at the other a vast flee-pudding,
already diminished by attack, and she was now slicing a conglomerate
mass of cold potatoes and cabbage prior to heating it in the frying-pan,
which hissed with melted dripping just on the edge of the fire. The
kitchen was small, and everywhere reflected from some bright surface
either the glow of the open grate or the yellow lustre of the gas-jet;
red curtains drawn across the window added warmth and homely comfort to
the room. It was not the kitchen of pinched or slovenly working folk;
the air had a scent of cleanliness, of freshly scrubbed boards and
polished metal, and the furniture was super-abundant. On the capacious
dresser stood or hung utensils innumerable; cupboards and chairs had a
struggle for wall space; every smallest object was in the place assigned
to it by use and wont.

The housewife was an active woman of something less than sixty; stout,
fresh-featured, with a small keen eye, a firm mouth, and the look of
one who, conscious of responsibilities, yet feels equal to them; on the
whole a kindly and contented face, if lacking the suggestiveness which
comes of thought. At present she seemed on the verge of impatience; it
was supper time, but her children lingered.

‘There they are, and there they must wait, I s’pose,’ she murmured to
herself as she finished slicing the vegetables and went to remove the
pan a little from the fire.

A knock at the house door called her upstairs. She came down again,
followed by a young girl of pleasant countenance, though pale and
anxious-looking. The visitor’s dress was very plain, and indicated
poverty; she wore a long black jacket, untrimmed, a boa of cheap fur,
tied at the throat with black ribbon, a hat of grey felt, black cotton
gloves.

‘No one here?’ she asked, seeing the empty kitchen.

‘Goodness knows where they all are. I s’pose Dick’s at his meeting; but
Alice and ‘Arry had ought to be back by now. Sit you down to the table,
and I’ll put on the vegetables; there’s no call to wait for them. Only I
ain’t got the beer.’

‘Oh, but I didn’t mean to come for supper,’ said the girl, whose name
was Emma Vine. ‘I only ran in to tell you poor Jane’s down again with
rheumatic fever.’

Mrs. Mutimer was holding the frying-pan over the fire, turning the
contents over and over with a knife.

‘You don’t mean that!’ she exclaimed, looking over her shoulder. ‘Why,
it’s the fifth time, ain’t it?’

‘It is indeed, and worse to get through every time. We didn’t expect
she’d ever be able to walk again last autumn.’

‘Dear, dear! what a thing them rheumatics is, to be sure! And you’ve
heard about Dick, haven’t you?’

‘Heard what?’

‘Oh, I thought maybe it had got to you. He’s lost his work, that’s all.’

‘Lost his work?’ the girl repeated, with dismay. ‘Why?’

‘Why? What else had he to expect? ‘Tain’t likely they’ll keep a man as
goes about making all his mates discontented and calling his employers
names at every street corner. I’ve been looking for it every week.
Yesterday one of the guvnors calls him up and tells him--just in a few
civil words--as perhaps it ‘ud be better for all parties if he’d find a
place where he was more satisfied. “Well an’ good,” says Dick--you know
his way--and there he is.’

The girl had seated herself, and listened to this story with downcast
eyes. Courage seemed to fail her; she drew a long, quiet sigh. Her face
was of the kind that expresses much sweetness in irregular features. Her
look was very honest and gentle, with pathetic meanings for whoso had
the eye to catch them; a peculiar mobility of the lips somehow made one
think that she had often to exert herself to keep down tears. She
spoke in a subdued voice, always briefly, and with a certain natural
refinement in the use of uncultured language. When Mrs. Mutimer
ceased, Emma kept silence, and smoothed the front of her jacket with an
unconscious movement of the hand.

Mrs. Mutimer glanced at her and showed commiseration.

‘Well, well, don’t you worrit about it, Emma,’ she said; ‘you’ve quite
enough on your hands. Dick don’t care--not he; he couldn’t look more
high-flyin’ if someone had left him a fortune. He says it’s the best
thing as could happen. Nay, I can’t explain; he’ll tell you plenty soon
as he gets in. Cut yourself some meat, child, do, and don’t wait for me
to help you. See, I’ll turn you out some potatoes; you don’t care for
the greens, I know.’

The fry had hissed vigorously whilst this conversation went on; the
results were brown and unctuous.

‘Now, if it ain’t too bad!’ cried the old woman, losing self-control.
‘That ‘Arry gets later every Sunday, and he knows very well as I have to
wait for the beer till he comes.’

I’ll fetch it,’ said Emma, rising.

‘You indeed! I’d like to see Dick if he caught me a-sending you to the
public-house.’

‘He won’t mind it for once.’

‘You get on with your supper, do. It’s only my fidgetiness; I can do
very well a bit longer. And Alice, where’s she off to, I wonder? What it
is to have a girl that age! I wish they was all like you, Emma. Get on
with your supper, I tell you, or you’ll make me angry. Now, it ain’t no
use taking it to ‘eart in that way. I see what you’re worritin’ over.
Dick ain’t the man to be out o’ work long.’

‘But won’t it be the same at his next place?’ Emma inquired. She was
trying to eat, but it was a sad pretence.

‘Nay, there’s no telling. It’s no good my talkin’ to him. Why don’t you
see what you can do, Emma? ‘Tain’t as if he’d no one but his own self to
think about Don’t you think you could make him see that? If anyone has
a right to speak, it’s you. Tell him as he’d ought to have a bit more
thought. It’s wait, wait, wait, and likely to be if things go on like
this. Speak up and tell him as--’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that!’ murmured Emma. ‘Dick knows best.’

She stopped to listen; there was a noise above as of people entering the
house.

‘Here they come at last,’ said Mrs. Mutimer. ‘Hear him laughin’? Now,
don’t you be so ready to laugh with him. Let him see as it ain’t such
good fun to everybody.’

Heavy feet tramped down the stone stairs, amid a sound of loud laughter
and excited talk. The next moment the kitchen door was thrown open, and
two young men appeared. The one in advance was Richard Mutimer; behind
him came a friend of the family, Daniel Dabbs.

‘Well, what do you think of this?’ Richard exclaimed as he shook Emma’s
hands rather carelessly. ‘Mother been putting you out of spirits, I
suppose? Why, it’s grand; the best thing that could have happened! What
a meeting we’ve had to-night! What do _you_ say, Dan?’

Richard represented--too favourably to make him anything but an
exception--the best qualities his class can show. He was the English
artisan as we find him on rare occasions, the issue of a good strain
which has managed to procure a sufficiency of food for two or three
generations. His physique was admirable; little short of six feet in
stature, he had shapely shoulders, an erect well-formed head, clean
strong limbs, and a bearing which in natural ease and dignity matched
that of the picked men of the upper class--those fine creatures whose
career, from public school to regimental quarters, is one exclusive
course of bodily training. But the comparison, on the whole, was to
Richard’s advantage. By no possibility could he have assumed that
aristocratic vacuity of visage which comes of carefully induced cerebral
atrophy. The air of the workshop suffered little colour to dwell upon
his cheeks; but to features of so pronounced and intelligent a type this
pallor added a distinction. He had dark brown hair, thick and long,
and a cropped beard of hue somewhat lighter. His eyes were his
mother’s--keen and direct; but they had small variety of expression; you
could not imagine them softening to tenderness, or even to thoughtful
dreaming. Terribly wide awake, they seemed to be always looking for
the weak points of whatever they regarded, and their brightness was not
seldom suggestive of malice. His voice was strong and clear; it would
ring out well in public places, which is equivalent to saying that it
hardly invited too intimate conference. You will take for granted that
Richard displayed, alike in attitude and tone, a distinct consciousness
of his points of superiority to the men among whom he lived; probably he
more than suspected that he could have held his own in spheres to which
there seemed small chance of his being summoned.

Just now he showed at once the best and the weakest of his points.
Coming in a state of exaltation from a meeting of which he had been
the eloquent hero, such light as was within him flashed from his face
freely; all the capacity and the vigour which impelled him to strain
against the strait bonds of his lot set his body quivering and made
music of his utterance. At the same time, his free movements passed
easily into swagger, and as he talked on, the false notes were not few.
A working man gifted with brains and comeliness must, be sure of it, pay
penalties for his prominence.

Quite another man was Daniel Dabbs: in him you saw the proletarian pure
and simple. He was thick-set, square-shouldered, rolling in gait; he
walked with head bent forward and eyes glancing uneasily, as if from
lack of self-confidence. His wiry black hair shone with grease, and
no accuracy of razor-play would make his chin white. A man of immense
strength, but bull-necked and altogether ungainly--his heavy fist, with
its black veins and terrific knuckles, suggested primitive methods
of settling dispute; the stumpy fingers, engrimed hopelessly, and the
filthy broken nails, showed how he wrought for a living. His face, if
you examined it without prejudice, was not ill to look upon; there was
much good humour about the mouth, and the eyes, shrewd enough, could
glimmer a kindly light His laughter was roof-shaking--always a good sign
in a man.

‘And what have _you_ got to say of these fine doings, Mr. Dabbs?’ Mrs.
Mutimer asked him.

‘Why, it’s like this ‘era, Mrs. Mutimer,’ Daniel began, having seated
himself, with hands on widely-parted knees. ‘As far as the theory goes,
I’m all for Dick; any man must be as knows his two times two. But about
the Longwoods; well, I tell Dick they’ve a perfect right to get rid of
him, finding him a dangerous enemy, you see. It was all fair and above
board. Young Stephen Longwood ups an’ says--leastways not in these
words, but them as means the same--says he, “Look ‘ere, Mutimer,” he
says, “we’ve no fault to find with you as a workman, but from what we
hear of you, it seems you don’t care much for us as employers. Hadn’t
you better find a shop as is run on Socialist principles?” That’s all
about it, you see; it’s a case of incompatible temperaments; there’s no
ill-feelin’, not as between man and man, And that’s what I say, too.’

‘Now, Dick,’ said Mrs. Mutimer, ‘before you begin your sermon, who’s
a-going to fetch my beer?’

‘Right, Mrs. Mutimer!’ cried Daniel, slapping his leg. ‘That’s what I
call coming from theory to practice. Beer squares all--leastways for the
time being--only for the time being, Dick. Where’s the jug? Better give
me two jugs; we’ve had a thirsty night of it.’

‘We’ll make capital of this!’ said Richard, walking about the room in
Daniel’s absence. ‘The great point gained is, they’ve shown they’re
afraid of me. We’ll write it up in the paper next week, see if we don’t!
It’ll do us a sight of good.’

‘And where’s your weekly wages to come from?’ inquired his mother.

‘Oh, I’ll look after that. I only wish they’d refuse me all round; the
more of that kind of thing the better for us. I’m not afraid but I can
earn my living.’

Through all this Emma Vine had sat with her thoughtful eyes constantly
turned on Richard. It was plain how pride struggled with anxiety in her
mind. When Richard had kept silence for a moment, she ventured to speak,
having tried in vain to meet his look.

‘Jane’s ill again, Richard,’ she said.

Mutimer had to summon his thoughts from a great distance; his endeavour
to look sympathetic was not very successful.

‘Not the fever again?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she replied sadly.

‘Going to work in the wet, I suppose?’

He shrugged his shoulders; in his present mood the fact was not so much
personally interesting to him as in the light of another case against
capitalism. Emma’s sister had to go a long way to her daily employment,
and could not afford to ride; the fifth attack of rheumatic fever was
the price she paid for being permitted to earn ten shillings a week.

Daniel returned with both jugs foaming, his face on a broad grin of
anticipation. There was a general move to the table. Richard began to
carve roast beef like a freeman, not by any means like the serf he had
repeatedly declared himself in the course of the evening’s oratory.

‘Her Royal ‘Ighness out?’ asked Daniel, with constraint not solely due
to the fact that his mouth was full.

‘She’s round at Mrs. Took’s, I should think,’ was Mrs. Mutimer’s reply.
‘Staying supper, per’aps.’

Richard, after five minutes of surprising trencher-work, recommenced
conversation. The proceedings of the evening at the hall, which was the
centre for Socialist gatherings in this neighbourhood, were discussed
by him and Daniel with much liveliness. Dan was disposed to take the
meeting on its festive and humorous side; for him, economic agitation
was a mode of passing a few hours amid congenial uproar. Whenever
stamping and shouting were called for, Daniel was your man. Abuse of
employers, it was true, gave a zest to the occasion, and to applaud
the martyrdom of others was as cheery an occupation as could be asked;
Daniel had no idea of sacrificing his own weekly wages, and therein
resembled most of those who had been loud in uncompromising rhetoric.
Richard, on the other hand, was unmistakably zealous. His sense of
humour was not strong, and in any case he would have upheld the serious
dignity of his own position. One saw from his way of speaking, that he
believed himself about to become a popular hero; already in imagination
he stood forth on platforms before vast assemblies, and heard his own
voice denouncing capitalism with force which nothing could resist.
The first taste of applause had given extraordinary impulse to his
convictions, and the personal ambition with which they were interwoven.
His grandfather’s blood was hot in him to-night. Henry Mutimer, dying in
hospital of his broken skull, would have found euthanasia, could he
in vision have seen this worthy descendant entering upon a career in
comparison with which his own was unimportant.

The high-pitched voices and the clatter of knives and forks allowed a
new-comer to enter the kitchen without being immediately observed. It
was a tall girl of interesting and vivacious appearance; she wore a
dress of tartan, a very small hat trimmed also with tartan and with a
red feather, a tippet of brown fur about her shoulders, and a muff of
the same material on one of her hands. Her figure was admirable; from
the crest of her gracefully poised head to the tip of her well-chosen
boot she was, in line and structure, the type of mature woman. Her
face, if it did not indicate a mind to match her frame, was at the
least sweet-featured and provoking; characterless somewhat, but void
of danger-signals; doubtless too good to be merely played with; in any
case, very capable of sending a ray, in one moment or another, to
the shadowy dreaming-place of graver thoughts. Alice Maud Mutimer was
nineteen. For two years she had been thus tall, but the grace of her
proportions had only of late fully determined itself. Her work in
the City warehouse was unexacting; she had even a faint impress of
rose-petal on each cheek, and her eye was excellently clear. Her lips,
unfortunately never quite closed, betrayed faultless teeth. Her likeness
to Richard was noteworthy; beyond question she understood the charm of
her presence, and one felt that the consciousness might, in her case,
constitute rather a safeguard than otherwise.

She stood with one hand on the door, surveying the table. When the
direction of Mrs. Mutimer’s eyes at length caused Richard and Daniel to
turn their heads, Alice nodded to each.

‘What noisy people! I heard you out in the square.’

