Spears was seated on his bench, with his tools and his glue-pot, as Sir
William had seen him on the previous day, when Lady Markham entered the
shop. He had never ceased to be industrious at his work, though he had
so many other things to do. Indeed, the many other things he had to do
made it incumbent upon him to work early and late, in order to keep, as
he called it, “the pot boiling.” For he was not a paid agitator. The man
was proud, as men will be in all stations; and, moreover, he was
uncertain--not to be calculated upon as a supporter of all kinds of
measures which might be proved good for “the trade,” and therefore not
half so serviceable an implement as many who were much less powerful.
Like the independent member who cannot be trusted always to vote with
one party, he was looked upon with doubt even by those who took the
greatest advantage of his gifts. His influence had never done himself
any good. He had acquired it by exhausting labour, which had taken him
away from the work by which he made his bread, without supplying any
bread in the interval to nourish those who were dependent upon him; and
the consequence was that he had to work at other times early and late,
and was saved from all possibility of the idle life which a stump orator
may be so easily led into. His shop itself was swept and clean, the
boards freshly watered in large damp circles still marked upon the wood,
and a great bundle of large flowers--sunflowers and dahlias--stuck into
a large jug, stood in the window among the picture-frames. Some
brilliant gladiolas, in the brightest tints of colour, lay neglected on
the floor, and a great magnificent stalk of foxglove nodded on the table
at which he was working. These floral decorations, unexpected in such a
place, made the shop cheerful; and so did a stray ray of morning sun,
which got in through a break in the houses opposite, and fell across it,
dividing it as with a line of gold. The door stood open; the air, even
though laden with varnish, retained some freshness. Lady Markham came
in softly, and stood, her heart beating, not knowing well how to open
this important interview, in the middle of the sunshine. Her breath came
quick. Now that she had arrived at the point for which she had been
aiming, a sudden alarm seized her. Might it not have been better, she
asked herself, hurriedly, to remain in ignorance--not to seek to be
convinced? There are things which it is better not to know.
Spears, who was whistling over his work, did not hear the light footstep
coming in; but he noted, with the quick sense of a man to whom daylight
is indispensable, the shadow that had come across the sunshine. He
paused and looked up. A doubt--a question came over his face. Was it
possible he did not know her? Then he rose and came forward, holding out
to Lady Markham a hand not free from stains of the varnish which
perfumed the shop.
“Is it you, my lady?” he cried. His face beamed over with a smile of
welcome, but showed no surprise or alarm at the appearance of such an
inquisitor. He drew forth a rough wooden seat without any back, and
placed it in the centre of the vacant space.
“I am very glad to see you in my poor place,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Lady Markham. She glanced round her with a little
perturbation. She did not know how to begin. “Mr. Spears!” she said,
faltering a little, “I was very glad to see you in _my_ house.”
“Were you, my lady?” He stood before her with a good-humoured smile upon
his face, but slightly shook his head. “Never mind, you were as kind as
if you had been glad to see me, and that says more. But your husband
upbraided me for coming to his house in his absence, which you know was
your son’s fault, and not mine.”
“It is of my son I want to speak to you,” said Lady Markham, seizing
this easy means of introducing her subject. “Mr. Spears, you know
something of what he is to me--my eldest boy, the one who should be the
prop of the family: to whom his brothers and sisters will look hereafter
as the head of the family.”
“Ay, that’s just it,” said the revolutionary. “Why should they look to
him? What is there so creditable in being the eldest son? It was no
thanks to him. He was not born first for any merit of his. Far better
to teach them to depend on themselves--to give them their just share--to
make no eldest sons.”
“As if that were possible,” Lady Markham said, with a soft smile at this
theoretical folly. “One must be the eldest, whatever you say; and if any
harm were to happen to us,” she added, after a pause, raising her
beautiful head, “I have no fear that Paul would give up his position
then. If we were to become poor, to lose all we have--such things have
happened, Mr. Spears--my boy would not find it hard to remember to take
up his duties as the eldest son!”
“Ah!” said Spears in involuntary sympathy. Then he added with again the
same good-humoured smile, “There now, that is how you get the better of
us, you aristocrats. You are terribly cunning in argument, my lady. You
get over us by a suggestion of generosity when we are talking of
justice. The thing will never happen, of course--not in our day, more’s
the pity--your money and your land will never be taken from you.”
“Do you think that is a pity, Mr. Spears?”
“Well, yes,” he said, laughing, “from our point of view; but it will
never happen, not in our time. And even if it did happen, don’t you
think it would be far better to live each man for himself, and not a
whole family casting themselves on the shoulders of your son Paul?”
