CHAPTER XXVI

Mutimer did not come to the Manor for luncheon. Rodman, who had been

spending an hour at the works, brought word that business pressed; a

host of things had to be unexpectedly finished off and put in order. He,

Alice, and Adela made pretence of a midday meal; then he went into

the library to smoke a cigar and meditate. The main subject of his

meditation was an interview with Adela which he purposed seeking in the

course of the afternoon. But he had also half-a-dozen letters of the

first importance to despatch to town by the evening post, and these it

was well to get off hand. He had finished them by half-past three. Then

he went to the drawing-room, but found it vacant. He sought his wife’s

chamber. Alice was endeavouring to read a novel, but there was recent

tear-shedding about her eyes, which had not come of the author’s pathos.

‘You’ll be a pretty picture soon if that goes on,’ Rodman remarked, with

a frankness which was sufficiently brutal in spite of his jesting tone.

‘I can’t think how you take it so lightly,’ Alice replied with utter

despondency, flinging the book aside.

‘What’s the good of taking it any other way? Where’s Adela?’

‘Adela?’ She looked at him as closely as her eyes would let her. ‘Why do

you want her?’

‘I asked you where she was. Please to get into the habit of answering my

questions at once. It’ll save time in future.’

She seemed about to resent his harshness, but the effort cost her too

much. She let her head fall forward almost upon her knees and sobbed

unrestrainedly.

Rodman touched her shoulder and shook her, but not roughly.

‘Do not be such an eternal fool!’ he grumbled. ‘Do you know where Adela

is or not?’

‘No, I don’t,’ came the smothered reply. Then, raising her head, ‘Why do

you think so much about Adela?’

He leaned against the dressing-table and laughed mockingly.

‘That’s the matter, eh? You think I’m after her! Don’t be such a goose.’

‘I’d rather you call me a goose than a fool, Willis.’

‘Why, there’s not much difference. Now if you’ll sit up and behave

sensibly, I’ll tell you why I want her.’

‘Really? Will you give me a kiss first?’

‘Poor blubbery princess! Pah! your lips are like a baby’s. Now just

listen, and mind you hold your tongue about what I say. You know there

used to be something between Adela and Eldon. I’ve a notion it went

farther than we know of. Well, I don’t see why we shouldn’t get her to

talk him over into letting you keep your money, or a good part of it. So

you see it’s you I’m thinking about after all, little stupid.’

‘Oh, you really mean that! Kiss me again--look, I’ve wiped my lips, You

really think you can do that, Willis?’

‘No, I don’t think I can, but it’s worth having a try. Eldon has a soft

side, I know. The thing is to find her soft side. I’m going to have

a try to talk her over. Now, where is she likely to be?--out in the

garden?’

‘Perhaps she’s at her mother’s.’

‘Confound it! Well, I’ll go and look about; I can’t lose time.’

‘You’ll never get her to do anything for _me_, Willis.’

‘Very likely not. But the things that you succeed in are always the most

unlikely, as you’d understand if you’d lived my life.’

‘At all events, I shan’t have to give up my dresses?’

‘Hang your dresses--on the wardrobe pegs!’

He went downstairs again and out into the garden, thence to the entrance

gate. Adela had passed it but a few minutes before, and he saw her a

little distance off. She was going in the direction away from Wanley,

seemingly on a mere walk. He decided to follow her and only join her

when she had gone some way. She walked with her head bent, walked slowly

and with no looking about her. Presently it was plain that she meant to

enter the wood. This was opportune. But he lost sight of her as soon as

she passed among the trees. He quickened his pace; saw her turning off

the main path among the copses. In his pursuit he got astray; he must

have missed her track. Suddenly he was checked by the sound of voices,

which seemed to come from a lower level just in front of him. Cautiously

he stepped forward, till he could see through hazel bushes that there

was a steep descent before him. Below, two persons were engaged in

conversation, and he could hear every word.

The two were Adela and Hubert Eldon. Adela had come to sit for the last

time in the green retreat which was painfully dear to her. Her husband’s

absence gave her freedom; she used it to avoid the Rodmans and to

talk with herself. She F was, as we may conjecture, far from looking

cheerfully into the future. Nor was she content with herself, with her

behaviour in the drama of these two days. In thinking over the scene

with her husband she experienced a shame before her conscience which

could not at first be readily accounted for, for of a truth she had

felt no kind of shame in steadfastly resisting Mutimer’s dishonourable

impulse. But she saw now that in the judgment of one who could read all

her heart she would not come off with unmingled praise. Had there not

been another motive at work in her besides zeal for honour? Suppose the

man benefiting by the will had been another than Hubert Eldon? Surely

that would not have affected her behaviour? Not in practice, doubtless;

but here was a question of feeling, a scrutiny of the soul’s hidden

velleities. No difference in action, be sure; that must ever be upright

But what of the heroism in this particular case? The difference declared

itself; here there had been no heroism whatever. To strip herself and

her husband when a moment’s winking would have kept them well clad? Yes,

but on whose behalf? Had there not been a positive pleasure in making

herself poor that Hubert might be rich? There was the fatal element

in the situation. She came out of the church palpitating with joy; the

first assurance of her husband’s ignominious yielding to temptation

filled her with, not mere scorn, but with dread. Had she not been guilty

of mock nobleness in her voice, her bearing? At the time she did

not feel it, for the thought of Hubert was kept altogether in the

background. Yes, but she saw now how it had shed light and warmth upon

her; the fact was not to be denied, because her consciousness had not

then included it She was shamed.