She was moving past the table, but Daniel, suddenly backing his chair,
intercepted her. The girl gave him her hand, and, by way of being
jocose, he squeezed it so vehemently that she uttered a shrill ‘Oh!’

‘Leave go, Mr. Dabbs! Leave go, I tell you! How dare you? I’ll hit you
as hard as I can!’

Daniel laughed obstreperously.

‘Do! do!’ he cried. ‘What a mighty blow that ‘ud be! Only the left hand,
though. I shall get over it.’

She wrenched herself away, gave Daniel a smart slap on the back, and
ran round to the other side of the table, where she kissed Emma
affectionately.

‘How thirsty I am!’ she exclaimed. ‘You haven’t drunk all the beer, I
hope.’

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Dan replied. ‘Why, there ain’t more than ‘arf
a pint; that’s not much use for a Royal ‘Ighness.’

She poured it into a glass. Alice reached across the table, raised the
glass to her lips, and--emptied it. Then she threw off hat, tippet,
and gloves, and seated herself But in a moment she was up and at the
cupboard.

‘Now, mother, you don’t--you _don’t_ say as there’s not a pickle!’

Her tone was deeply reproachful.

‘Why, there now,’ replied her mother, laughing; ‘I knew what it ‘ud be!
I meant to a’ got them last night. You’ll have to make shift for once.’

The Princess took her seat with an air of much dejection. Her pretty
lips grew mutinous; she pushed her plate away.

‘No supper for me! The idea of cold meat without a pickle.’

‘What’s the time?’ cried Daniel. ‘Not closing time yet. I can get a
pickle at the “Duke’s Arms.” Give me a glass, Mrs. Mutimer.’

Alice looked up slily, half smiling, half doubtful.

‘You may go,’ she said. ‘I like to see strong men make themselves
useful.’

Dan rose, and was off at once. He returned with the tumbler full of
pickled walnuts. Alice emptied half a dozen into her plate, and put
one of them whole into her mouth. She would not have been a girl of her
class if she had not relished this pungent dainty. Fish of any kind,
green vegetables, eggs and bacon, with all these a drench of vinegar was
indispensable to her. And she proceeded to eat a supper scarcely less
substantial than that which had appeased her brother’s appetite. Start
not, dear reader; the Princess is only a subordinate heroine, and
happens, moreover, to be a living creature.

‘Won’t you take a walnut, Miss Vine?’ Daniel asked, pushing the tumbler
to the quiet girl, who had scarcely spoken through the meal.

She declined the offered dainty, and at the same time rose from the
table, saying aside to Mrs. Mutimer that she must be going.

‘Yes, I suppose you must,’ was the reply. ‘Shall you have to sit up with
Jane?’

‘Not all night, I don’t expect.’

Richard likewise left his place, and, when she offered to bid him
good-night, said that he would walk a little way with her. In the
passage above, which was gas-lighted, he found his hat on a nail, and
the two left the house together.

‘Don’t you really mind?’ Emma asked, looking up into his face as they
took their way out of the square.

‘Not I! I can get a job at Baldwin’s any day. But I dare say I shan’t
want one long.’

‘Not want work?’

He laughed.

‘Work? Oh, plenty of work; but perhaps not the same kind. We want men
who can give their whole time to the struggle--to go about lecturing and
the like. Of course, it isn’t everybody can do it.’

The remark indicated his belief that he knew one man not incapable of
leading functions.

‘And would they pay you?’ Emma inquired, simply.

‘Expenses of that kind are inevitable,’ he replied.

Issuing into the New North Road, where there were still many people
hastening one way and the other, they turned to the left, crossed the
canal--black and silent--and were soon among narrow streets. Every
corner brought a whiff of some rank odour, which stole from closed shops
and warehouses, and hung heavily on the still air. The public-houses had
just extinguished their lights, and in the neighbourhood of each was a
cluster of lingering men and women, merry or disputatious. Mid-Easter
was inviting repose and festivity; to-morrow would see culmination of
riot, and after that it would only depend upon pecuniary resources how
long the muddled interval between holiday and renewed labour should drag
itself out.

The end of their walk was the entrance to a narrow passage, which, at a
few yards’ distance, widened itself and became a street of four-storeyed
houses. At present this could not be discerned; the passage was a mere
opening into massive darkness. Richard had just been making inquiries
about Emma’s sister.

‘You’ve had the doctor?’

‘Yes, we’re obliged; she does so dread going to the hospital again. Each
time she’s longer in getting well.’

Richard’s hand was in his pocket; he drew it out and pressed something
against the girl’s palm.

‘Oh, how can I?’ she said, dropping her eyes. ‘No--don’t--I’m ashamed.’

‘That’s all right,’ he urged, not unkindly. ‘You’ll have to get her what
the doctor orders, and it isn’t likely you and Kate can afford it.’

‘You’re always so kind, Richard. But I am--I am ashamed!’

‘I say, Emma, why don’t you call me Dick? I’ve meant to ask you that
many a time.’

She turned her face away, moving as if abashed.

‘I don’t know. It sounds--perhaps I want to make a difference from what
the others call you.’

He laughed with a sound of satisfaction.

‘Well, you mustn’t stand here; it’s a cold night. Try and come Tuesday
or Wednesday.’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘Good night!’ he said, and, as he held her hand, bent to the lips which
were ready.

Emma walked along the passage, and for some distance up the middle of
the street. Then she stopped and looked up at one of the black houses.
There were lights, more or less curtain-dimmed, in nearly all the
windows. Emma regarded a faint gleam in the topmost storey. To that she
ascended.

Mutimer walked homewards at a quick step, whistling to himself. A
latch-key gave him admission. As he went down the kitchen stairs, he
heard his mother’s voice raised in anger, and on opening the door he
found that Daniel had departed, and that the supper table was already
cleared. Alice, her feet on the fender and her dress raised a little,
was engaged in warming herself before going to bed. The object of Mrs.
Mutimer’s chastisement was the youngest member of the family, known
as ‘Arry; even Richard, who had learnt to be somewhat careful in his
pronunciation, could not bestow the aspirate upon his brother’s name.
Henry, aged seventeen, promised to do credit to the Mutimers in physical
completeness; already he was nearly as tall as his eldest brother; and,
even in his lankness, showed the beginnings of well-proportioned vigour.
But the shape of his head, which was covered with hair of the lightest
hue, did not encourage hope of mental or moral qualities. It was not
quite fair to judge his face as seen at present; the vacant grin of half
timid, half insolent, resentment made him considerably more simian of
visage than was the case under ordinary circumstances. But the features
were unpleasant to look upon; it was Richard’s face, distorted and
enfeebled with impress of sensual instincts.

‘As long as you live in this house, it shan’t go on,’ his mother was
saying. ‘Sunday or Monday, it’s no matter; you’ll be home before eleven
o’clock, and you’ll come home sober. You’re no better than a pig!’

‘Arry was seated in a far corner of the room, where he had dropped his
body on entering. His attire was such as the cheap tailors turn out in
imitation of extreme fashions: trousers closely moulded upon the leg, a
huff waistcoat, a short coat with pockets everywhere. A very high collar
kept his head up against his will; his necktie was crimson, and passed
through a brass ring; he wore a silver watch-chain, or what seemed to be
such. One hand was gloved, and a cane lay across his knees. His attitude
was one of relaxed muscles, his legs very far apart, his body not quite
straight.

‘What d’ you call sober, I’d like to know?’ he replied, with looseness
of utterance. ‘I’m as sober ‘s anybody in this room. If a chap can’t go
out with ‘s friends ‘t Easter an’ all--?’

‘Easter, indeed! It’s getting to be a regular thing, Saturday and
Sunday. Get up and go to bed! I’ll have my say out with you in the
morning, young man.’

‘Go to bed!’ repeated the lad with scorn. ‘Tell you I ain’t had no
supper.’

Richard had walked to the neighbourhood of the fireplace, and was
regarding his brother with anger and contempt. At this point of the
dialogue he interfered.

‘And you won’t have any, either, that I’ll see to! What’s more, you’ll
do as your mother bids you, or I’ll know the reason why. Go upstairs at
once!’

It was not a command to be disregarded. ‘Arry rose, but half-defiantly.

‘What have you to do with it? You’re not my master.’

‘Do you hear what I say?’ Richard observed, yet more autocratically.
‘Take yourself off, and at once!’

The lad growled, hesitated, but approached the door. His motion was
slinking; he could not face Richard’s eye. They heard him stumble up the
stairs.



CHAPTER V



On ordinary days Richard of necessity rose early; a holiday did not lead
him to break the rule, for free hours were precious. He had his body
well under control; six hours of sleep he found sufficient to keep
him in health, and temptations to personal ease, in whatever form, he
resisted as a matter of principle.

Easter Monday found him down-stairs at half-past six. His mother would
to-day allow herself another hour. ‘Arry would be down just in time to
breakfast, not daring to be late. The Princess might be looked for--some
time in the course of the morning; she was licensed.

Richard, for purposes of study, used the front parlour. In drawing
up the blind, he disclosed a room precisely resembling in essential
features hundreds of front parlours in that neighbourhood, or, indeed,
in any working-class district of London. Everything was clean; most
things were bright-hued or glistening of surface. There was the
gilt-framed mirror over the mantelpiece, with a yellow clock--which
did not go--and glass ornaments in front. There was a small round table
before the window, supporting wax fruit under a glass case. There was
a hearthrug with a dazzling pattern of imaginary flowers. On the blue
cloth of the middle table were four showily-bound volumes, arranged
symmetrically. On the head of the sofa lay a covering worked of blue
and yellow Berlin wools. Two arm-chairs were draped with long white
antimacassars, ready to slip off at a touch. As in the kitchen, there
was a smell of cleanlines--of furniture polish, hearthstone, and
black-lead.

I should mention the ornaments of the walls. The pictures were: a
striking landscape of the Swiss type, an engraved portrait of Garibaldi,
an unframed view of a certain insurance office, a British baby on a
large scale from the Christmas number of an illustrated paper.

The one singular feature of the room was a small, glass-doored bookcase,
full of volumes. They were all of Richard’s purchasing; to survey them
was to understand the man, at all events on his intellectual side.
Without exception they belonged to that order of literature which, if
studied exclusively and for its own sake,--as here it was,--brands a man
indelibly, declaring at once the incompleteness of his education and the
deficiency of his instincts. Social, political, religious,--under
these three heads the volumes classed themselves, and each class was
represented by productions of the ‘extreme’ school. The books which a
bright youth of fair opportunities reads as a matter of course, rejoices
in for a year or two, then throws aside for ever, were here treasured to
be the guides of a lifetime. Certain writers of the last century, long
ago become only historically interesting, were for Richard an armoury
whence he girded himself for the battles of the day; cheap reprints or
translations of Malthus, of Robert Owen, of Volney’s ‘Ruins,’ of Thomas
Paine, of sundry works of Voltaire, ranked upon his shelves. Moreover,
there was a large collection of pamphlets, titled wonderfully and of yet
more remarkable contents, the authoritative utterances of contemporary
gentlemen--and ladies--who made it the end of their existence to prove:
that there cannot by any possibility be such a person as Satan; that the
story of creation contained in the Book of Genesis is on no account
to be received; that the begetting of children is a most deplorable
oversight; that to eat flesh is wholly unworthy of a civilised being;
that if every man and woman performed their quota of the world’s labour
it would be necessary to work for one hour and thirty-seven minutes
daily, no jot longer, and that the author, in each case, is the one
person capable of restoring dignity to a down-trodden race and happiness
to a blasted universe. Alas, alas! On this food had Richard Mutimer
pastured his soul since he grew to manhood, on this and this only.
English literature was to him a sealed volume; poetry he scarcely knew
by name; of history he was worse than ignorant, having looked at this
period and that through distorting media, and congratulating himself on
his clear vision because he saw men as trees walking; the bent of
his mind would have led him to natural science, but opportunities of
instruction were lacking, and the chosen directors of his prejudice
taught him to regard every fact, every discovery, as _for_ or _against_
something.

A library of pathetic significance, the individual alone considered.
Viewed as representative, not without alarming suggestiveness to those
who can any longer trouble themselves about the world’s future. One
dreams of the age when free thought--in the popular sense--will have
become universal, when art shall have lost its meaning, worship its
holiness, when the Bible will only exist in ‘comic’ editions, and
Shakespeare be down-cried by ‘most sweet voices as a mountebank of
reactionary tendencies.

Richard was to lecture on the ensuing Sunday at one of the branch
meeting-places of his society; he engaged himself this morning in
collecting certain data of a statistical kind. He was still at his work
when the sound of the postman’s knock began to be heard in the square,
coming from house to house, drawing nearer at each repetition. Richard
paid no heed to it; he expected no letter. Yet it seemed there was
one for some member of the family; the letter-carrier’s regular tread
ascended the five steps to the door, and then two small thunderclaps
echoed through the house. There was no letter-box; Richard went to
answer the knock. An envelope addressed to himself in a small, formal
hand.

His thoughts still busy with other things, he opened the letter
mechanically as he re-entered the room. He had never in his life been
calmer; the early hour of study had kept his mind pleasantly active
whilst his breakfast appetite sharpened itself. Never was man less
prepared to receive startling intelligence.

He read, then raised his eyes and let them stray from the papers on the
table to the wax-fruit before the window, thence to the young leafage
of the trees around the Baptist Chapel. He was like a man whose face had
been overflashed by lightning. He read again, then, holding the letter
behind him, closed his right hand upon his beard with thoughtful
tension. He read a third time, then returned the letter to its envelope,
put it in his pocket, and sat down again to his book.

He was summoned to breakfast in ten minutes. His mother was alone in
the kitchen; she gave him his bloater and his cup of coffee, and he cut
himself a solid slice of bread and butter.

‘Was the letter for you?’ she asked.

He replied with a nod, and fell patiently to work on the dissection of
his bony delicacy. In five minutes Henry approached the table with a
furtive glance at his elder brother. But Richard had no remark to make.
The meal proceeded in silence.

When Richard had finished, he rose and said to his mother--

‘Have you that railway-guide I brought home a week ago?’

‘I believe I have somewhere. Just look in the cupboard.’

The guide was found. Richard consulted it for a few moments.

‘I have to go out of London,’ he then observed. ‘It’s just possible I
shan’t get back to-night.’

A little talk followed about the arrangements of the day, and whether
anyone was likely to be at home for dinner. Richard did not show much
interest in the matter; he went upstairs whistling, and changed the
clothing he wore for his best suit. In a quarter of an hour he had left
the house.

He did not return till the evening of the following day. It was presumed
that he had gone ‘after a job.’

When he reached home his mother and Alice were at tea. He walked to
the kitchen fireplace, turned his back to it, and gazed with a peculiar
expression at the two who sat at table.

