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.