A pity, is it not? It were so good to have seen her purely noble,

indignant with unmixed righteousness. But, knowing our Adela’s heart,

is it not even sweeter to bear with her? You will go far before you

find virtue in which there is no dear sustaining comfort of self. For

my part, Adela is more to me for the imperfection, infinitely more to

me for the confession of it in her own mind. How can a woman be lovelier

than when most womanly, or more precious than when she reflects her own

weakness in clarity of soul?

As she made her way through the wood her trouble of conscience was lost

in deeper suffering. The scent of undergrowths, which always

brought back to her the glad days of maidenhood, filled her with the

hopelessness of the future. There was no return on the path of life;

every step made those memories of happiness more distant and thickened

the gloom about her. She could be strong when it was needful, could

face the world as well as any woman who makes a veil of pride for her

bleeding heart; but here, amid the sweet wood-perfumes, in silence and

secrecy, self-pity caressed her into feebleness. The light was dimmed

by her tears; she rather felt than saw her way. And thus, with moist

eyelashes, she came to her wonted resting-place. But she found her seat

occupied, and by the man whom in this moment she could least bear to

meet.

Hubert sat there, bareheaded, lost in thought. Her light footfall did

not touch his ear. He looked up to find her standing before him, and he

saw that she had been shedding tears. For an instant she was powerless

to direct herself; then sheer panic possessed her and she turned to

escape.

Hubert started to his feet.

‘Mrs. Mutimer! Adela!’

The first name would not have stayed her, for her flight was as

unreasoning as that of a fawn. The second, her own name, uttered with

almost desperate appeal, robbed her of the power of movement. She turned

to bay, as though an obstacle had risen in her path, and there was

terror in her white face.

Hubert drew a little nearer and spoke hurriedly.

‘Forgive me! I could not let you go. You seem to have come in answer to

my thought; I was wishing to see you. Do forgive me!’

She knew that he was examining her moist eyes; a rush of blood passed

over her features.

‘Not unless you are willing,’ Hubert pursued, his voice at its gentlest

and most courteous. ‘But if I might speak to you for a few minutes--?’

‘You have heard from Mr. Yottle?’ Adela asked, without raising her eyes,

trying her utmost to speak in a merely natural way.

‘Yes. I happened to be at my mother’s house. He came last night to

obtain my address.’

The truth was, that a generous impulse, partly of his nature, and

in part such as any man might know in a moment of unanticipated good

fortune, had bade him put aside his prejudices and meet Mutimer at once

on a footing of mutual respect. Incapable of ignoble exultation, it

seemed to him that true delicacy dictated a personal interview with

the man who, judging from Yottle’s report, had so cheerfully acquitted

himself of the hard task imposed by honour. But as he walked over from

Agworth this zeal cooled. Could he trust Mutimer to appreciate his

motive? Such a man was capable of acting honourably, but the power

of understanding delicacies of behaviour was not so likely to be his.

Hubert’s prejudices were insuperable; to his mind class differences

necessarily argued a difference in the grain. And it was not only this

consideration that grew weightier as he walked. In the great joy of

recovering his ancestral home, in the sight of his mother’s profound

happiness, he all but forgot the thoughts that had besieged him since

his meetings with Adela in London. As he drew near to Wanley his

imagination busied itself almost exclusively with her; distrust and

jealousy of Mutimer became fear for Adela’s future. Such a change as

this would certainly have a dire effect upon her life. He thought of

her frail appearance; he remembered the glimpse of her face that he

had caught when her husband entered Mrs. Westlake’s drawing-room, the

startled movement she could not suppress. It was impossible to meet

Mutimer with any show of good-feeling; he wondered how he could have set

forth with such an object. Instead of going to the Manor he turned his

steps to the Vicarage, and joined Mr. Wyvern at luncheon. The vicar had

of course heard nothing of the discovery as yet. In the afternoon Hubert

started to walk back to Agworth, but instead of taking the direct road

he strayed into the wood. He was loth to leave the neighbourhood of the

Manor; intense anxiety to know what Adela was doing made him linger

near the place where she was. Was she already suffering from brutal

treatment? What wretchedness might she not be undergoing within those

walls!

He said she seemed to have sprung up in answer to his desire. In

truth, her sudden appearance overcame him; her tearful face turned to

irresistible passion that yearning which, consciously or unconsciously,

was at all times present in his life. Her grief could have but one

meaning; his heart went out to her with pity as intense as its longing.

Other women had drawn his eyes, had captured him with the love of a

day; but the deep still affection which is independent of moods and

impressions flowed ever towards Adela. As easily could he have become

indifferent to his mother as to Adela. As a married woman she

was infinitely more to him than she had been as a girl; from her

conversation, her countenance, he knew how richly she had developed, how

her intelligence had ripened how her character had established itself in

maturity. In that utterance of her name the secret escaped him before he

could think how impossible it was to address her so familiarly. It was

the perpetual key-word of his thoughts; only when he had heard it from

his own lips did he realise what he had done.

When he had given the brief answer to her question he could find no more

words. But Adela spoke.

‘What do you wish to say to me, Mr. Eldon?’

Whether or no he interpreted her voice by his own feelings, she seemed

to plead with him to be manly and respect her womanhood.

‘Only to say the common things which anyone must say in my position,

but to say them so that you will believe they are not only a form.