‘Dick’s got work,’ observed Alice, after a glance at him. ‘I can see
that in his face.’.

‘Have you, Dick?’ asked Mrs. Mutimer.

‘I have. Work likely to last.’

‘So we’ll hope,’ commented his mother. ‘Where is it?’

‘A good way out of London. Pour me a cup, mother. Where’s ‘Arry?’

‘Gone out, as usual.’

‘And why are you having tea with your hat on, Princess?’

‘Because I’m in a hurry, if you must know everything.’

Richard did not seek further information. He drank his tea standing. In
five minutes Alice had bustled away for an evening with friends. Mrs.
Mutimer cleared the table without speaking.

‘Now get your sewing, mother, and sit down,’ began Richard. ‘I want to
have a talk with you.’

The mother cast a rather suspicious glance. There was an impressiveness
in the young man’s look and tone which disposed her to obey without
remark.

‘How long is it,’ Richard asked, when attention waited upon him, ‘since
you heard anything of father’s uncle, my namesake?’

Mrs. Mutimer’s face exhibited the dawning of intelligence, an
unwrinkling here and there, a slight rounding of the lips.

‘Why, what of him?’ she asked in an undertone, leaving a needle
unthreaded.

‘The old man’s just dead.’

Agitation seized the listener, agitation of a kind most unusual in her.
Her hands trembled, her eyes grew wide.

‘You haven’t heard anything of him lately?’ pursued Richard.

‘Heard? Not I. No more did your father ever since two years afore we was
married. I’d always thought he was dead long ago. What of him, Dick?’

‘From what I’m told I thought you’d perhaps been keeping things to
yourself. ‘Twouldn’t have been unlike you, mother. He knew all about us,
so the lawyer tells me.’

‘The lawyer?’

‘Well, I’d better out with it. He’s died without a will. His real
property--that means his houses and land--belongs to me; his personal
property--that’s his money--‘ll have to be divided between me, and
Alice, and ‘Arry. You’re out of the sharing, mother.’

He said it jokingly, but Mrs. Mutimer did not join in his laugh. Her
palms were closely pressed together; still trembling, she gazed straight
before her, with a far-off look.

‘His houses--his land?’ she murmured, as if she had not quite heard.
‘What did he want with more than one house?’

The absurd question was all that could find utterance. She seemed to be
reflecting on that point.

‘Would you like to hear what it all comes to?’ Richard resumed. His
voice was unnatural, forcibly suppressed, quivering at pauses. His eyes
gleamed, and there was a centre of warm colour on each of his cheeks. He
had taken a note-book from his pocket, and the leaves rustled under his
tremulous fingers.

‘The lawyer, a man called Yottle, just gave me an idea of the different
investments and so on. The real property consists of a couple of houses
in Belwick, both let, and an estate at a place called Wanley. The old
man had begun mining there; there’s iron. I’ve got my ideas about that.
I didn’t go into the house; people are there still. Now the income.’

He read his notes: So much in railways, so much averaged yearly from
iron-works in Belwick, so much in foreign securities, so much disposable
at home. Total--

‘Stop, Dick, stop!’ uttered his mother, under her breath. ‘Them figures
frighten me; I don’t know what they mean. It’s a mistake; they’re
leading you astray. Now, mind what I say--there’s a mistake! No man with
all that money ‘ud die without a will. You won’t get me to believe it,
Dick.’

Richard laughed excitedly. ‘Believe it or not, mother; I’ve got my ears
and eyes, I hope. And there’s a particular reason why he left no will.
There was one, but something--I don’t know what--happened just before
his death, and he was going to make a new one. The will was burnt. He
died in church on a Sunday morning; if he’d lived another day, he’d have
made a new will. It’s no more a mistake than the Baptist Chapel is in
the square!’ A comparison which hardly conveyed all Richard’s meaning;
but he was speaking in agitation, more and more quickly, at last almost
angrily.

Mrs. Mutimer raised her hand. ‘Be quiet a bit, Dick. It’s took me too
sudden. I feel queer like.’

There was silence. The mother rose as if with difficulty, and drew water
in a tea-cup from the filter. When she resumed her place, her hands
prepared to resume sewing. She looked up, solemnly, sternly.

‘Dick, it’s bad, bad news! I’m an old woman, and I must say what I
think. It upsets me; it frightens me. I thought he might a’ left you a
hundred pounds.’

‘Mother, don’t talk about it till you’ve had time to think,’ said
Richard, stubbornly. ‘If this is bad news, what the deuce would you call
good? Just because I’ve been born and bred a mechanic, does that say
I’ve got no common sense or self-respect? Are you afraid I shall go
and drink myself to death? You talk like the people who make it their
business to sneer at us--the improvidence of the working classes, and
such d--d slander. It’s good news for me, and it’ll be good news for
many another man. Wait and see.’

The mother became silent, keeping her lips tight, and struggling to
regain her calmness. She was not convinced, but in argument with her
eldest son she always gave way, affection and the pride she had in him
aiding her instincts of discretion. In practice she still maintained
something of maternal authority, often gaining her point by merely
seeming offended. To the two who had not yet reached the year of
emancipation she allowed, in essentials, no appeal from her decision.
Between her and Richard there had been many a sharp conflict in former
days, invariably ending with the lad’s submission; the respect which his
mother exacted he in truth felt to be her due, and it was now long since
they had openly been at issue on any point. Mrs. Mutimer’s views were
distinctly Conservative, and hitherto she had never taken Richard’s
Radicalism seriously; on the whole she had regarded it as a fairly
harmless recreation for his leisure hours--decidedly preferable to a
haunting of public-houses and music-halls. The loss of his employment
caused her a good deal of uneasiness, but she had not ventured to do
more than throw out hints of her disapproval; and now, as it seemed, the
matter was of no moment. Henceforth she had far other apprehensions, but
this first conflict of their views made her reticent.

‘Just let me tell you how things stand,’ Richard pursued, when his
excitement had somewhat subsided; and he went on to explain the
relations between old Mr. Mutimer and the Eldons, which in outline had
been described to him by Mr. Yottle. And then--

‘The will he had made left all the property to this young Eldon, who was
to be trustee for a little money to be doled out to me yearly, just to
save me from ruining myself, of course.’ Richard’s lips curled in scorn.
‘I don’t know whether the lawyer thought we ought to offer to give
everything up; he seemed precious anxious to make me understand that the
old man had never intended us to have it, and that he _did_ want these
other people to have it. Of course, we’ve nothing to do with that.
Luck’s luck, and I think I know who’ll make best use of it.’

‘Why didn’t you tell all this when Alice was here?’ inquired his mother,
seeming herself again, though very grave.

‘I’ll tell you. I thought it over, and it seems to me it’ll be better if
Alice and ‘Arry wait a while before they know what’ll come to them.
They can’t take anything till they’re twenty-one. Alice is a good girl,
but--’

He hesitated, having caught his mother’s eye. He felt that this
prudential course justified in a measure her anxiety.

‘She’s a girl,’ he pursued, ‘and we know that a girl with a lot o’ money
gets run after by men who care nothing about her and a good deal about
the money. Then it’s quite certain ‘Arry won’t be any the better for
fancying himself rich. H’s going to give us trouble as it is, I can see
that. We shall have to take another house, of course, and we can’t keep
them from knowing that there’s money fallen to me. But there’s no need
to talk about the figures, and if we can make them think it’s only me
that’s better off, so much the better. Alice needn’t go to work, and I’m
glad of it; a girl’s proper place is at home. You can tell her you want
her to help in the new house. ‘Arry had better keep his place awhile.
I shouldn’t wonder if I find work for him myself before long I’ve got
plans, but I shan’t talk about them just yet.’

He spoke then of the legal duties which fell upon him as next-of-kin,
explaining the necessity of finding two sureties on taking out letters
of administration. Mr. Yottle had offered himself for one; the other
Richard hoped to find in Mr. Westlake, a leader of the Socialist
movement.

‘You want us to go into a big house?’ asked Mrs. Mutimer. She seemed to
pay little attention to the wider aspects of the change, but to fix
on the details she could best understand, those which put her fears in
palpable shape.

‘I didn’t say a big one, but a larger than this. We’re not going to play
the do-nothing gentlefolk; but all the same our life won’t and can’t be
what it has been. There’s no choice. You’ve worked hard all your life,
mother, and it’s only fair you should come in for a bit of rest. We’ll
find a house somewhere out Green Lanes way, or in Highbury or Holloway.’

He laughed again.

‘So there’s the best of it--the worst of it, as you say. Just take a
night to turn it over. Most likely I shall go to Belwick again to-morrow
afternoon.’

He paused, and his mother, after bending her head to bite off an end of
cotton, asked--

‘You’ll tell Emma?’

‘I shall go round to-night.’

A little later Richard left the house for this purpose. His step was
firmer than ever, his head more upright Walking along the crowded
streets, he saw nothing; there was a fixed smile on his lips, the smile
of a man to whom the world pays tribute. Never having suffered actual
want, and blessed with sanguine temperament, he knew nothing of that
fierce exultation, that wrathful triumph over fate, which comes to men
of passionate mood smitten by the lightning-flash of unhoped prosperity.
At present he was well-disposed to all men; even against capitalists and
‘profitmongers’ he could not have railed heartily Capitalists? Was he
not one himself? Aye, but he would prove himself such a one as you do
not meet with every day; and the foresight of deeds which should draw
the eyes of men upon him, which should shout his name abroad, softened
his judgments with the charity of satisfied ambition. He would be the
glorified representative of his class. He would show the world how a
self-taught working man conceived the duties and privileges of wealth.
He would shame those dunder-headed, callous-hearted aristocrats, those
ravening bourgeois. Opportunity--what else had he wanted? No longer
would his voice be lost in petty lecture-halls, answered only by the
applause of a handful of mechanics. Ere many months had passed, crowds
should throng to hear him; his gospel would be trumpeted over the land.
To what might he not attain? The educated, the refined, men and women--

He was at the entrance of a dark passage, where his feet stayed
themselves by force of habit. He turned out of the street, and walked
more slowly towards the house in which Emma Vine and her sisters lived.
Having reached the door, he paused, but again took a few paces forward.
Then he came back and rang the uppermost of five bells. In waiting, he
looked vaguely up and down the street.

It was Emma herself who opened to him. The dim light showed a smile of
pleasure and surprise.

‘You’ve come to ask about Jane?’ she said. ‘She hasn’t been quite so bad
since last night.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Can I come up?’

‘Will you?’

He entered, and Emma closed the door. It was pitch dark.

‘I wish I’d brought a candle down,’ Emma said, moving back along the
passage. ‘Mind there’s a pram at the foot of the stairs.’

The perambulator was avoided successfully by both, and they ascended
the bare boards of the staircase. On each landing prevailed a distinct
odour; first came the damp smell of newly-washed clothes, then the
scent of fried onions, then the workroom of some small craftsman exhaled
varnish. The topmost floor seemed the purest; it was only stuffy.

Richard entered an uncarpeted room which had to serve too many distinct
purposes to allow of its being orderly in appearance. In one corner was
a bed, where two little children lay asleep; before the window stood a
sewing-machine, about which was heaped a quantity of linen; a table in
the midst was half covered with a cloth, on which was placed a loaf and
butter, the other half being piled with several dresses requiring the
needle. Two black patches on the low ceiling showed in what positions
the lamp stood by turns.

Emma’s eldest sister was moving about the room. Hers were the children;
her husband had been dead a year or more. She was about thirty years of
age, and had a slatternly appearance; her face was peevish, and seemed
to grudge the half-smile with which it received the visitor.

‘You’ve no need to look round you,’ she said. ‘We’re in & regular
pig-stye, and likely to be. Where’s there a chair?’

She shook some miscellaneous articles on to the floor to provide a seat.

‘For mercy’s sake don’t speak too loud, and wake them children. Bertie’s
had the earache; he’s been crying all day. What with him and Jane we’ve
had a blessing, I can tell you. Can I put these supper things away,
Emma?’

‘I’ll do it,’ was the other’s reply. ‘Won’t you have a bit more, Kate?’

‘I’ve got no mind for eating. Well, you may cut a slice and put it on
the mantelpiece. I’ll go and sit with Jane.’

Richard sat and looked about the room absently. The circumstances of his
own family had never fallen below the point at which it is possible to
have regard for decency; the growing up of himself and of his brothers
and sister had brought additional resources to meet extended needs, and
the Mutimer characteristics had formed a safeguard against improvidence.
He was never quite at his ease in this poverty-cumbered room, which he
seldom visited.

‘You ought to have a fire,’ he said.

‘There’s one in the other room,’ replied Kate. ‘One has to serve us.’

‘But you can’t cook there.’

‘Cook? We can boil a potato, and that’s about all the cooking we can do
now-a-days.’

She moved to the door as she spoke, and, before leaving the room, took
advantage of Richard’s back being turned to make certain exhortatory
signs to her sister. Emma averted her head.

Kate closed the door behind her. Emma, having removed the eatables to
the cupboard, came near to Richard and placed her arm gently upon his
shoulders. He looked at her kindly.

‘Kate’s been so put about with Bertie,’ she said, in a tone of excuse.
‘And she was up nearly all last night.’

‘She never takes things like you do,’ Richard remarked.

‘She’s got more to bear. There’s the children always making her anxious.
She took Alf to the hospital this afternoon, and the doctor says he must
have--I forget the name, somebody’s food. But it’s two-and-ninepence for
ever such a little tin. They don’t think as his teeth ‘ll ever come.’

‘Oh, I daresay they will,’ said Richard encouragingly.

He had put his arm about her. Emma knelt down by him, and rested her
head against his shoulder.

‘I’m tired,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve had to go twice to the Minories
to-day. I’m so afraid I shan’t be able to hold my eyes open with Jane,
and Kate’s tireder still.’

She did not speak as if seeking for sympathy it was only the natural
utterance of her thoughts in a moment of restful confidence. Uttermost
weariness was a condition too familiar to the girl to be spoken of in
any but a patient, matter-of-fact tone. But it was priceless soothing
to let her forehead repose against the heart whose love was the one and
sufficient blessing of her life. Her brown hair was very soft and fine;
a lover of another kind would have pressed his lips upon it. Richard was
thinking of matters more practical. At another time his indignation--in
such a case right good and manful--would have boiled over at the thought
of these poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world’s dastard
selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he smiled
as one at ease.

‘Hadn’t you better give up your work?’ he said.

Emma raised her head. In the few moments of repose her eyelids had
drooped with growing heaviness; she looked at him as if she had just
been awakened to some great surprise.

‘Give up work? How can I?’