“My son Paul,” said Lady Markham, in a low voice, looking at him through
the tears in her eyes, “will be far away from us--will not be at hand to
be of use or consolation in case anything should happen to us, if you
and he have your will, Mr. Spears. He will be far away where he will be
of no use to his family. Such a thing might happen, though God forbid
it! as that I might be left to struggle alone for my children; and Paul,
my eldest, my natural help, far away, lost to me, as if he had never
been.”
Spears turned away while she was speaking, and returned to his bench. He
cleared his throat; his face flushed; he was as much embarrassed as she
had been at the beginning, and did not know how to reply.
“My lady,” he said, “this is too bad; I think it is too bad. After all a
man has more things to think of in this world than whether his family
has need of him, or if he can be of use to his mamma.”
He said the last word with a semitone of ridicule, then blushed for
himself as he caught her eye. Lady Markham saw her advantage. She would
not let him escape.
“Are there then many things in this world that are better than being of
use to your family, and helping in a hard task your mother? Do you think
so, Mr. Spears? Ah, no! I am certain you don’t. You are talking _au bout
des lèvres_, not from your heart. If we should ever need him, Paul will
be--who can tell?--thousands and thousands of miles away; and for what?
Why do you want him to go with you? Why are you going? I do not know the
reason. Because you are impatient, and do not like the manner in which
things are arranged at home?”
“We will not enter into that, my lady,” said Spears; “we will not enter
into that.”
He said this, half in contempt of her intelligence, which did not rise
to his lofty view, half because (and this really meant the same thing)
it was very difficult to explain why he thought it expedient to go away.
Many motives were mingled in his resolution which he did not dwell upon
even to himself. He was tired of poor work and poor pay, and the
struggle of living; tired of having to manufacture pictures-frames for
bread when he could have done something so much better: and disgusted
that his higher work got no real appreciation from any one. And he was
tired too even of his agitation, the speeches and popular applause which
were all very well for the moment, but neither seemed to convince any
one, nor to affect the world at all. All this was going on day after
day, week after week, but never came to anything. Often speakers whom he
knew to be much inferior to himself were more warmly applauded; and some
whom he considered (as other people considered him) to be stump orators
and noisy demagogues, got elevated and salaried, and swaggered about in
all the importance of delegates and representatives of the people, while
he received no such distinction. Though this was partly his own fault
through the pride and love of independence which characterised him, yet
Spears felt it. It soured him, in spite of himself. All this, however,
lay in his heart undivulged, except by a bitter word now and then; and
what he said to himself was that the old country was thoroughly corrupt
and hopeless, but that in a new country, under better conditions, life
would be more worth having. Did this fine lady, who knew nothing about
it, divine what was secretly shut up in his mind? He grew half afraid of
her, simple and ignorant as she had seemed to him a little while before.
“Ah, Mr. Spears, let us speak of it! You forget how important it is to
me. But for you, I should not run any risk of losing my boy.”
“I did not propose that he should come with me. You will do me the
justice to believe, Lady Markham, that I never attempted to bias him.”
“To bias him,” she said--“what is it then? Is it not all your doing?
Why, should Paul go away, but for you? He has got these notions which
you have taught him into his head--”
“On the contrary,” said the workman, “I have told him that were I in his
place I should certainly stay in England. This is no place for a poor
man who thinks--but for a man who is not poor, who has a position like
his, why, it is the ideal place. There is no aristocracy so solid as in
England. I have told him so a hundred times.”
Lady Markham’s face grew whiter and whiter. It did not occur to her
that this very advice might be conveyed in a tone which would make Paul
wildly indignant at the supposed immunity and privileged condition with
which his friend credited him. Such an explanation did not occur to her.
Dismay stole over her heart; it was then as Sir William thought--Paul
was not telling them the truth. The cause of his wild project was not
philosophy and foolish opinions, since even his leader disowned it. It
was something else. Her heart sank within her, she lost the control of
her better sense. “If it is not you,” she said, “who is it then--who is
it, Mr. Spears? You have--a daughter?” This seemed to come from her in
spite of herself.
“A daughter--I have three,” he said, “but what have they--” here he
stopped, and getting up from his bench gave vent to a low whistle of
astonishment and perplexity. He was as much surprised as she could be,
and not much more pleased. He gazed at her a moment speechless. “Can
that be so?” he said.
Impossible to sink lower than Lady Markham’s heart sank--it seemed to
melt away altogether in humiliation and disappointment. She looked at
him piteously, the tears so gathering into her eyes that she could
scarcely see his face.
“Oh, Mr. Spears,” she cried, “you know what such a connection always
comes to; disappointment on both sides--the woman’s as well as the
man’s. Whatever his feelings may be now, he would soon find out that she
was not--like the women he had been used to; and she would find herself
among--habits that were not congenial to her. Oh, Mr. Spears, for both
their sakes--you that Paul thinks so much of, you whose opinion he
follows so meekly--oh, will you not exert your authority, and forbid
it--forbid it altogether?”