The circumstances are so strange. I want to ask you for your help;

my position is perhaps harder than yours and Mr. Mutimer’s. We must

remember that there is justice to be considered. If you will give me

your aid in doing justice as far as r am able--’

In fault of any other possible reply he had involved himself in a

subject which he knew it was far better to leave untouched. He could not

complete his sentence, but stood before her with his head bent.

Adela scarcely knew what he said; in anguish she sought for a means of

quitting him, of fleeing and hiding herself among the trees. His accent

told her that she was the object of his compassion, and she had invited

it by letting him see her tears. Of necessity he must think that she was

sorrowing on her own account. That was true, indeed, but how impossible

for him to interpret her grief rightly? The shame of being misjudged by

him all but drove her to speak, and tell him that she cared less than

nothing for the loss that had befallen her. Yet she could not trust

herself to speak such words. Her heart was beating insufferably; all the

woman in her rushed towards hysteria and sell-abandonment. It was well

that Hubert’s love was of quality to stand the test of these terrible

moments. Something he must say, and the most insignificant phrase was

the best.

‘Will you sit--rest after your walk?’

She did so; scarcely could she have stood longer. And with the physical

ease there seemed to come a sudden mental relief. A thought sprang up,

opening upon her like a haven of refuge.

‘There is one thing I should like to ask of you,’ she began, forcing

herself to regard him directly. ‘It is a great thing, I am afraid; it

may be impossible.’

‘Will you tell me what it is?’ he said, quietly filling the pause that

followed.

‘I am thinking of New Wanley.’

She saw a change in his face, slight, but still a change. She spoke more

quickly.

‘Will you let the works remain as they are, on the same plan? Will you

allow the workpeople to live under the same rules? I have been among

them constantly, and I am sure that nothing but good results have come

of--of what my husband has done. There is no need to ask you to deal

kindly with them, I know that. But if you could maintain the purpose--?

It will be such a grief to my husband if all his work comes to nothing.

There cannot be anything against your principles in what I ask. It is

so simply for the good of men and women whose lives are so hard. Let New

Wanley remain as an example. Can you do this?’

Hubert, as he listened, joined his hands behind his back, and turned

his eyes to the upper branches of the silver birch, which once in his

thoughts he had likened to Adela. What he heard from her surprised

him, and upon surprise followed mortification. He knew that she had in

appearance adopted Mutimer’s principles, but his talk with her in London

at Mrs. Boscobel’s had convinced him that her heart was in far other

things than economic problems and schemes of revolution. She had

listened so eagerly to his conversation on art and kindred topics; it

was so evident that she was enjoying a temporary release from a mode

of life which chilled all her warmer instincts. Yet she now made it her

entreaty that he would continue Mutimer’s work. Beginning timidly, she

grew to an earnestness which it was impossible to think feigned. He was

unprepared for anything of the kind; his emotions resented it. Though

consciously harbouring no single unworthy desire, he could not endure to

find Adela zealous on her husband’s behalf.

Had he misled himself? Was the grief that he had witnessed really that

of a wife for her husband’s misfortune? For whatever reason she had

married Mutimer--and that _could_ not be love--married life might have

engendered affection. He knew Adela to be deeply conscientious; how far

was it in a woman’s power to subdue herself to love at the bidding of

duty?

He allowed several moments to pass before replying to her. Then he said,

courteously but coldly:

‘I am very sorry that you have asked the one thing I cannot do.’

Adela’s heart sank. In putting a distance between him and herself she

had obeyed an instinct of self-preservation; now that it was effected,

the change in his voice was almost more than she could bear.

‘Why do you refuse?’ she asked, trying, though in vain, to look up at

him.

‘Because it is impossible for me to pretend sympathy with Mr. Mutimer’s

views. In the moment that I heard of the will my action with regard to

New Wanley was determined. What I purpose doing is so inevitably the

result of my strongest convictions that nothing could change me.

‘Will you tell me what you are going to do?’ Adela asked, in a tone more

like his own.

‘It will pain You.’

‘Yet I should like to know.’

‘I shall sweep away every trace of the mines and the works and the

houses, and do my utmost to restore the valley to its former state.’

He paused, but Adela said nothing. Her fingers played with the leaves

which grew beside her.

‘Your associations with Wanley of course cannot be as strong as my own.

I was born here, and every dearest memory of my life connects itself

with the valley as it used to be. It was one of the loveliest spots to

be found in England. You can have no idea of the feelings with which I

saw this change fall upon it, this desolation and defilement--I must use

the words which come to me. I might have overcome that grief if I had

sympathised with the ends. But, as it is, I should act in the same way

even if I had no such memories. I know all that you will urge. It may

be inevitable that the green and beautiful spots of the world shall give

place to furnaces and mechanics’ dwellings. For my own part, in this

little corner, at all events, the rum shall be delayed. In this matter

I will give my instincts free play. Of New Wanley not one brick shall

remain on another. I will close the mines, and grass shall again grow

over them; I will replant the orchards and mark out the fields as they

were before.’

He paused again.

‘You see why I cannot do what you ask.’

It was said in a gentler voice, for insensibly his tone had become

almost vehement.

He found a strange pleasure in emphasising his opposition to her.

Perhaps he secretly knew that Adela hung upon his words, and in spite

of herself was drawn into the current of his enthusiasm. But he did not

look into her face. Had he done so he would have seen it fixed and pale.

‘Then you think grass and trees of more importance than human lives?’

She spoke in a voice which sounded coldly ironical in its attempt to be

merely calm.