‘I think I would. You’d have more time to give to Jane, and you could
sleep in the day. And Jane had better not begin again after this. Don’t
you think it would be better if you left these lodgings and took a
house, where there’d be plenty of room and fresh air?’

‘Richard, what are you talking about?’

He laughed, quietly, on account of the sleeping children.

‘How would you like,’ he continued, ‘to go and live in the country? Kate
and Jane could have a house of their own, you know--in London, I mean,
a house like ours; they could let a room or two if they chose. Then
you and I could go where we liked. I was down in the Midland Counties
yesterday; had to go on business; and I saw a house that would just suit
us. It’s a bit large; I daresay there’s sixteen or twenty rooms. And
there’s trees growing all about it; a big garden--’

Emma dropped her head again and laughed, happy that Richard should jest
with her so good-humouredly; for he did not often talk in the lighter
way. She had read of such houses in the weekly story-papers. It must be
nice to live in them; it must be nice to be a denizen of Paradise.

‘I’m in earnest, Emma.’

His voice caused her to gaze at him again.

‘Bring a chair,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you something that’ll--keep you
awake.’

The insensible fellow! Her sweet, pale, wondering face was so close to
his, the warmth of her drooping frame was against his heart--and he
bade her sit apart to listen.

She placed herself as he desired, sitting with her hands together in her
lap, her countenance troubled a little, wishing to smile, yet not quite
venturing. And he told his story, told it in all details, with figures
that filled the mouth, that rolled forth like gold upon the bank-scales.

‘This is mine,’ he said, ‘mine and yours.’

Have you seen a child listening to a long fairy tale, every page a
new adventure of wizardry, a story of elf, or mermaid, or gnome, of
treasures underground guarded by enchanted monsters, of bells heard
silverly in the depth of old forests, of castles against the sunset,
of lakes beneath the quiet moon? Know you how light gathers in the eyes
dreaming on vision after vision, ever more intensely realised, yet ever
of an unknown world? How, when at length the reader’s voice is silent,
the eyes still see, the ears still hear, until a movement breaks the
spell, and with a deep, involuntary sigh the little one gazes here and
there, wondering?

So Emma listened, and so she came back to consciousness, looking about
the room, incredulous. Had she been overcome with weariness? Had she
slept and dreamt?

One of the children stirred and uttered a little wailing sound. She
stepped lightly to the bedside, bent for a moment, saw that all was
well again, and came back on tip-toe. The simple duty had quieted her
throbbing heart. She seated herself as before.

‘What about the country house now?’ said Richard.

‘I don’t know what to say. It’s more than I can take into my head.’

‘You’re not going to say, like mother did, that it was the worst piece
of news she’d ever heard?’

‘Your mother said that?’

Emma was startled. Had her thought passed lightly over some danger? She
examined her mind rapidly.

‘I suppose she said it,’ Richard explained, ‘just because she didn’t
know what else to say, that’s about the truth. But there certainly is
one thing I’m a little anxious about, myself. I don’t care for either
Alice or ‘Arry to know the details of this windfall. They won’t come in
for their share till they’re of age, and it’s just as well they should
think it’s only a moderate little sum. So don’t talk about it, Emma.’

The girl was still musing on Mrs. Mutimer’s remark; she merely shook her
head.

‘You didn’t think you were going to marry a man with his thousands
and be a lady? Well, I shall have more to say in a day or two. But at
present my idea is that mother and the rest of them shall go into a
larger house, and that you and Kate and Jane shall take our place. I
don’t know how long it’ll be before those Eldon people can get out
of Wanley Manor, but as soon as they do, why then there’s nothing to
prevent you and me going into it. Will that suit you, Em?’

‘We shall really live in that big house?’

‘Certainly we shall. I’ve got a life’s work before me there, as far as
I can see at present. The furniture belongs to Mrs. Eldon, I believe;
we’ll furnish the place to suit ourselves.’

‘May I tell my sisters, Richard?’

‘Just tell them that I’ve come in for some money and a house, perhaps
that’s enough. And look here, I’ll leave you this five-pound note to go
on with. You must get Jane whatever the doctor says. And throw all that
sewing out of the windows; we’ll have no more convict labour. Tell Jane
to get well just as soon as it suits her.’

‘But--all this money?’

‘I’ve plenty. The lawyer advanced me some for present needs. Now it’s
getting late, I must go. I’ll write and tell you when I shall be home
again.’

He held out his hand, but the girl embraced him with the restrained
tenderness which in her spoke so eloquently.

‘Are you glad, Emma?’ he asked.

‘Very glad, for your sake.’

‘And just a bit for your own, eh?’

‘I never thought about money,’ she answered. ‘It was quite enough to be
your wife.’

It was the simple truth.



CHAPTER VI



At eleven o’clock the next morning Richard presented himself at the door
of a house in Avenue Road, St. John’s Wood, and expressed a desire to
see Mr. Westlake. That gentleman was at home; he received the visitor
in his study--a spacious room luxuriously furnished, with a large
window looking upon a lawn. The day was sunny and warm, but a clear
fire equalised the temperature of the room. There was an odour of good
tobacco, always most delightful when it blends with the scent of rich
bindings.

It was Richard’s first visit to this house. A few days ago he would,
in spite of himself, have been somewhat awed by the man-servant at the
door, the furniture of the hall, the air of refinement in the room he
entered. At present he smiled on everything. Could he not command the
same as soon as he chose?

Mr. Westlake rose from his writing-table and greeted his visitor with a
hearty grip of the hand. He was a man pleasant to look upon; his face,
full of intellect, shone with the light of good-will, and the easy
carelessness of his attire prepared one for the genial sincerity which
marked his way of speaking. He wore a velvet jacket, a grey waistcoat
buttoning up to the throat, grey trousers, fur-bordered slippers; his
collar was very deep, and instead of the ordinary shirt-cuffs, his
wrists were enclosed in frills. Long-haired, full-bearded, he had
the forehead of an idealist and eyes whose natural expression was an
indulgent smile.

A man of letters, he had struggled from obscure poverty to success and
ample means; at three-and-thirty he was still hard pressed to make both
ends meet, but the ten subsequent years had built for him this pleasant
home and banished his long familiar anxieties to the land of nightmare.
‘It came just in time,’ he was in the habit of saying to those who had
his confidence. ‘I was at the point where a man begins to turn sour, and
I should have soured in earnest.’ The process had been most effectually
arrested. People were occasionally found to say that his books had a
tang of acerbity; possibly this was the safety-valve at work, a hint of
what might have come had the old hunger-demons kept up their goading. In
the man himself you discovered an extreme simplicity of feeling, a
frank tenderness, a noble indignation. For one who knew him it was not
difficult to understand that he should have taken up extreme social
views, still less that he should act upon his convictions. All his
writing foretold such a possibility, though on the other hand it
exhibited devotion to forms of culture which do not as a rule predispose
to democratic agitation. The explanation was perhaps too simple to be
readily hit upon; the man was himself so supremely happy that with his
disposition the thought of tyrannous injustice grew intolerable to him.
Some incidents happened to set his wrath blazing, and henceforth, in
spite of not a little popular ridicule and much shaking of the head
among his friends, Mr. Westlake had his mission.

‘I have come to ask your advice and help,’ began Mutimer with
directness. He was conscious of the necessity of subduing his voice, and
had a certain pleasure in the ease with which he achieved this feat. It
would not have been so easy a day or two ago.

‘Ah, about this awkward affair of yours,’ observed Mr. Westlake with
reference to Richard’s loss of his employment, of which, as editor of
the Union’s weekly paper, he had of course at once been apprised.

‘No, not about that. Since then a very unexpected thing has happened to
me.’

The story was once more related, vastly to Mr. Westlake’s satisfaction.
Cheerful news concerning his friends always put him in the best of
spirits.

He shook his head, laughing.

‘Come, come, Mutimer, this’ll never do! I’m not sure that we shall not
have to consider your expulsion from the Union.’

Richard went on to mention the matters of legal routine in which he
hoped Mr. Westlake would serve him. These having been settled--

‘I wish to speak of something more important,’ he said. ‘You take it
for granted, I hope, that I’m not going to make the ordinary use of this
fortune. As yet I’ve only been able to hit on a few general ideas; I’m
clear as to the objects I shall keep before me, but how best to serve
them wants more reflection. I thought if I talked it over with you in
the first place--’

The door opened, and a lady half entered the room.

‘Oh, I thought you were alone,’ she remarked to Mr. Westlake. ‘Forgive
me!’

‘Come in! Here’s our friend Mutimer. You know Mrs. Westlake?’

A few words had passed between this lady and Richard in the lecture-room
a few weeks before. She was not frequently present at such meetings,
but had chanced, on the occasion referred to, to hear Mutimer deliver an
harangue.

‘You have no objection to talk of your plans? Join our council, will
you?’ he added to his wife. ‘Our friend brings interesting news.’

Mrs. Westlake walked across the room to the curved window-seat. Her
age could scarcely be more than three- or four-and-twenty; she was very
dark, and her face grave almost to melancholy. Black hair, cut short at
its thickest behind her neck, gave exquisite relief to features of the
purest Greek type. In listening to anything that held her attention her
eyes grew large, and their dark orbs seemed to dream passionately. The
white swan’s down at her throat--she was perfectly attired--made the
skin above resemble rich-hued marble, and indeed to gaze at her long was
to be impressed as by the sad loveliness of a supreme work of art. As
Mutimer talked she leaned forward, her elbow on her knee, the back of
her hand supporting her chin.

Her husband recounted what Richard had told him, and the latter
proceeded to sketch the projects he had in view.

‘My idea is,’ he said, ‘to make the mines at Wanley the basis of great
industrial undertakings, just as any capitalist might, but to conduct
these undertakings in a way consistent with our views. I would begin by
building furnaces, and in time add engineering works on a large scale.
I would build houses for the men, and in fact make that valley an
industrial settlement conducted on Socialist principles. Practically
I can devote the whole of my income; my personal expenses will not be
worth taking into account. The men must be paid on a just scheme,
and the margin of profit that remains, all that we can spare from the
extension of the works, shall be devoted to the Socialist propaganda. In
fact, I should like to make the executive committee of the Union a sort
of board of directors--and in a very different sense from the usual--for
the Wanley estate. My personal expenditure deducted, I should like such
a committee to have the practical control of funds. All this wealth was
made by plunder of the labouring class, and I shall hold it as trustee
for them. Do these ideas seem to you of a practical colour?’

Mr. Westlake nodded slowly twice. His wife kept her listening attitude
unchanged; her eyes ‘dreamed against a distant goal.’

‘As I see the scheme,’ pursued Richard, who spoke all along somewhat in
the lecture-room tone, the result of a certain embarrassment, ‘it will
differ considerably from the Socialist experiments we know of. We shall
be working not only to support ourselves, but every bit as much set on
profit as any capitalist in Belwick. The difference is, that the profit
will benefit no individual, but the Cause. There’ll be no attempt
to carry out the idea of every man receiving the just outcome of his
labour; not because I shouldn’t be willing to share in that way, but
simply because we have a greater end in view than to enrich ourselves.
Our men must all be members of the Union, and their prime interest must
be the advancement of the principles of the Union. We shall be able to
establish new papers, to hire halls, and to spread ourselves over the
country. It’ll be fighting the capitalist manufacturers with their own
weapons. I can see plenty of difficulties, of course. All England ‘ll be
against us. Never mind, we’ll defy them all, and we’ll win. It’ll be the
work of my life, and we’ll see if an honest purpose can’t go as far as a
thievish one.’

The climax would have brought crashing cheers at Commonwealth Hall;
in Mr. Westlake’s study it was received with well-bred expressions of
approval.

‘Well, Mutimer,’ exclaimed the idealist, ‘all this is intensely
interesting, and right glorious for us. One sees at last a possibility
of action. I ask nothing better than to be allowed to work with you. It
happens very luckily that you are a practical engineer. I suppose
the mechanical details of the undertaking are entirely within your
province.’

‘Not quite, at present,’ Mutimer admitted, ‘but I shall have valuable
help. Yesterday I had a meeting with a man named Rodman, a mining
engineer, who has been working on the estate. He seems just the man I
shall want; a Socialist already, and delighted to join in the plans I
just hinted to him.’

‘Capital! Do you propose, then, that we shall call a special meeting of
the Committee? Or would you prefer to suggest a committee of your own?’

‘No, I think our own committee will do very well, at all events for the
present. The first thing, of course, is to get the financial details
of our scheme put into shape. I go to Belwick again this afternoon; my
solicitor must get his business through as soon as possible.’

‘You will reside for the most part at Wanley?’

‘At the Manor, yes. It is occupied just now, but I suppose will soon be
free.’

‘Do you know that part of the country, Stella?’ Mr. Westlake asked of
his wife.

She roused herself, drawing in her breath, and uttered a short negative.

‘As soon as I get into the house,’ Richard resumed to Mr. Westlake,
‘I hope you’ll come and examine the place. It’s unfortunate that the
railway misses it by about three miles, but Rodman tells me we can
easily run a private line to Agworth station. However, the first thing
is to get our committee at work on the scheme.’ Richard repeated this
phrase with gusto. ‘Perhaps you could bring it up at the Saturday
meeting?’

‘You’ll be in town on Saturday?’

‘Yes; I have a lecture in Islington on Sunday.’

‘Saturday will do, then. Is this confidential?’

‘Not at all. We may as well get as much encouragement out of it as we
can. Don’t you think so?’

‘Certainly.’

Richard did not give expression to his thought that a paragraph on the
subject in the Union’s weekly organ, the ‘Fiery Cross,’ might be the
best way of promoting such encouragement; but he delayed his departure
for a few minutes with talk round about the question of the prudence
which must necessarily be observed in publishing a project so
undigested. Mr. Westlake, who was responsible for the paper, was not
likely to transgress the limits of good taste, and when Richard, on
Saturday morning, searched eagerly the columns of the ‘Cross,’ he was
not altogether satisfied with the extreme discretion which marked a
brief paragraph among those headed: ‘From Day to Day.’ However, many
of the readers were probably by that time able to supply the missing
proper-name.

It was not the fault of Daniel Dabbs if members of the Hoxton and
Islington branch of the Union read the paragraph without understanding
to whom it referred. Daniel was among the first to hear of what had
befallen the Mutimer family, and from the circle of his fellow-workmen
the news spread quickly. Talk was rife on the subject of Mutimer’s
dismissal from Longwood Brothers’, and the sensational rumour
which followed so quickly found an atmosphere well prepared for its
transmission. Hence the unusual concourse at the meeting-place in
Islington next Sunday evening, where, as it became known to others
besides Socialists, Mutimer was engaged to lecture. Richard experienced
some vexation that his lecture was not to be at Commonwealth Hall, where
the gathering would doubtless have been much larger.