Lady Markham lost control of the words she was saying. She did not think
whether this was likely to be a mode of entreaty that would be grateful
to him. She lost her own fine sense of what was fit and seemly, in the
eagerness of the appeal which might save her boy.
He stood over her, looking at her, changed she could not tell how. His
face clouded over before her eyes. At first this seemed only the effect
of the tears that blinded her, but when these latter fell she became
aware that the countenance which had been so good-humoured and friendly
was full now of a very different sentiment. The man seemed to have
expanded even in outline as he stood between her and the light.
“Forbid it, forbid it altogether!” he repeated, with a smile that seemed
to freeze her. “Why?” She felt herself tremble before him as he fixed
his eyes upon her. “My lady,” he said, “you forget where you are, and
you forget your politeness for once. How do you know my girl is not like
the women he has been used to? By God! she’s better than most he’ll meet
with among your depraved and worn-out race. _My_ girl! if it is true,
and she likes him, do you think I would forbid it, to save your fine
blood from pollution, and keep your Paul for some fine lady of the kind
he’s been used to? No, not for a million of mothers--not for all the
soft-spoken insults in the world.”
Lady Markharn made no reply; she could not, her agitation was so great;
but indignation began to steady her nerves, and give back her forces.
What had she said to call for this? How dared he speak of insult, the
man whom she felt she had honoured by coming to him, by appealing to
him? She was not an angel, though she was a good woman, and
instinctively she began to call together her faculties, to range
herself, as it were, on her own side.
Apparently, however, after this outburst, Spears felt ashamed of
himself. A fine sense of courtesy was in the man, almost finer than her
own. He began to be ashamed of having thus violated hospitality, of
having so addressed her in his own house. He turned away from her to
recover himself, turning his back upon her, then came back with again a
changed aspect. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I ought to have more
control of myself in my own place. I don’t believe it’s true what you
think. No, my lady, I don’t mean you’re saying what you don’t believe--I
think you’re deceived. I won’t ask who’s told you, or how it’s come into
your head; I’ll put it to a better test. I’ll ask the girl herself.”
“Mr. Spears,” said Lady Markham, “you have been very rude to me; I have
not insulted you, nor did I mean to do so. It never occurred to me,” she
added, with a fine sting in her words which penetrated through all his
armour, “that I need fear anything from _you_ which I should not have
encountered in--another rank of life. But I do not wish to make
reprisals,” she said, with a faint smile, rising from her seat. “If you
question your daughter on such a subject it ought not to be before me.”
“My lady,” cried Spears, his face full of passion, “unless it is to be
open war between us it shall be before you. If there’s love between them
there should be no shame in it. My girl is one that can hold up her head
before any on the face of the earth. It is not my beginning, but it
shall be settled and cleared up on the spot. Janet! come down here, I
want you,” he called at the foot of the stairs.
Even in the midst of her agitation, Lady Markham had been conscious of
sounds above, footsteps and young voices, one of which indeed had been
persistently singing all the time, some trivial song of the moment in a
clear little sweet voice, like the trill of a bird. The insignificant
tune had run through all this exciting interview, and worked itself into
Lady Markham’s head, and in spite of herself she stood still, not
resisting any longer, turning towards the stairs involuntarily, watching
for the appearance of the girl who (perhaps) was dearer to her boy than
anything else, who, perhaps, was his motive for relinquishing
everything else, including his mother’s happiness and the comfort of his
family. What woman could remain unmoved under such circumstances? Once
more her heart began to beat as she turned her face towards the dingy
stairs. Was it some beautiful apparition which was to appear from it,
some creature such as exists in poetry, some woman for whom it would be
comprehensible that a man should give up all? Lady Markham had romance
enough in her to feel that this was possible, almost to wish it, while
she feared it. If it were so, it would be more easy to forgive Paul. Ah,
forgive him!--that was never hard; that was not the question. Our
forgiveness, like a weeping angel, is it not always hovering,
forestalling even the evil to be forgiven, over our children’s wayward
ways? But to get it out of her mind, out of her memory, that he had
deceived her, that was not so easy. She, who had come in search of
evidence to exonerate Paul, can any one wonder that she stood trembling,
scarcely seeing, scarcely hearing, yet all eyes and ears, to receive the
testimony of this indisputable witness, against whom there could be no
appeal? But when the girl’s foot sounded on the stair it seemed to Lady
Markham that she had already given up all hope that Paul was
true--provided only that this woman for whom he had compromised the
honour of his word, might at least afford some justification for the
sacrifice.