‘I had rather say that I see no value in human lives in a world from

which grass and trees have vanished. But, in truth, I care little to

make my position logically sound. The ruling motive in my life is the

love of beautiful things; I fight against ugliness because it’s the

only work in which I can engage with all my heart. I have nothing of the

enthusiasm of humanity. In the course of centuries the world may perhaps

put itself right again; I am only concerned with the present, and I

see that everywhere the tendency is towards the rule of mean interests,

ignoble ideals.’

‘Do you call it ignoble,’ broke in Adela, ‘to aim at raising men from

hopeless and degrading toil to a life worthy of human beings?’

‘The end which _you_ have in mind cannot be ignoble. But it is not to

be reached by means such as these.’ He pointed down to the valley. ‘That

may be the only way of raising the standard of comfort among people who

work with their hands; I take the standpoint of the wholly unpractical

man, and say that such efforts do not concern me. From my point of view

no movement can be tolerated which begins with devastating the earth’s

surface. You will clothe your workpeople better, you will give them

better food and more leisure; in doing so you injure the class that

has finer sensibilities, and give power to the class which not only

postpones everything to material well-being, but more and more

regards intellectual refinement as an obstacle in the way of progress.

Progress--the word is sufficient; you have only to think what it has

come to mean. It will be good to have an example of reaction.’

‘When reaction means misery to men and women and little children?’

‘Yes, even if it meant that. As far as I am concerned, I trust it

will have no such results. You must distinguish between humanity and

humanitarianism. I hope I am not lacking in the former; the latter seems

to me to threaten everything that is most precious in the world.’

‘Then you are content that the majority of mankind should be fed and

clothed and kept to labour?’

‘Personally, quite content; for I think it very unlikely that the

majority will ever be fit for anything else. I _know_ that at present

they desire nothing else.’

‘Then they must be taught to desire more.’

Hubert again paused. When he resumed it was with a smile which strove to

be good-humoured.

‘We had better not argue of these things. If I said all that I think you

would accuse me of brutality. In logic you will overcome me. Put me down

as one of those who represent reaction and class-prejudice. I am all

prejudice.’

Adela rose.

‘We have talked a long time,’ she said, trying to speak lightly. ‘We

have such different views. I wish there were less class-prejudice.’

Hubert scarcely noticed her words. She was quitting him, and he clung to

the last moment of her presence.

‘Shall you go--eventually go to London?’ he asked.

‘I can’t say. My husband has not yet been able to make plans.’

The word irritated him. He half averted his face.

‘Good-bye, Mr. Eldon.’

She did not offer her hand--durst not do so. Hubert bowed without

speaking.

When she was near the Manor gates she heard footsteps behind her. She

turned and saw her husband. Her cheeks flushed, for she had been walking

in deep thought. It seemed to her for an instant as if the subject of

her preoccupation could be read upon her face.

‘Where have you been?’ Mutimer asked, indifferently.

‘For a walk. Into the wood.’

He was examining her, for the disquiet of her countenance could not

escape his notice.

‘Why did you go alone? It would have done Alice good to get her out a

little.’

‘I’m afraid she wouldn’t have come.’

He hesitated.

‘Has she been saying anything to you?’

‘Only that she is troubled and anxious.’

They walked on together in silence, Mutimer with bowed head and knitted

brows.

CHAPTER XXVI

The making a virtue of necessity, though it argues lack of

ingenuousness, is perhaps preferable to the wholly honest demonstration

of snarling over one’s misfortunes. It may result in good even to the

hypocrite, who occasionally surprises himself with the pleasure he finds

in wearing a front of nobility, and is thereby induced to consider the

advantages of upright behaviour adopted for its own sake. Something of

this kind happened in the case of Richard Mutimer. Seeing that there was

no choice but to surrender his fortune, he set to work to make the most

of abdication, and with the result that the three weeks occupied in

settling his affairs at New Wanley and withdrawing from the Manor were

full of cheerful activity. He did not meet Hubert Eldon, all business

being transacted through Mr. Yottle. When he heard from the latter that

it was Eldon’s intention to make a clean sweep of mines, works, and

settlements, though for a moment chagrined, he speedily saw that such

action, by giving dramatic completeness to his career at Wanley and

investing its close with something of tragic pathos, was in truth what

he should most have desired. It enabled him to take his departure with

an air of profounder sadness; henceforth no gross facts would stand in

the way of his rhetoric when he should enlarge on the possibilities

thus nipped in the bud. He was more than ever a victim of cruel

circumstances; he could speak with noble bitterness of his life’s work

having been swept into oblivion.

He was supported by a considerable amount of epistolary sympathy. The

local papers made an interesting story of what had happened in the

old church at Wanley, and a few of the London journals reported the

circumstances; in this way Mutimer became known to a wider public than

had hitherto observed him. Not only did his fellow-Unionists write to

encourage and moralise, but a number of those people who are ever ready

to indite letters to people of any prominence, the honestly admiring and

the windily egoistic, addressed communications either to Wanley Manor or

to the editor of the ‘Fiery Cross.’ Mutimer read eagerly every word of

each most insignificant scribbler; his eyes gleamed and his cheeks

grew warm. All such letters he brought to Adela, and made her read

them aloud; he stood with his hands behind his back, his face slightly

elevated and at a listening angle. At the end he regarded her, and his

look said: ‘Behold the man who is your husband!’

But at length there came one letter distinct from all the rest; it had

the seal of a Government office. With eyes which scarcely credited what

they saw Mutimer read some twenty or thirty words from a Minister of the

Crown, a gentleman of vigorously Radical opinions, who had ‘heard

with much regret that the undertaking conceived and pursued with such

single-hearted zeal’ had come to an untimely end. Mutimer rushed to

Adela like a schoolboy who has a holiday to announce.