The Union was not wealthy. The central hall was rented at Mr. Westlake’s
expense; two or three branches were managing with difficulty to support
regular places of assembly, such as could not being obliged as yet to
content themselves with open-air lecturing. In Islington the leaguers
met in a room behind a coffee-shop, ordinarily used for festive
purposes; benches were laid across the floor, and an estrade at the
upper end exalted chairman and lecturer. The walls were adorned with
more or less striking advertisements of non-alcoholic beverages, and
with a few prints from the illustrated papers. The atmosphere was
tobaccoey, and the coffee-shop itself, through which the visitors had to
make their way, suggested to the nostrils that bloaters are the working
man’s chosen delicacy at Sunday tea. A table just within the door of the
lecture-room exposed for sale sundry Socialist publications, the latest
issue of the ‘Fiery Cross’ in particular.

Richard was wont to be among the earliest arrivals: to-night he was
full ten minutes behind the hour for which the lecture was advertised.
A group of friends were standing about the table near the door; they
received him with a bustle which turned all eyes thitherwards. He walked
up the middle of the room to the platform. As soon as he was well in
the eye of the meeting, a single pair of hands--Daniel Dabbs owned
them--gave the signal for uproar; feet made play on the boarding, and
one or two of the more enthusiastic revolutionists fairly gave tongue.
Richard seated himself with grave countenance, and surveyed the
assembly; from fifty to sixty people were present, among them three or
four women, and the number continued to grow. The chairman and one or
two leading spirits had followed Mutimer to the place of distinction,
where they talked with him.

Punctuality was not much regarded at these meetings; the lecture was
announced for eight, but rarely began before half-past The present being
an occasion of exceptional interest, twenty minutes past the hour saw
the chairman rise for his prefatory remarks. He was a lank man of jovial
countenance and jerky enunciation. There was no need, he observed, to
introduce a friend and comrade so well known to them as the lecturer of
the evening. ‘We’re always glad to hear him, and to-night, if I may
be allowed to ‘int as much, we’re _particularly_ glad to hear him.
Our friend and comrade is going to talk to us about the Land. It’s a
question we can’t talk or think too much about, and Comrade Mutimer has
thought about it as much and more than any of us, I think I may say.
I don’t know,’ the chairman added, with a sly look across the room,
‘whether our friend’s got any new views on this subject of late. I
shouldn’t wonder if he had.’ Here sounded a roar of laughter, led off by
Daniel Dabbs. ‘Hows’ever, be that as it may, we can answer for it as
any views he may hold is the right views, and the honest views, and
the views of a man as means to do a good deal more than talk about his
convictions!’

Again did the stentor-note of Daniel ring forth, and it was amid
thunderous cheering that Richard left his chair and moved to the front
of the platform. His Sunday suit of black was still that with which his
friends were familiar, but his manner, though the audience probably did
not perceive the detail, was unmistakably hanged. He had been wont to
begin his address with short, stinging periods, with sneers and such
bitterness of irony as came within his compass. To-night he struck quite
another key, mellow, confident, hinting at personal satisfaction; a
smile was on his lips, and not a smile of scorn. He rested one hand
against his side, holding in the other a scrap of paper with jotted
items of reasoning. His head was thrown a little back; he viewed the
benches from beneath his eyelids. True, the pose maintained itself but
for a moment. I mention it because it was something new in Richard.

He spoke of the land; he attacked the old monopoly, and visioned a time
when a claim to individual ownerships of the earth’s surface would be as
ludicrous as were now the assertion of title to a fee-simple
somewhere in the moon. He mustered statistics; he adduced historic and
contemporary example of the just and the unjust in land-holding; he
gripped the throat of a certain English duke, and held him up for
flagellation; he drifted into oceans of economic theory; he sat down
by the waters of Babylon; he climbed Pisgah. Had he but spoken of
backslidings in the wilderness! But for that fatal omission, the lecture
was, of its kind, good. By degrees Richard forgot his pose and the
carefully struck note of mellowness; he began to believe what he was
saying, and to say it with the right vigour of popular oratory. Forget
his struggles with the h-fiend; forget his syntactical lapses; you saw
that after all the man had within him a clear flame of conscience; that
he had felt before speaking that speech was one of the uses for which
Nature had expressly framed him. His invective seldom degenerated into
vulgar abuse; one discerned in him at least the elements of what we call
good taste; of simple manliness he disclosed not a little; he had some
command of pathos. In conclusion, he finished without reference to his
personal concerns.

The chairman invited questions, preliminary to debate.

He rose half-way down the room,--the man who invariably rises on
these occasions. He was oldish, with bent shoulders, and wore
spectacles--probably a clerk of forty years’ standing. In his hand was
a small note-book, which he consulted. He began with measured utterance,
emphatic, loud.

‘I wish to propose to the lecturer seven questions. I will read them in
order; I have taken some pains to word them clearly.’

Richard has his scrap of paper on his knee. He jots a word or two after
each deliberate interrogation, smiling.

Other questioners succeeded. Richard replies to them. He fails to
satisfy the man of seven queries, who, after repeating this and the
other of the seven, professes himself still unsatisfied, shakes his head
indulgently, walks from the room.

The debate is opened. Behold a second inevitable man; he is not
well-washed, his shirt-front shows a beer-stain; he is angry before he
begins.

‘I don’t know whether a man as doesn’t ‘old with these kind o’ theories
‘ll be allowed a fair ‘earin--’

Indignant interruption. Cries of ‘Of course he will!’--‘Who ever refused
to hear you?’--and the like.

He is that singular phenomenon, that self-contradiction, that expression
insoluble into factors of common-sense--the Conservative working man.
What do they want to be at? he demands. Do they suppose as this kind of
talk ‘ll make wages higher, or enable the poor man to get his beef and
beer at a lower rate? What’s the d--d good of it all? Figures, oh? He
never heered yet as figures made a meal for a man as hadn’t got one; nor
yet as they provided shoes and stockings for his young ‘uns at ‘ome. It
made him mad to listen, that it did! Do they suppose as the rich man ‘ll
give up the land, if they talk till all’s blue? Wasn’t it human natur to
get all you can and stick to it?

‘Pig’s nature!’ cries someone from the front benches.

‘There!’ comes the rejoinder. ‘Didn’t I say as there was no fair ‘earing
for a man as didn’t say just what suits you?’

The voice of Daniel Dabbs is loud in good-tempered mockery. Mockery
comes from every side, an angry note here and there, for the most part
tolerant, jovial.

‘Let him speak! ‘Ear him! Hoy! Hoy!’

The chairman interposes, but by the time that order is restored the
Conservative working man has thrust his hat upon his head and is off to
the nearest public-house, muttering oaths.

Mr. Cullen rises, at the same time rises Mr. Cowes. These two gentlemen
are fated to rise simultaneously. They scowl at each other. Mr. Cullen
begins to speak, and Mr. Cowes, after a circular glance of protest,
resumes his seat. The echoes tell that we are in for oratory with a
vengeance. Mr. Cullen is a short, stout man, very seedily habited, with
a great rough head of hair, an aquiline nose, lungs of vast power. His
vein is King Cambyses’; he tears passion to tatters; he roars leonine;
he is your man to have at the pamper’d jades of Asia! He has got hold
of a new word, and that the verb to ‘exploit.’ I am exploited, thou art
exploited,--_he_ exploits! Who? Why, such men as that English duke whom
the lecturer gripped and flagellated. The English duke is Mr. Cullen’s
bugbear; never a speech from Mr. Cullen but that duke is most horribly
mauled. His ground rents,--yah! Another word of which Mr. Cullen is
fond is ‘strattum,’--usually spelt and pronounced with but one t midway.
You and I have the misfortune to belong to a social ‘strattum’ which is
trampled flat and hard beneath the feet of the landowners. Mr. Cullen
rises to such a point of fury that one dreads the consequences--to
himself. Already the chairman is on his feet, intimating in dumb show
that the allowed ten minutes have elapsed; there is no making the orator
hear. At length his friend who sits by him fairly grips his coat-tails
and brings him to a sitting posture, amid mirthful tumult. Mr. Cullen
joins in the mirth, looks as though he had never been angry in his life.
And till next Sunday comes round he will neither speak nor think of the
social question.

Mr. Cowes is unopposed. After the preceding enthusiast, the voice of
Mr. Cowes falls soothingly as a stream among the heather. He is tall,
meagre, bald; he wears a very broad black necktie, his hand saws up
and down. Mr. Cowes’ tone is the quietly venomous; in a few minutes you
believe in his indignation far more than in that of Mr. Cullen. He makes
a point and pauses to observe the effect upon his hearers. He prides
himself upon his grammar, goes back to correct a concord, emphasises
eccentricities of pronunciation; for instance, he accents ‘capitalist’
on the second syllable, and repeats the words with grave challenge to
all and sundry. Speaking of something which he wishes to stigmatise as a
misnomer, he exclaims: ‘It’s what I call a misnomy!’ And he follows the
assertion with an awful suspense of utterance. He brings his speech to
a close exactly with the end of the tenth minute, and, on sitting down,
eyes his unknown neighbour with wrathful intensity for several moments.

Who will follow? A sound comes from the very back of the room, such a
sound that every head turns in astonished search for the source of it.
Such voice has the wind in garret-chimneys on a winter night. It is a
thin wail, a prelude of lamentation; it troubles the blood. The speaker
no one seems to know; he is a man of yellow visage, with head sunk
between pointed shoulders, on his crown a mere scalp-lock. He seems to
be afflicted with a disease of the muscles; his malformed body quivers,
the hand he raises shakes paralytic. His clothes are of the meanest;
what his age may be it is impossible to judge. As his voice gathers
strength, the hearers begin to feel the influence of a terrible
earnestness. He does not rant, he does not weigh his phrases; the
stream of bitter prophecy flows on smooth and dark. He is supplying the
omission in Mutimer’s harangue, is bidding his class know itself and
chasten itself, as an indispensable preliminary to any great change in
the order of things. He cries vanity upon all these detailed schemes of
social reconstruction. Are we ready for it? he wails. Could we bear it,
if they granted it to us? It is all good and right, but hadn’t we
better first make ourselves worthy of such freedom? He begins a terrible
arraignment of the People,--then, of a sudden, his voice has ceased. You
could hear a pin drop. It is seen that the man has fallen to the ground;
there arises a low moaning; people press about him.

They carry him into the coffee-shop. It was a fit. In five minutes he is
restored, but does not come back to finish his speech.

There is an interval of disorder. But surely we are not going to let the
meeting end in this way. The chairman calls for the next speaker, and
he stands forth in the person of a rather smug little shopkeeper, who
declares that he knows of no single particular in which the working
class needs correction. The speech undeniably falls fiat. Will no one
restore the tone of the meeting?

Mr. Kitshaw is the man! Now we shall have broad grins. Mr. Kitshaw
enjoys a reputation for mimicry; he takes off music-hall singers in the
bar-parlour of a Saturday night. Observe, he rises, hems, pulls down
his waistcoat; there is bubbling laughter. Mr. Kitshaw brings back the
debate to its original subject; he talks of the Land. He is a little
haphazard at first, but presently hits the mark in a fancy picture of
a country still in the hands of aborigines, as yet unannexed by the
capitalist nations, knowing not the meaning of the verb ‘exploit.’

‘Imagine such a happy land, my friends; a land, I say, which nobody
hasn’t ever thought of “developing the resources” of,--that’s the
proper phrase, I believe. There are the people, with clothing enough for
comfort and--ahem!--good manners, but, mark you, no more. No manufacture
of luxurious skirts and hulsters and togs o’ that kind by the exploited
classes. No, for no exploited classes don’t exist! All are equal, my
friends. Up an’ down the fields they goes, all day long, arm-in-arm,
Jack and Jerry, aye, and Liza an’ Sairey Ann; for they have equality of
the sexes, mind you! Up an’ down the fields, I say, in a devil-may-care
sort of way, with their sweethearts and their wives. No factory smoke,
dear no! There’s the rivers, with tropical plants a-shading the banks,
O my! There they goes up an’ down in their boats, devil-may-care,
a-strumming on the banjo,’--he imitated such action,--‘and a-singing
their nigger minstrelsy with light ‘earts. Why? ‘Cause they ain’t got
no work to get up to at ‘arf-past five next morning. Their time’s their
own! _That’s_ the condition of an unexploited country, my friends!’

Mr. Kitshaw had put everyone in vast good humour. You might wonder that
his sweetly idyllic picture did not stir bitterness by contrast; it were
to credit the English workman with too much imagination. Resonance
of applause rewarded the sparkling rhetorician. A few of the audience
availed themselves of the noise to withdraw, for the clock showed that
it was close upon ten, and public-houses shut their doors early on
Sunday.

But Richard Mutimer was on his feet again, and this time without regard
to effect; there was a word in him strongly demanding utterance. It was
to the speech of the unfortunate prophet that he desired to reply. He
began with sorrowful admissions. No one speaking honestly could deny
that--that the working class had its faults; they came out plainly
enough now and then. Drink, for instance (Mr. Cullen gave a resounding
‘Hear, hear!’ and a stamp on the boards). What sort of a spectacle would
be exhibited by the public-houses in Hoxton and Islington at closing
time to-night? [‘True!’ from Mr. Cowes, who also stamped on the boards.)
Yes, but--Richard used the device of aposiopesis; Daniel Dabbs took it
for a humorous effect and began a roar, which was summarily interdicted.
‘But,’ pursued Richard with emphasis, ‘what is the meaning of these
vices? What do they come of? Who’s to blame for them? Not the working
class--never tell me! What drives a man to drink in his spare hours?
What about the poisonous air of garrets and cellars? What about
excessive toil and inability to procure healthy recreation? What
about defects of education, due to poverty? What about diseased bodies
inherited from over-slaved parents?’ Messrs. Cowes and Cullen had
accompanied these queries with a climax of vociferous approval; when
Richard paused, they led the tumult of hands and heels. ‘Look at that
poor man who spoke to us!’ cried Mutimer. ‘He’s gone, so I shan’t hurt
him by speaking plainly. He spoke well, mind you, and he spoke from his
heart; but what sort of a life has his been, do you think? A wretched
cripple, a miserable weakling no doubt from the day of his birth, cursed
in having ever seen the daylight, and, such as he is, called upon to
fight for his bread. Much of it he gets! Who would blame that man if he
drank himself into unconsciousness every time he picked up a sixpence?’
Cowes and Cullen bellowed their delight. ‘Well, he doesn’t do it; so
much you can be sure of. In some vile hole here in this great city of
ours he drags on a life worse--aye, a thousand times worse!--than that
of the horses in the West-end mews. Don’t clap your hands so much,
fellow-workers. Just think about it on your way home; talk about it to
your wives and your children. It’s the sight of objects like that that
makes my blood boil, and that’s set me in earnest at this work of ours.
I feel for that man and all like him as if they were my brothers. And I
take you all to witness, all you present and all you repeat my words
to, that I’ll work on as long as I have life in me, that I’ll use
every opportunity that’s given me to uphold the cause of the poor and
down-trodden against the rich and selfish and luxurious, that if I live
another fifty years I shall still be of the people and with the people,
that no man shall ever have it in his power to say that Richard Mutimer
misused his chances and was only a new burden to them whose load he
might have lightened!’

