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.