‘Read that now! What do you think of that? Now there’s some hope of a

statesman like that!’

Adela gave forth the letter in a voice which was all too steady. 7 But

she said:

‘I am very glad. It must gratify you. He writes very kindly.’

‘You’ll have to help me to make an answer.’

Adela smiled, but said nothing.

The ceremonious opening of the hall at New Wanley had been a great

day; Mutimer tried his best to make the closing yet more effective. Mr.

Westlake was persuaded to take the chair, but this time the oration was

by the founder himself. There was a numerous assembly. Mutimer spoke for

an hour and a quarter, reviewing what he had done, and enlarging on all

that he might and would have done. There was as much applause as even

he could desire. The proceedings closed with the reading of an address

which was signed by all the people of the works, a eulogium and an

expression of gratitude, not without one or two sentences of fiery

Socialism. The spokesman was a fine fellow of six feet two, a man named

Redgrave, the ideal of a revolutionist workman. He was one of the few

men at the works whom Adela, from observation of their domestic life,

had learnt sincerely to respect. Before reading the document he made a

little speech of his own, and said in conclusion:

‘Here’s an example of how the law does justice in a capitalist society.

The man who makes a grand use of money has it all taken away from him by

the man who makes no use of it at all, except to satisfy his own malice

and his own selfishness. If we don’t one and all swear to do our utmost

to change such a state of things as that, all I can say is we’re a poor

lot, and deserve to be worse treated than the animals, that haven’t the

sense to use their strength!’

In his reply to the address Richard surpassed himself. He rose in

excitement; the words that rushed to his lips could scarcely find

articulate flow. After the due thanks:

‘To-morrow I go to London; I go as poor as the poorest of you, a

mechanical engineer in search of work. Whether I shall find it or not

there’s no saying. If they turned me out because of my opinions three

years ago, it’s not very likely that they’ve grown fonder of me by this

time. As poor as the poorest of you, I say. Most of you probably know

that a small legacy is left to me under the will which gives this

property into other hands. That money will be used, every penny of it,

for the furtherance of our cause!’

It was a magnificent thought, one of those inspirations which reveal

latent genius. The hall echoed with shouts of glorification. Adela, who

sat with her mother and Letty (Mrs. Westlake had not accompanied her

husband), kept her eyes fixed on the ground; the uproar made her head

throb.

All seemed to be over and dispersal was beginning, when a gentleman

stood up in the middle of the hall and made signs that he wished to be

heard for a moment. Mutimer aided him in gaining attention. It was Mr.

Yottle, a grizzle-headed, ruddy-cheeked veteran of the law.

‘I merely desire to use this opportunity of reminding those who have

been employed at the works that Mr. Eldon will be glad to meet them in

this hall at half-past ten o’clock to-morrow morning. It will perhaps

be better if the men alone attend, as the meeting will be strictly for

business purposes.’

Adela was among the last to leave the room. As she was moving between

the rows of benches Mr. Westlake approached her. He had only arrived

in time to take his place on the platform, and he was on the point of

returning to London.

I have a note for you from Stella, he said. ‘She has been ailing for a

fortnight; it wasn’t safe for her to come. But she will soon see you, I

hope.’

‘I hope so,’ Adela replied mechanically, as she took the letter.

Mr. Westlake only added his ‘good-bye,’ and went to take leave of

Mutimer, who was standing at a little distance.

Among those who remained to talk with the hero of the day was our old

friend Keene. Keene had risen in the world, being at present sub-editor

of a Belwick journal. His appearance had considerably improved, and his

manner was more ornate than ever. He took Mutimer by the arm and led him

aside.

‘A suggestion--something that occurred to me whilst you were speaking.

You must write the history of New Wanley Not too long; a thing that

could be printed in pamphlet form and sold at a penny or twopence. Speak

to Westlake see if the Union won’t publish. Some simple title: “My Work

in New Wanley,” for instance. I’ll see that it’s well noticed in our

rag.’

‘Not a bad idea!’ Mutimer exclaimed, throwing back his head.

‘Trust me, not half bad. Be of use in the propaganda. Just think it

over, and, if you care to, allow me to read it in manuscript. There’s

a kind of art--eh? you know what I mean; it’s only to be got by

journalistic practice. Yes, “My Work in New Wanley”; I think that would

do.’

‘I’m going to lecture at Commonwealth Hall next Sunday,’ Mutimer

observed. ‘I’ll take that for my title.’

‘By-the-bye how--what was I going to say? Oh yes, how is Mrs. Rodman?’

‘Tolerable, I believe.’

‘In London, presumably?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not much--not taking it to heart much, I hope?’

‘Not particularly? I think.’

‘I should be glad to be remembered--a word when you see her. Thanks,

Mutimer, thanks. I must be off.’

Adela was making haste to Teach the Manor, that she might read

Stella’s letter She and her husband were to dine this evening with the

Walthams--a farewell meal. With difficulty she escaped from her mother

and Letty; Stella’s letter demanded a quarter of an hour of solitude.

She reached her room, and broke the envelope. Stella never wrote at much

length, but to-day there were only a few lines.

‘My love to you, heart’s darling. I am not well enough to come, and I

think it likely you had rather I did not. But in a few hours you will be

near me. Come as soon as ever you can. I wait for you like the earth for

spring. ‘STELLA.’