There was nothing for it but to leap on to the very benches and yell as
long as your voice would hold out.

After that the meeting was mere exuberance of mutual congratulations.
Mr. Cullen was understood to be moving the usual vote of thanks, but
even his vocal organs strove hard for little purpose. Daniel Dabbs
had never made a speech in his life, but excitement drove him on the
honourable post of seconder. The chairman endeavoured to make certain
announcements; then the assembly broke up. The estrade was invaded;
everybody wished to shake hands with Mutimer. Mr. Cullen tried to obtain
Richard’s attention to certain remarks of value; failing, he went off
with a scowl. Mr. Cowes attempted to button-hole the popular hero;
finding Richard conversing with someone else at the same time, he turned
away with a covert sneer. The former of the two worthies had desired to
insist upon every member of the Union becoming a teetotaller; the latter
wished to say that he thought it would be well if a badge of temperance
were henceforth worn by Unionists. On turning away, each glanced at the
clock and hurried his step.

In a certain dark street not very far from the lecture-room Mr. Cullen
rose on tip-toe at the windows of a dull little public-house. A Unionist
was standing at the bar; Mr. Cullen hurried on, into a street yet
darker. Again he tip-toed at a window. The glimpse reassured him; he
passed quickly through the doorway, stepped to the bar, gave an order.
Then he turned, and behold, on a seat just under the window sat Mr.
Cowes, & short pipe in his mouth, a smoking tumbler held on his knee.
The supporters of total abstinence nodded to each other, with a slight
lack of spontaneity. Mr. Cullen, having secured his own tumbler, came by
his comrade’s side.

‘Deal o’ fine talk to wind up with,’ he remarked tentatively.

‘He means what he says,’ returned the other gravely.

‘Oh yes,’ Mr. Cullen hastened to admit. ‘Mutimer means what he says!
Only the way of saying it, I meant--I’ve got a bit of a sore throat.’

‘So have I. After that there hot room.’

They nodded at each other sympathetically. Mr. Cullen filled a little
black pipe.

‘Got alight?’

Mr. Cowes offered the glowing bowl of his own clay; they put their noses
together and blew a cloud.

‘Of course there’s no saying what time ‘ll do,’ observed tall Mr. Cowes,
sententiously, after a gulp of warm liquor.

‘No more there is,’ assented short Mr. Cullen with half a wink.

‘It’s easy to promise.’

‘As easy as tellin’ lies.’

Another silence.

‘Don’t suppose you and me ‘ll get much of it,’ Mr. Cowes ventured to
observe.

‘About as much as you can put in your eye without winkin’,’ was the
other’s picturesque agreement.

They talked till closing time.



CHAPTER VII



One morning late in June, Hubert Eldon passed through the gates of
Wanley Manor and walked towards the village. It was the first time since
his illness that he had left the grounds on foot. He was very thin,
and had an absent, troubled look; the natural cheerfulness of youth’s
convalescence seemed altogether lacking in him.

From a rising point of the road, winding between the Manor and Wanley,
a good view of the valley offered itself; here Hubert paused, leaning
a little on his stick, and let his eyes dwell upon the prospect. A year
ago he had stood here and enjoyed the sweep of meadows between Stanbury
Hill and the wooded slope opposite, the orchard-patches, the flocks
along the margin of the little river. To-day he viewed a very different
scene. Building of various kinds was in progress in the heart of the
vale; a great massive chimney was rising to completion, and about it
stood a number of sheds. Beyond was to be seen the commencement of a
street of small houses, promising infinite ugliness in a little space;
the soil over a considerable area was torn up and trodden into mud. A
number of men were at work; carts and waggons and trucks were moving
about. In truth, the benighted valley was waking up and donning the true
nineteenth-century livery.

The young man’s face, hitherto thoughtfully sad, changed to an
expression of bitterness; he muttered what seemed to be angry and
contemptuous words, then averted his eyes and walked on. He entered the
village street and passed along it for some distance, his fixed gaze
appearing studiously to avoid the people who stood about or walked by
him. There was a spot of warm colour on his cheeks; he held himself very
upright and had a painfully self-conscious air.

He stopped before a dwelling-house, rang the bell, and made inquiry
whether Mr. Mutimer was at home. The reply being affirmative, he
followed the servant up to the first floor. His name was announced at
the door of a sitting-room, and he entered.

Two men were conversing in the room. One sat at the table with a sheet
of paper before him, sketching a rough diagram and scribbling notes;
this was Richard Mutimer. He was dressed in a light tweed suit; his fair
moustache and beard were trimmed, and the hand which rested on the table
was no longer that of a daily-grimed mechanic. His linen was admirably
starched; altogether he had a very fresh and cool appearance. His
companion was astride on a chair, his arms resting on the back, a pipe
in his mouth. This man was somewhat older than Mutimer; his countenance
indicated shrewdness and knowledge of the world. He was dark and
well-featured, his glossy black hair was parted in the middle, his
moustache of the cut called imperial, his beard short and peaked. He
wore a canvas jacket, a white waistcoat and knickerbockers; at his
throat a blue necktie fluttered loose. When Hubert’s name was announced
by the servant, this gentleman stopped midway in a sentence, took his
pipe from his lips, and looked to the door with curiosity.

Mutimer rose and addressed his visitor easily indeed, but not
discourteously.

‘How do you do, Mr. Eldon? I’m glad to see that you are so much better.
Will you sit down? I think you know Mr. Rodman, at all events by name?’

Hubert assented by gesture. He had come prepared for disagreeable
things in this his first meeting with Mutimer, but the honour of an
introduction to the latter’s friends had not been included in his
anticipations. Mr. Rodman had risen and bowed slightly. His smile
carried a disagreeable suggestion from which Mutimer’s behaviour was
altogether free; he rather seemed to enjoy the situation.

For a moment there was silence and embarrassment. Richard overcame the
difficulty.

‘Come and dine with me to-night, will you?’ he said to Rodman. ‘Here,
take this plan with you, and think it over.’

‘Pray don’t let me interfere with your business,’ interposed Hubert,
with scrupulous politeness. ‘I could see you later, Mr. Mutimer.’

‘No, no; Rodman and I have done for the present,’ said Mutimer,
cheerfully. ‘By-the-by,’ he added, as his right-hand man moved to the
door, ‘don’t forget to drop a line to Slater and Smith. And, I say, if
Hogg turns up before two o’clock, send him here; I’ll be down with you
by half-past.’

Mr. Rodman gave an ‘All right,’ nodded to Hubert, who paid no attention,
and took his departure.

‘You’ve had a long pull of it,’ Richard began, as he took his chair
again, and threw his legs into an easy position. ‘Shall I close the
windows? Maybe you don’t like the draught.’

‘Thank you; I feel no draught.’

The working man had the advantage as yet. Hubert in vain tried to be
at ease, whilst Mutimer was quite himself, and not ungraceful in
his assumption of equality. For one thing, Hubert could not avoid
a comparison between his own wasted frame and the other’s splendid
physique; it heightened the feeling of antagonism which possessed him in
advance, and provoked the haughtiness he had resolved to guard against.
The very lineaments of the men foretold mutual antipathy. Hubert’s
extreme delicacy of feature was the outward expression of a character
so compact of subtleties and refinements, of high prejudice and jealous
sensibility, of spiritual egoism and all-pervading fastidiousness,
that it was impossible for him not to regard with repugnance a man who
represented the combative principle, even the triumph, of the uncultured
classes. He was no hidebound aristocrat; the liberal tendencies of his
intellect led him to scorn the pageantry of long-descended fools as
strongly as he did the blind image-breaking of the mob; but in a case
of personal relations temperament carried it over judgment in a very
high-handed way. Youth and disappointment weighed in the scale of
unreason. Mutimer, on the other hand, though fortune helped him to
forbearance, saw, or believed he saw, the very essence of all he most
hated in this proud-eyed representative of a county family. His own
rough-sculptured comeliness corresponded to the vigour and practicality
and zeal of a nature which cared nothing for form and all for substance;
the essentials of life were to him the only things in life, instead
of, as to Hubert Eldon, the mere brute foundation of an artistic super
structure. Richard read clearly enough the sentiments with which his
visitor approached him; who that is the object of contempt does not
readily perceive it? His way of revenging himself was to emphasise a
tone of good fellowship, to make it evident how well he could afford
to neglect privileged insolence. In his heart he triumphed over the
disinherited aristocrat; outwardly he was civil, even friendly.

Hubert had made this call with a special purpose.

‘I am charged by Mrs. Eldon,’ he began, ‘to thank you for the courtesy
you have shown her during my illness. My own thanks likewise I hope you
will accept. We have caused you, I fear, much inconvenience.’

Richard found himself envying the form and tone of this deliverance; he
gathered his beard in his hands and gave it a tug.

‘Not a bit of it,’ he replied. ‘I am very comfortable here. A bedroom
and a place for work, that’s about all I want.’

Hubert barely smiled. He wondered whether the mention of work was meant
to suggest comparisons. He hastened to add--

‘On Monday we hope to leave the Manor.’

‘No need whatever for hurry,’ observed Mutimer, good-humouredly. ‘Please
tell Mrs. Eldon that I hope she will take her own time.’ On reflection
this seemed rather an ill-chosen phrase; he bettered it. ‘I should be
very sorry if she inconvenienced herself on my account.’

‘Confound the fellow’s impudence!’ was Hubert’s mental comment. ‘He
plays the forbearing landlord.’

His spoken reply was: ‘It is very kind of you. I foresee no difficulty
in completing the removal on Monday.’

In view of Mutimer’s self-command, Hubert began to be aware that his own
constraint might carry the air of petty resentment Fear of that drove
him upon a topic he would rather have left alone.

‘You are changing the appearance of the valley,’ he said, veiling by his
tone the irony which was evident in his choice of words.

Richard glanced at him, then walked to the window, with his hands in
his pockets, and gave himself the pleasure of a glimpse of the
furnace-chimney above the opposite houses. He laughed.

‘I hope to change it a good deal more. In a year or two you won’t know
the place.’

‘I fear not.’

Mutimer glanced again at his visitor.

‘Why do you fear?’ he asked, with less command of his voice.

‘I of course understand your point of view. Personally, I prefer
nature.’

Hubert endeavoured to smile, that his personal preferences might lose
something of their edge.

‘You prefer nature,’ Mutimer repeated, coming back to his chair, on the
seat of which he rested a foot. ‘Well, I can’t say that I do. The Wanley
Iron Works will soon mean bread to several hundred families; how many
would the grass support?’

‘To be sure,’ assented Hubert, still smiling.

‘You are aware,’ Mutimer proceeded to ask, ‘that this is not a
speculation for my own profit?’

‘I have heard something of your scheme. I trust it will be appreciated.’

‘I dare say it will be--by those who care anything about the welfare of
the people.’

Eldon rose; he could not trust himself to continue the dialogue. He had
expected to meet a man of coarser grain; Mutimer’s intelligence made
impossible the civil condescension which would have served with a boor,
and Hubert found the temptation to pointed utterance all the stronger
for the dangers it involved.

‘I will drop you a note,’ he said, ‘to let you know as soon as the house
is empty.’

‘Thank you.’

They had not shaken hands at meeting, nor did they now. Each felt
relieved when out of the other’s sight.

Hubert turned out of the street into a road which would lead him to the
church, whence there was a field-path back to the Manor. Walking with
his eyes on the ground he did not perceive the tall, dark figure that
approached him as he drew near to the churchyard gate. Mr. Wyvern had
been conducting a burial; he had just left the vestry and was on his way
to the vicarage, which stood five minutes’ walk from the church. Himself
unperceived, he scrutinised the young man until he stood face to face
with him; his deep-voiced greeting caused Hubert to look up’ with a
start.

‘I’m very glad to see you walking,’ said the clergyman.

He took Hubert’s hand and held it paternally in both his own. Eldon
seemed affected with a sudden surprise; as he met the large gaze his
look showed embarrassment.

‘You remember me?’ Mr. Wyvern remarked, his wonted solemnity lightened
by the gleam of a brief smile. Looking closely into his face was like
examining a map in relief; you saw heights and plains, the intersection
of multitudinous valleys, river-courses with their tributaries. It was
the visage of a man of thought and character. His eyes spoke of late
hours and the lamp; beneath each was a heavy pocket of skin, wrinkling
at its juncture with the cheek. His teeth were those of an incessant
smoker, and, in truth, you could seldom come near him without detecting
the odour of tobacco. Despite the amplitude of his proportions, there
was nothing ponderous about him; the great head was finely formed, and
his limbs must at one time have been as graceful as they were muscular.

‘Is this accident,’ Hubert asked; ‘or did you know me at the time?’

‘Accident, pure accident. Will you walk to the vicarage with me?’

They paced side by side.

‘Mrs. Eldon profits by the pleasant weather, I trust?’ the vicar
observed, with grave courtesy.

‘Thank you, I think she does. I shall be glad when she is settled in her
new home.’

They approached the door of the vicarage in silence. Entering Mr. Wyvern
led the way to his study. When he had taken a seat, he appeared to
forget himself for a moment, and played with the end of his bean.

Hubert showed impatient curiosity.

‘You found me there by chance that morning?’ he began.

The clergyman returned to the present. His elbows on either arm of
his round chair, he sat leaning forward, thoughtfully gazing at his
companion.

‘By chance,’ he replied. ‘I sleep badly; so it happened that I was
abroad shortly after daybreak. I was near the edge of the wood when I
heard a pistol-shot. I waited for the second.’

‘We fired together,’ Hubert remarked.

‘Ah! It seemed to me one report. Well, as I stood listening, there came
out from among the trees a man who seemed in a hurry. He was startled at
finding himself face to face with me, but didn’t stop; he said something
rapidly in French that I failed to catch, pointed back into the wood,
and hastened off.’

‘We had no witnesses,’ put in Hubert; ‘and both aimed our best. I wonder
he sent you to look for me.’

‘A momentary weakness, no doubt,’ rejoined the vicar drily. I made my
way among the trees and found you lying there, unconscious. I made some
attempt to stop the blood-flow, then picked you up; it seemed better,
on the whole, than leaving you on the wet grass an indefinite time. Your
overcoat was on the ground; as I took hold of it, two letters fell
from the pocket. I made no scruple about reading the addresses, and was
astonished to find that one was to Mrs. Eldon, at Wanley Manor, Wanley
being the place where I was about to live on my return to England. I
took it for granted that you were Mrs. Eldon’s son. The other letter, as
you know, was to a lady at a hotel in the town.’

Hubert nodded.

‘And you went to her as soon as you left me?’

‘After hearing from the doctor that there was no immediate danger.--The
letters, I suppose, would have announced your death?’

Hubert again inclined his head. The imperturbable gravity of the
speaker had the effect of imposing self-command on the young man; whose
sensitive cheeks showed what was going on within.

‘Will you tell me of your interview with her?’ he asked.

‘It was of the briefest; my French is not fluent.’

‘But she speaks English well.’

‘Probably her distress led her to give preference to her native tongue.
She was anxious to go to you immediately, and I told her where you lay.
I made inquiries next day, and found that she was still giving you
her care. As you were doing well, and I had to be moving homewards, I
thought it better to leave without seeing you again. The innkeeper had
directions to telegraph to me if there was a change for the worse.’

‘My pocket-book saved me,’ remarked Hubert, touching his side.

Mr. Wyvern drew in his lips.

‘Came between that ready-stamped letter and Wanley Manor,’ was his
comment.

There was a brief silence.

‘You allow me a question?’ the vicar resumed. ‘It is with reference to
the French lady.’

‘I think you have every right to question me.’

‘Oh no! It does not concern the events prior to your--accident.’ Mr.
Wyvern savoured the word. ‘How long did she remain in attendance upon
you?’

‘A short time--two day--I did not need--’

Mr. Wyvern motioned with his hand, kindly.

‘Then I was not mistaken,’ he said, averting his eyes for the first
time, ‘in thinking that I saw her in Paris.’

‘In Paris?’ Hubert repeated, with a poor affectation of indifference.

‘I made a short stay before crossing. I had business at a bank one
day; as I stood before the counter a gentleman entered and took a place
beside me. A second look assured me that he was the man who met me at
the edge of the wood that morning. I suppose he remembered me, for
he looked away and moved from me. I left the bank, and found an open
carriage waiting at the door. In it sat the lady of whom we speak. I
took a turn along the pavement and back again. The Frenchman entered the
carriage; they drove away.’

Hubert’s eyes were veiled; he breathed through his nostrils. Again there
was silence.

‘Mr. Eldon,’ resumed the vicar, ‘I was a man of the world before I
became a Churchman; you will notice that I affect no professional tone
in speaking with you, and it is because I know that anything of the kind
would only alienate you. It appeared to me that chance had made me
aware of something it might concern you to hear. I know nothing of the
circumstances of the case, merely offer you the facts.’

‘I thank you,’ was Hubert’s reply in an undertone.

‘It impressed me, that letter ready stamped for Wanley Manor. I thought
of it again after the meeting in Paris.’

‘I understand you. Of course I could explain the necessity. It would be
useless.’

‘Quite. But experience is not, or should not be, useless, especially
when commented on by one who has very much of it behind him.’

Hubert stood up. His mind was in a feverishly active state, seeming to
follow several lines of thought simultaneously. Among other things, he
was wondering how it was that throughout this conversation he had been
so entirely passive. He had never found himself under the influence of
so strong a personality, exerted too in such a strangely quiet way.

‘What are your plans--your own plans?’ Mr. Wyvern inquired.

‘I have none.’

‘Forgive me;--there will be no material difficulties?’

‘None; I have four hundred a year.’

‘You have not graduated yet, I believe?’

‘No. But I hardly think I can go back to school.’

‘Perhaps not. Well, turn things over. I should like to hear from you.’

‘You shall.’

Hubert continued his walk to the Manor. Before the entrance stood
two large furniture-vans; the doorway was littered with materials of
packing, and the hall was full of objects in disorder, footsteps made
a hollow resonance in all parts of the house, for everywhere the long
wonted conditions of sound were disturbed. The library was already
dismantled; here he could close the door and walk about without fear
of intrusion. He would have preferred to remain in the open air, but a
summer shower had just begun as he reached the house. He could not sit
still; the bare floor of the large room met his needs.

His mind’s eye pictured a face which a few months ago had power to lead
him whither it willed, which had in fact led him through strange scenes,
as far from the beaten road of a college curriculum as well could be. It
was a face of foreign type, Jewish possibly, most unlike that ideal of
womanly charm kept in view by one who seeks peace and the heart’s home.
Hubert had entertained no thought of either. The romance which most
young men are content to enjoy in printed pages he had acted out in
his life. He had lived through a glorious madness, as unlike the vulgar
oat-sowing of the average young man of wealth as the latest valse on a
street-organ is unlike a passionate dream of Chopin. However unworthy
the object of his frenzy--and perhaps one were as worthy as another--the
pursuit had borne him through an atmosphere of fire, tempering him
for life, marking him for ever from plodders of the dusty highway. A
reckless passion is a patent of nobility. Whatever existence had in
store for him henceforth, Hubert could feel that he had lived.

An hour’s communing with memory was brought to an end by the ringing
of the luncheon-bell. Since his illness Hubert had taken meals with his
mother in her own sitting-room. Thither he now repaired.

Mrs. Eldon had grown older in appearance since that evening of her son’s
return. Of course she had discovered the cause of his illness, and the
incessant torment of a great fear had been added to what she suffered
from the estrangement between the boy and herself. Her own bodily
weakness had not permitted her to nurse him; she had passed days and
nights in anguish of expectancy. At one time it had been life or death.
If he died, what life would be hers through the brief delay to which she
could look forward?

Once more she had him by her side, but the moral distance between them
was nothing lessened. Mrs. Eldon’s pride would not allow her to
resume the conversation which had ended so hopelessly for her, and she
interpreted Hubert’s silence in the saddest sense. Now they were about
to be parted again. A house had been taken for her at Agworth, three
miles away; in her state of health she could not quit the neighbourhood
of the few old friends whom she still saw. But Hubert would necessarily
go into the world to seek some kind of career. No hope shone for her in
the prospect.

Whilst the servant waited on them at luncheon, mother and son exchanged
few words. Afterwards, Mrs. Eldon had her chair moved to the window,
where she could see the garden greenery.

‘I called on Mr. Mutimer,’ Hubert said, standing near her. Through the
meal he had cast frequent glances at her pale, nobly-lined countenance,
as if something had led him to occupy his thoughts with her. He looked
at her in the same way now.

‘Did you? How did he impress you?’

‘He is not quite the man I had expected; more civilised. I should
suppose he is the better kind of artisan. He talks with a good deal of
the working-class accent, of course, but not like a wholly uneducated
man.’

‘His letter, you remember, was anything but illiterate. I feel I ought
to ask him to come and see me before we leave.’

‘The correspondence surely suffices.’

‘You expressed my thanks?’

‘Conscientiously.’

‘I see you found the interview rather difficult, Hubert.’

‘How could it be otherwise? The man is well enough, of his kind, but the
kind is detestable.’

‘Did he try to convert you to Socialism?’ asked his mother, smiling in
her sad way.

‘I imagine he discerned the hopelessness of such an under taking. We had
a little passage of arms,--quite within the bounds of civility. Shall
I tell you how I felt in talking with him? I seemed to be holding a
dialogue with the twentieth century, and you may think what that means.’

‘Ah, it’s a long way off, Hubert.’

‘I wish it were farther. The man was openly exultant; he stood for Demos
grasping the sceptre. I am glad, mother, that you leave Wanley before
the air is poisoned.’

‘Mr. Mutimer does not see that side of the question?’

‘Not he! Do you imagine the twentieth century will leave one green spot
on the earth’s surface?’

‘My dear, it will always be necessary to grow grass and corn.’

‘By no means; depend upon it. Such things will be cultivated by chemical
processes. There will not be one inch left to nature; the very oceans
will somehow be tamed, the snow-mountains will be levelled. And
with nature will perish art. What has a hungry Demos to do with the
beautiful?’

Mrs. Eldon sighed gently.

‘I shall not see it.’

Her eyes dreamed upon the soft-swaying boughs of a young chestnut.
Hubert was watching her face; its look and the meaning implied in her
words touched him profoundly.

‘Mother!’ he said under his breath.

‘My dear?’

He drew nearer to her and just stroked with his fingers the silver lines
which marked the hair on either side of her brows. He could see that she
trembled and that her lips set themselves in hard self-conquest.

‘What do you wish me to do when we have left the Manor?’

His own voice was hurried between two quiverings of the throat; his
mother’s only whispered in reply.

‘That is for your own consideration, Hubert.’

‘With your counsel, mother.’

‘My counsel?’

‘I ask it I will follow it. I wish to be guided by you.’

He knelt by her, and his mother pressed his head against her bosom.

Later, she asked--

‘Did you call also on the Walthams?’

He shook his head.

‘Should you not do so, dear?

‘I think that must be later.’

The subject was not pursued.

The next day was Saturday. In the afternoon Hubert took a walk which had
been his favourite one ever since he could remember, every step of the
way associated with recollections of childhood, boyhood, or youth. It
was along the lane which began in a farmyard close by the Manor and
climbed with many turnings to the top of Stanbury Hill. This was ever
the first route re-examined by his brother Godfrey and himself on
their return from school at holiday-time. It was a rare region for
bird-nesting, so seldom was it trodden save by a few farm-labourers
at early morning or when the day’s work was over. Hubert passed with
a glance of recognition the bramble in which he had found his first
spink’s nest, the shadowed mossy bank whence had fluttered the hapless
wren just when the approach of two prowling youngsters should have
bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail are not wont to pay much
attention to the features of the country; but Hubert remembered that
at a certain meadow-gate he had always rested for a moment to view the
valley, some mute presage of things unimagined stirring at his heart.
Was it even then nineteenth century? Not for him, seeing that the life
of each of us reproduces the successive ages of the world. Belwick,
roaring a few miles away, was but an isolated black patch on the earth’s
beauty, not, as he now understood it, a malignant cancer-spot, spreading
day by day, corrupting, an augury of death. In those days it had seemed
fast in the order of things that Wanley Manor should be his home through
life; how otherwise? Was it not the abiding-place of the Eldons from of
old? Who had ever hinted at revolution? He knew now that revolution
had been at work from an earlier time than that; whilst he played and
rambled with his brother the framework of their life was crumbling about
them. Belwick was already throwing a shadow upon Wanley. And now behold!
he stood at the old gate, rested his hands where they had been wont
to rest, turned his eyes in the familiar direction; no longer a mere
shadow, there was Belwick itself.

His heart was hot with outraged affection, with injured pride. On the
scarcely closed grave of that passion which had flamed through so brief
a life sprang up the flower of natural tenderness, infinitely sweet and
precious. For the first time he was fully conscious of what it meant to
quit Wanley for ever; the past revealed itself to him, lovelier and more
loved because parted from him by so hopeless a gulf. Hubert was not old
enough to rate experience at its true value, to acquiesce in the law
which wills that the day must perish before we can enjoy to the full its
light and odour. He could only feel his loss, and rebel against the fate
which had ordained it.

He had climbed but half-way up the hill; from this point onwards there
was no view till the summit was reached, for the lane proceeded between
high banks and hedges. To gain the very highest point he had presently
to quit the road by a stile and skirt the edge of a small rising meadow,
at the top of which was an old cow-house with a few trees growing about
it. Thence one had the finest prospect in the county.

He reached the stone shed, looked back for a moment over Wanley, then
walked round to the other side. As he turned the corner of the building
his eye was startled by the unexpected gleam of a white dress. A girl
stood there; she was viewing the landscape through a field-glass, and
thus remained unaware of his approach on the grass. He stayed his step
and observed her with eyes of recognition. Her attitude, both hands
raised to hold the glass, displayed to perfection the virginal outline
of her white-robed form. She wore a straw hat of the plain masculine
fashion; her brown hair was plaited in a great circle behind her head,
not one tendril loosed from the mass; a white collar closely circled her
neck; her waist was bound with a red girdle. All was grace and purity;
the very folds towards the bottom of her dress hung in sculpturesque
smoothness; the form of her half-seen foot bowed the herbage with
lightest pressure. From the boughs above there fell upon her a dancing
network of shadow.

Hubert only half smiled; he stood with his hands joined behind him, his
eyes fixed upon her face, waiting for her to turn But several moments
passed and she was still intent on the landscape. He spoke.

‘Will you let me look?’

Her hands fell, all but dropping the glass; still, she did not start
with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of
guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only abrupt
motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with a grace as
spontaneous as that we see in a fawn that glances back before flight.

‘Oh, Mr. Eldon! How silently you have come!’

The wild rose of her cheeks made rivalry for an instant with the richer
garden blooms, and the subsiding warmth left a pearly translucency as of
a lily petal against the light.

She held her hand to him, delicately gloved, warm; the whole of it was
hidden within Hubert’s clasp.

‘What were you looking at so attentively?’ he asked.

‘At Agworth station,’ replied Adela, turning her eyes again in that
quarter. ‘My brother’s train ought to be in by now, I think. He comes
home every Saturday.’

‘Does he?’

Hubert spoke without thought, his look resting upon the maiden’s red
girdle.

‘I am glad that you are well again,’ Adela said with natural kindness.
‘You have had a long illness.’

‘Yes; it has been a tiresome affair. Is Mrs. Waltham well?’

‘Quite, thank you.’

‘And your brother?’

‘Alfred never had anything the matter with him in his life, I believe,’
she answered, with a laugh.

‘Fortunate fellow! Will you lend me the glass?’

She held it to him, and at the same moment her straying eye caught a
glimpse of white smoke, far off.

‘There comes the train!’ she exclaimed. ‘You will be able to see it
between these two hills.’

Hubert looked and returned the glass to her, but she did not make use of
it.

‘Does he walk over from Agworth?’ was Hubert’s next question.

‘Yes. It does him good after a week of Belwick.’

‘There will soon be little difference between Belwick and Wanley,’
rejoined Hubert, drily.

Adela glanced at him; there was sympathy and sorrow in the look.

‘I knew it would grieve you,’ she said.

‘And what is your own feeling? Do you rejoice in the change as a sign of
progress?’

‘Indeed, no. I am very, very sorry to have our beautiful valley so
spoilt. It is only--’

Hubert eyed her with sudden sharpness of scrutiny; the look seemed to
check her words.