She kissed the paper and put it in the bosom of her dress. It was

already time to go to her mother’s.

She found her mother and Letty with grave faces; something seemed to

have disturbed them. Letty tried to smile and appear at ease, but Mrs.

Waltham was at no pains to hide the source of her dissatisfaction.

‘Did you know of that, Adela?’ she asked, with vexation. ‘About the

annuity, I mean. Had Richard spoken to you of his intention?’

Adela replied with a simple negative. She had not given the matter a

thought.

‘Then he certainly should have done. It was his duty, I consider,

to tell _me_. It is in express contradiction of all he has led me to

understand. What are you going to live on, I should like to know? It’s

very unlikely that he will find a position immediately. He is absolutely

reckless, wickedly thoughtless! My dear, it is not too late even now. I

insist on your staying with us until your husband has found an assured

income. The idea of your going to live in lodgings in an obscure part of

London is more than I can bear, and _now_ it really appals me. Adela,

my child, it’s impossible for you to go under these circumstances. The

commonest decency will oblige him to assent to this arrangement.’

‘My dear mother,’ Adela replied seriously, ‘pray do not reopen that. It

surely ought to be needless for me to repeat that it is my duty to go to

London.’

‘But, Adela darling,’ began Letty, very timorously, ‘wouldn’t it be

relieving your husband? How much freer he would be to look about,

knowing you are here safe and in comfort. I really--I do really think

mother is right.’

Before Adela could make any reply there sounded a knock at the front

door; Richard came in. He cast a glance round at the three. The

others might have escaped his notice, but Mrs. Waltham was too plainly

perturbed.

‘Has anything happened?’ he asked in an offhand way.

‘I am distressed, more than I can tell you,’ began his mother-in-law.

‘Surely you did not mean what you said about the money--’

‘Mother!’ came from Adela’s lips, but she checked herself.

Mutimer thrust his hands into his pockets and stood smiling.

‘Yes, I meant it.’

‘But, pray, what are you and Adela going to live upon?’

‘I don’t think we shall have any difficulty.’

‘But surely one must more than _think_ in a matter such as this. You

mustn’t mind me speaking plainly, Richard. Adela is my only daughter,

and the thought of her undergoing needless hardships is so dreadful to

me that I really must speak. I have a plan, and I am sure you will see

that it is the very best for all of us. Allow Adela to remain with me

for a little while, just till you have--have made things straight. It

certainly would ease your mind. She is so very welcome to a share of our

home. You would feel less hampered. I am sure you will consent to this.’

Mutimer’s smile died away. He avoided Mrs. Waltham’s face, and let his

eyes pass in a cold gaze from Letty, who almost shrank, to Adela, who

stood with an air of patience.

‘What do you say to this?’ he asked of his wife, in a tone civil indeed,

but very far from cordial.

‘I have been trying to show mother that I cannot do as she wishes. It

is very kind of her, but, unless you think it would be better for me to

stay, I shall of course accompany you.’

‘You can stay if you like.’

Adela understood too well what that permission concealed.

‘I have no wish to stay.’

Mutimer turned his look on Mrs. Waltham, without saying anything.

‘Then I can say no more,’ Mrs. Waltham replied. ‘But you must understand

that I take leave of my daughter with the deepest concern. I hope you

will remember that her health for a long time has been anything but

good, and that she was never accustomed to do hard and coarse work.’

‘We won’t talk any more of this, mother,’ Adela interposed firmly. ‘I am

sure you need have no fear that I shall be tried beyond my strength. You

must remember that I go with my husband.’

The high-hearted one! She would have died rather than let her mother

perceive that her marriage was less than happy. To the end she would

speak that word ‘my husband,’ when it was necessary to speak it at all,

with the confidence of a woman who knows no other safeguard against the

ills of life. To the end she would shield the man with her own dignity,

and protect him as far as possible even against himself.

Mutimer smiled again, this time with satisfaction.

‘I certainly think we can take care of ourselves,’ he remarked briefly.

In a few minutes they were joined by Alfred, who had only just returned

from Belwick, and dinner was served. It was not a cheerful evening.

At Adela’s request it had been decided in advance that the final

leave-taking should be to-night; she and Mutimer would drive to Agworth

station together with Alfred the first thing in the morning. At ten

o’clock the parting came. Letty could not speak for sobbing; she just

kissed Adela and hurried from the room. Mrs. Waltham preserved a rather

frigid stateliness.

‘Good-bye, my dear,’ she said, when released from her daughter’s

embrace. ‘I hope I may have good news from you.’

With Mutimer she shook hands.

It was a starry and cold night. The two walked side by side without

speaking. When they were fifty yards on their way, a figure came out of

a corner of the road, and Adela heard Letty call her name.

‘I will overtake you,’ she said to her husband.

‘Adela, my sweet, I _couldn’t_ say good-bye to you in the house!’

Letty hung about her dear one’s neck. Adela choked; she could only press

her cheek against that moist one.

‘Write to me often--oh, write often,’ Letty sobbed. ‘And tell me the

truth, darling, will you?’

‘It will be all well, dear sister,’ Adela whispered.

‘Oh, that is a dear name! Always call me that. I can’t say good-bye,

darling. You will come to see us as soon as ever you can?’

‘As soon as I can, Letty.’

Adela found her husband awaiting her.

‘What did she want?’ he asked, with genuine surprise.

‘Only to say good-bye.’

‘Why, she’d said it once.’

The interior of the Manor was not yet disturbed, but all the furniture

was sold, and would be taken away on the morrow. They went to the

drawing room. After some insignificant remarks Mutimer asked:

‘What letter was that Westlake gave you?’

‘It was from Stella--from Mrs. Westlake.’

He paused. Then:

‘Will you let me see it?’

‘Certainly, if you wish.’

She felt for it in her bosom and handed it to him. It shook in her

fingers.

‘Why does she think you’d rather she didn’t come?’

‘I suppose because the occasion seems to her painful.’

‘I don’t see that it was painful at all. What did you think of my

speech?’

‘The first one or the second?’

‘Both, if you like. I meant the first.’

‘You told the story very well.’

‘You’ll never spoil me by over-praise.’

Adela was silent.

‘About this,’ he resumed, tapping the note which he still held. ‘I

don’t think you need go there very often. It seems to me you don’t get

much good from them.’

She looked at him inquiringly.

‘Theirs isn’t the kind of Socialism I care much about,’ he continued,

with the air of giving a solid reason. ‘It seems to me that Westlake’s

going off on a road of his own, and one that leads nowhere. All that

twaddle to-day about the development of society! I don’t think he spoke

of me as he might have done. You’ll see there won’t be half a report in

the “Fiery Gross.”’

Adela was still silent.

‘I don’t mean to say you’re not to see Mrs. Westlake at all, if you want

to,’ he pursued. ‘I shouldn’t have thought she was the kind of woman

to suit you. If the truth was known, I don’t think she’s a Socialist at

all. But then, no more are you, eh?’

‘There is no one with a more passionate faith in the people than Mrs.

Westlake,’ Adela returned.

‘Faith! That won’t do much good.’

He was silent a little, then went to another subject.

‘Rodman writes that he’s no intention of giving up the money. I knew it

would come to that.’

‘But the law will compel him,’ Adela exclaimed.

‘It’s a roundabout business. Eldon’s only way of recovering it is to

bring an action against me. Then I shall have to go to law with Rodman.’

‘But how can he refuse? It is--’

She checked herself, remembering that words were two-edged.

‘Oh, he writes in quite a friendly way--makes a sort of joke of it.

We’ve to get what we can of him, he says. But he doesn’t get off if I

can help it. I must see Yottle on our way tomorrow.’

‘Keene wants me to write a book about New Wanley,’ he said presently.

‘A book?’

‘Well, a small one. It could be called, “My Work at New Wanley.” It

might do good.’

‘Yes, it might,’ Adela assented absently.

‘You look tired. Get off to bed; you’ll have to be up early in the

morning, and it’ll be a hard day.’

Adela went, hopeful of oblivion till the ‘hard day’ should dawn.

The next morning they were in Belwick by half-past nine. Alfred took

leave of them and went off to business. He promised to ‘look them up’ in

London before very long, probably at Christmas. Between him and Mutimer

there was make-believe of cordiality at parting; they had long ceased to

feel any real interest in each other.

Adela had to spend the time in the railway waiting-room whilst her

husband went to see Yottle. It was a great bare place; when she entered,

she found a woman in mourning, with a little boy, sitting alone. The

child was eating a bun, his mother was silently shedding tears. Adela

seated herself as far from them as possible, out of delicacy, but she

saw the woman look frequently towards her, and at last rise as if

to come and speak. She was a feeble, helpless-looking being of about

thirty; evidently the need of sympathy overcame her, for she had no

other excuse for addressing Adela save to tell that her luggage had gone

astray, and that she was waiting in the hope that something might be

heard of it. Finding a gentle listener, she talked on and on, detailing

the wretched circumstances under which she had recently been widowed,

and her miserable prospects in a strange town whither she was going.

Adela made an effort to speak in words of comfort, but her own voice

sounded hopeless in her ears. In the station was a constant roaring and

hissing, bell-ringing and the shriek of whistles, the heavy trundling of

barrows, the slamming of carriage-doors; everywhere a smell of smoke.

It impressed her as though all the ‘world had become homeless, and

had nothing to do but journey hither and thither in vain search of a

resting-place. And her waiting lasted more than an hour. But for the

effort to dry another’s tears it would have been hard to restrain her

own.

The morning had threatened rain; when at length the journey to London

began, the black skies yielded a steady downpour Mutimer was anything

but cheerful; establishing himself in a corner of the third-class

carriage, he for a time employed himself with a newspaper; then,

throwing it on to Adela’s lap, closed his eyes as if he hoped to sleep.

Adela glanced up and down the barren fields of type, but there was

nothing that could hold her attention, and, by chance looking at her

husband’s face, she continued to examine it. Perhaps he was asleep,

perhaps only absorbed in thought. His lips were sullenly loose beneath

the thick reddish moustache his eyebrows had drawn themselves together,

scowling. She could not avert her gaze; it seemed to her that she was

really scrutinising his face for the first time, and it was as that of

a stranger. Not one detail had the stamp of familiarity: the whole

repelled her. What was the meaning now first revealed to her in that

countenance? The features had a massive regularity; there was nothing

grotesque, nothing on the surface repulsive; yet, beholding the face as

if it were that of a man unknown to her, she felt that a whole world of

natural antipathies was between it and her.

It was the face of a man by birth and breeding altogether beneath her.