‘Only what?’ he asked. ‘You find compensations?’

‘My brother won’t hear of such regrets,’ she continued with a little
embarrassment ‘He insists on the good that will be done by the change.’

‘From such a proprietor as I should have been to a man of Mr. Mutimer’s
activity. To be sure, that is one point of view.’

Adela blushed.

‘That is not my meaning, Mr. Eldon, as you know. I was speaking of the
change without regard to who brings it about. And I was not giving my
own opinion; Alfred’s is always on the side of the working people; he
seems to forget everybody else in his zeal for their interests. And
then, the works are going to be quite a new kind of undertaking. You
have heard of Mr. Mutimer’s plans of course?’

‘I have an idea of them.’

‘You think them mistaken?’

‘No. I would rather say they don’t interest me. That seems to disappoint
you, Miss Waltham. Probably you are interested in them?’

At the sound of her own name thus formally interjected, Adela just
raised her eyes from their reflective gaze on the near landscape; then
she became yet more thoughtful.

‘Yes, I think I am,’ she replied, with deliberation. ‘The principle
seems a just one. Devotion to a really unselfish cause is rare, I am
afraid.’

‘You have met Mr. Mutimer?

‘Once. My brother made his acquaintance, and he called on us.’

‘Did he explain his scheme to you in detail?’

‘Not himself. Alfred has told me all about it. He, of course, is
delighted with it; he has joined what he calls the Union.’

‘Are you going to join?’ Hubert asked, smiling.

‘I? I doubt whether they would have me.’

She laughed silverly, her throat tremulous, like that of a bird that
sings. How significant the laugh was! the music of how pure a freshet of
life!

‘All the members, I presume,’ said Hubert, ‘are to be speedily enriched
from the Wanley Mines and Iron Works?’

It was jokingly uttered, but Adela replied with some earnestness, as if
to remove a false impression.

‘Oh, that is quite a mistake. Mr. Eldon. There is no question of anyone
being enriched, least of all Mr. Mutimer himself. The workmen will
receive just payment, not mere starvation wages, but whatever profit
there is will be devoted to the propaganda.’

‘Propaganda! Starvation wages! Ah, I see you have gone deeply into these
matters. How strangely that word sounds on your lips--propaganda!’

Adela reddened.

‘Why strangely, Mr. Eldon?’

‘One associates it with such very different speakers; it has such a
terrible canting sound. I hope you will not get into the habit of using
it--for your own sake.’

‘I am not likely to use it much. I suppose I have heard it so often
from Alfred lately. Please don’t think,’ she added rather hastily, ‘that
I have become a Socialist. Indeed, I dislike the name; I find it implies
so many things that I could never approve of.’

Her way of speaking the last sentence would have amused a dispassionate
critic, it was so distinctively the tone of Puritan maidenhood. From
lips like Adela’s it is delicious to hear such moral babbling. Oh, the
gravity of conviction in a white-souled English girl of eighteen! Do you
not hear her say those words: ‘things that I could never approve of’?

As her companion did not immediately reply, she again raised the
field-glass to her eyes and swept the prospect.

‘Can you see your brother on the road?’ Hubert inquired.

‘No, not yet. There is a trap driving this way. Why, Alfred sitting in
it! Oh, it is Mr. Mutimer’s trap I see. He must have met Alfred at the
station and have given him a ride.’

‘Evidently they are great friends,’ commented Eldon.

Adela did not reply. After gazing a little longer, she said--

‘He will be home before I can get there.’

She screwed up the glasses and turned as if to take leave. But Hubert
prepared to walk by her side, and together they reached the lane.

‘Now I am going to run down the hill,’ Adela said, laughing. ‘I can’t
ask you to join in such childishness, and I suppose you are not going
this way, either?’

‘No, I am walking back to the Manor,’ the other replied soberly. ‘We had
better say good-bye. On Monday we shall leave Wanley, my mother and I.’

‘On Monday?’

The girl became graver.

‘But only to go to Agworth?’ she added.

‘I shall not remain at Agworth. I am going to London.’

‘To--to study?’

‘Something or other, I don’t quite know what. Good-bye!’

‘Won’t you come to say good-bye to us--to mother?’

‘Shall you be at home to-morrow afternoon, about four o’clock say?’

‘Oh, yes; the very time.’

‘Then I will come to say good-bye.’

‘In that case we needn’t say it now, need we? It is only good
afternoon.’

She began to walk down the lane.

‘I thought you were going to run,’ cried Hubert.

She looked back, and her silver laugh made chorus with the joyous
refrain of a yellow-hammer, piping behind the hedge. Till the turn of
the road she continued walking, then Hubert had a glimpse of white folds
waving in the act of flight, and she was beyond his vision.



CHAPTER VIII



Adela reached the house door at the very moment that Mutimer’s trap
drove up. She had run nearly all the way down the hill, and her soberer
pace during the last ten minutes had not quite reduced the flush in her
cheeks. Mutimer raised his hat with much _aplomb_ before he had pulled
up his horse, and his look stayed on her whilst Alfred Waltham was
descending and taking leave.

‘I was lucky enough to overtake your brother in Agworth,’ he said.

‘Ah, you have deprived him of what he calls his constitutional,’ laughed
Adela.

‘Have I? Well, it isn’t often I’m here over Saturday, so he can
generally feel safe.’

The hat was again aired, and Richard drove away to the Wheatsheaf Inn,
where he kept his horse at present.

Brother and sister went together into the parlour, where Mrs. Waltham
immediately joined them, having descended from an upper room.

‘So Mr. Mutimer drove you home!’ she exclaimed, with the interest which
provincial ladies, lacking scope for their energies, will display in
very small incidents.

‘Yes. By the way, I’ve asked him to come and have dinner with us
to-morrow. He hadn’t any special reason for going to town, and was
uncertain whether to do so or not, so I thought I might as well have him
here.’

Mr. Alfred always spoke in a somewhat emphatic first person singular
when domestic arrangements were under, discussion; occasionally the
habit led to a passing unpleasantness of tone between himself and Mrs.
Waltham. In the present instance, however, nothing of the kind was to be
feared; his mother smiled very graciously.

‘I’m glad you thought of it,’ she said. ‘It would have been very lonely
for him in his lodgings.’

Neither of the two happened to be regarding Adela, or they would have
seen a look of dismay flit across her countenance and pass into one of
annoyance. When the talk had gone on for a few minutes Adela interposed
a question.

‘Will Mr. Mutimer stay for tea also, do you think, Alfred?’

‘Oh, of course; why shouldn’t he?’

It is the country habit; Adela might have known what answer she
would receive. She got out of the difficulty by means of a little
disingenuousness.

‘He won’t want us to talk about Socialism all the time, will he?’

‘Of course not, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Waltham. ‘Why, it will be
Sunday.’ 4

Alfred shouted in mirthful scorn.

‘Well, that’s one of the finest things I’ve heard for a long time,
mother! It’ll be Sunday, and _therefore_ we are not to talk about
improving the lot of the human race. Ye gods!’

Mrs. Waltham was puzzled for an instant, but the Puritan assurance did
not fail her.

‘Yes, but that is only improvement of their bodies, Alfred--food and
clothing. The six days are for that you know.’

‘Mother, mother, you will kill me! You are so uncommonly funny! I wonder
your friends haven’t long ago found some way of doing without bodies
altogether. Now, I pray you, do not talk nonsense. Surely _that_ is
forbidden on the Sabbath, if only the Jewish one.’

‘Mother is quite right, Alfred,’ remarked Adela, with quiet
affimativeness, as soon as her voice could be heard. ‘Your Socialism is
earthly; we have to think of other things besides bodily comforts.’

‘Who said we hadn’t?’ cried her brother. ‘But I take leave to inform you
that you won’t get much spiritual excellence out of a man who lives a
harder life than the nigger-slaves. If you women could only put aside
your theories and look a little at obstinate facts! You’re all of a
piece. Which of you was it that talked the other day about getting the
vicar to pray for rain? Ho, ho, ho! Just the same kind of thing.’

Alfred’s combativeness had grown markedly since his making acquaintance
with Mutimer. He had never excelled in the suaver virtues, and now the
whole of the time he spent at home was devoted to vociferous railing
at capitalists, priests, and women, his mother and sister serving for
illustrations of the vices prevalent in the last-mentioned class. In
talking he always paced the room, hands in pockets, and at times fairly
stammered in his endeavour to hit upon sufficiently trenchant epithets
or comparisons. When reasoning failed with his auditors, he had recourse
to volleys of contemptuous laughter. At times he lost his temper,
muttered words such as ‘fools!’--‘idiots!’ and flung out into the open
air. It looked as if the present evening was to be a stormy one. Adela
noted the presage and allowed herself a protest _in limine_.

‘Alfred, I do hope you won’t go on in this way whilst Letty is here. You
mayn’t think it, but you pain her very much.’

‘Pain her! It’s her education. She’s had none yet, no more than you
have. It’s time you both began to learn.’

It being close upon the hour for tea, the young lady of whom there was
question was heard to ring the door-bell. We have already had a passing
glimpse of her, but since then she has been honoured by becoming
Alfred’s affianced. Letty Tew fulfilled all the conditions desirable
in one called to so trying a destiny. She was a pretty, supple,
sweet-mannered girl, and, as is the case with such girls, found it
possible to worship a man whom in consistency she must have deemed the
most condemnable of heretics. She and Adela were close friends; Adela
indeed, had no other friend in the nearer sense. The two were made of
very different fibre, but that had not as yet distinctly shown.

Adela’s reproof was not wholly without effect; her brother got through
the evening without proceeding to his extremest truculence, still the
conversation was entirely of his leading, consequently not a little
argumentative. He had brought home, as he always did on Saturday, a
batch of ultra periodicals, among them the ‘Fiery Cross,’ and his own
eloquence was supplemented by the reading of excerpts from these lively
columns. It was a combat of three to one, but the majority did little
beyond throwing up hands at anything particularly outrageous. Adela said
much less than usual. ‘I tell you what it is, you three!’ Alfred
cried, at a certain climax of enthusiasm, addressing the ladies with
characteristic courtesy, ‘we’ll found a branch of the Union in Wanley; I
mean, in our particular circle of thickheads. Then, as soon as Mutimer’s
settlement gets going, we can coalesce. Now you two girls give next
week to going round and soliciting subscriptions for the “Fiery Cross.”
 People have had time to get over the first scare, and you know they
can’t refuse such as you. Quarterly, one-and-eightpence, including
postage.’

‘But, my dear Alfred,’ cried Adela, ‘remember that Letty and I are _not_
Socialists!’

‘Letty is, because I expect it of her, and you can’t refuse to keep her
in countenance.’

The girls laughed merrily at this anticipated lordship; but Letty said
presently--

‘I believe father will take the paper if I ask him. One is better than
nothing, isn’t it, Alfred?’

‘Good. We book Stephen Tew, Esquire.’

‘But surely you mustn’t call him Esquire?’ suggested Adela.

‘Oh, he is yet unregenerate; let him keep his baubles.’

‘How are the regenerate designated?’

‘Comrade, we prefer.’

‘Also applied to women?’

‘Well, I suppose not. As the word hasn’t a feminine, call yourselves
plain Letty Tew and Adela Waltham, without meaningless prefix.’

‘What nonsense you are talking, Alfred!’ remarked his mother. ‘As
if everybody in Wanley could address young ladies by their Christian
names!’

In this way did Alfred begin the ‘propaganda’ at home. Already the
village was much occupied with the vague new doctrines represented by
the name of Richard Mutimer; the parlour of the Wheatsheaf was loud of
evenings with extraordinary debate, and gossips of a higher station had
at length found a topic which promised to be inexhaustible. Of course
the vicar was eagerly sounded as to his views. Mr. Wyvern preserved an
attitude of scrupulous neutrality, contenting himself with correction of
palpable absurdities in the stories going about. ‘But surely you are not
a Socialist, Mr. Wyvern?’ cried Mrs. Mewling, after doing her best to
pump the reverend gentleman, and discovering nothing. ‘I am a Christian,
madam,’ was the reply, ‘and have nothing to do with economic doctrines.’
Mrs. Mewling spread the phrase ‘economic doctrines,’ shaking her head
upon the adjective, which was interpreted by her hearers as condemnatory
in significance. The half-dozen shopkeepers were disposed to secret
jubilation; it was probable that, in consequence of the doings in the
valley, trade would look up. Mutimer himself was a centre of interest
such as Wanley had never known. When he walked down the street the news
that he was visible seemed to spread like wildfire; every house had its
gazers. Excepting the case of the Walthams, he had not as yet sought to
make personal acquaintances, appearing rather to avoid opportunities. On
the whole it seemed likely that he would be popular. The little group of
mothers with marriageable daughters waited eagerly for the day when,
by establishing himself at the Manor, he would throw off the present
semi-incognito, and become the recognised head of Wanley society. He
would discover the necessity of having a lady to share his honours and
preside at his table. Persistent inquiry seemed to have settled the fact
that he was not married already. To be sure, there were awesome rumours
that Socialists repudiated laws divine and human in matrimonial affairs,
but the more sanguine were inclined to regard this as calumny, their
charity finding a support in their personal ambitions. The interest
formerly attaching to the Eldons had altogether vanished. Mrs. Eldon and
her son were now mere obstacles to be got rid of as quickly as possible.
It was the general opinion that Hubert Eldon’s illness was purposely
protracted, to suit his mother’s convenience. Until Mutimer’s arrival
there had been much talk about Hubert; whether owing to Dr. Mann’s
indiscretion or through the servants at the Manor, it had become known
that the young man was suffering from a bullet-wound, and the story
circulated by Mrs. Mewling led gossips to suppose that he had been
murderously assailed in that land of notorious profligacy known to
Wanley as ‘abroad.’ That, however, was now become an old story. Wanley
was anxious for the Eldons to go their way, and leave the stage clear.

Everyone of course was aware that Mutimer spent his Sundays in London (a
circumstance, it was admitted, not altogether reassuring to the ladies
with marriageable daughters), and his unwonted appearance in the village
on the evening of the present Saturday excited universal comment. Would
he appear at church next morning? There was a general directing of
eyes to the Manor pew. This pew had not been occupied since the fateful
Sunday when, at the conclusion of the morning service, old Mr. Mutimer
was discovered to have breathed his last. It was a notable object in
the dim little church, having a wooden canopy supported on four slim
oak pillars with vermicular moulding. From pillar to pillar hung dark
curtains, so that when these were drawn the interior of the pew was
entirely protected from observation. Even on the brightest days its
occupants were veiled in gloom. To-da

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