Never had she understood that as now; never had she conceived so

forcibly the reason which made him and her husband and wife only in

name. Suppose that apparent sleep of his to be the sleep of death; he

would pass from her consciousness like a shadow from the field, leaving

no trace behind. Their life of union was a mockery; their married

intimacy was an unnatural horror. He was not of her class, not of her

world; only by violent wrenching of the laws of nature had they come

together. She had spent years in trying to convince herself that there

were no such distinctions, that only an unworthy prejudice parted class

from class. One moment of true insight was worth more than all her

theorising on abstract principles. To be her equal this man must be

born again, of other parents, in other conditions of life. ‘I go back

to London a mechanical engineer in search of employment.’ They were the

truest words he had ever uttered; they characterised him, classed him.

She had no claims to aristocratic descent, but her parents were

gentlefolk; that is to say, they were both born in a position which

encouraged personal refinement rather than the contrary, which expected

of them a certain education in excess of life’s barest need, which

authorised them to use the service of ruder men and women in order to

secure to themselves a margin of life for life’s sake. Perhaps for three

generations her ancestors could claim so much gentility; it was more

than enough to put a vast gulf between her and the Mutimers. Favourable

circumstances of upbringing had endowed her with delicacy of heart

and mind not inferior to that of any woman living; mated with an equal

husband, the children born of her might hope to take their place among

the most beautiful and the most intelligent. And her husband was a man

incapable of understanding her idlest thought.

He opened his eyes, looked at her blankly for a moment, stirred his

limbs to make his position easier.

Pouring rain in London streets. The cab drove eastward, but for no great

distance. Adela found herself alighting at a lodging-house not far from

the reservoir at the top of Pentonville Hill. Mutimer had taken these

rooms a week ago.

A servant fresh from the blackleading of a grate opened the door to

them, grinning with recognition at the sight of Mutimer. The latter had

to help the cabman to deposit the trunks in the passage. Then Adela was

shown to her bedroom.

It was on the second floor, the ordinary bedroom of cheap furnished

lodgings, with scant space between the foot of the bed and the

fireplace, with a dirty wall-paper and a strong musty odour. The window

looked upon a backyard.

She passed from the bedroom to the sitting-room; here was the same

vulgar order, the same musty smell. The table was laid for dinner.

Mutimer read his wife’s countenance furtively. He could not discover how

the abode impressed her, and he put no question. When he returned from

the bedroom she was sitting before the fire, pensive.

‘You’re hungry, I expect?’ he said.

Her appetite was far from keen, but in order not to appear discontented

she replied that she would be glad of dinner.

The servant, her hands and face half washed, presently appeared with a

tray on which were some mutton-chops, potatoes, and a cabbage. Adela did

her best to eat, but the chops were ill-cooked, the vegetables poor in

quality. There followed a rice-pudding; it was nearly cold; coagulated

masses of rice appeared beneath yellowish water. Mutimer made no remark

about the food till the table was cleared. Then he said:

‘They’ll have to do better than that. The first day, of course--You’ll

have a talk with the landlady whilst I’m out to-night. Just let her see

that you won’t be content with _anything_; you have to talk plainly to

these people.’

‘Yes, I’ll speak about it,’ Adela replied.

‘They made a trouble at first about waiting on us,’ Mutimer pursued.

‘But I didn’t see how we could get our own meals very well. You can’t

cook, can you?’

He smiled, and seemed half ashamed to ask the question.

‘Oh yes; I can cook ordinary things,’ Adela said. ‘But--we haven’t a

kitchen, have we?’

‘Well, no. If we did anything of that kind, it would have to be on this

fire. She charges us four shillings a week more for cooking the dinner.’

He added this information in a tone of assumed carelessness.

‘I think we might save that,’ Adela said. ‘If I had the necessary

things--I should like to try, if you will let me.’

‘Just as you please. I don’t suppose the stuff they send us up will ever

be very eatable. But it’s too bad to ask you to do work of that kind.’

‘Oh, I shan’t mind it in the least! It will be far better, better in

every way.’

Mutimer brightened up.

‘In that case we’ll only get them to do the housemaid work. You can

explain that to the woman; her name is Mrs. Gulliman.’

He paused.

‘Think you can make yourself at home, here?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘That’s all right. I shall go out now for an hour or so. You can unpack

your boxes and get things in order a bit.’

Adela had her interview with Mrs. Gulliman in the course of the

evening, and fresh arrangements were made, not perhaps to the landlady’s

satisfaction, though she made a show of absorbing interest and vast

approval. She was ready to lend her pots and pans till Adela should have

made purchase of those articles.

Adela had the satisfaction of saving four shillings a week.

Two days later Mutimer sought eagerly in the ‘Fiery Gross’ for a report

of the proceedings at New Wanley. Only half a column was given to the

subject, the speeches being summarised. He had fully expected that the

week’s ‘leader’ would be concerned with his affairs, but there was no

mention of him.

He bought the ‘Tocsin.’ Foremost stood an article headed, ‘The Bursting

of a Soap Bubble.’ It was a satirical review of the history of New

Wanley, signed by Comrade Roodhouse. He read in one place: ‘Undertakings

of this kind, even if pursued with genuine enthusiasm, are worse than

useless; they are positively pernicious. They are half measures, and can

only result in delaying the Revolution. It is assumed that working-men

can be kept in a good temper with a little better housing and a little

more money. That is to aid the capitalists, to smooth over huge wrongs

with petty concessions, to cry peace where there is no peace. We know

this kind of thing of old. It is the whole system of wage-earning that

must be overthrown--the ideas which rule the relations of employers

and employed. Away with these palliatives; let us rejoice when we see

working men starving and ill-clad, for in that way their eyes will be

opened. The brute who gets the uttermost farthing out of the toil of his

wage-slaves is more a friend to us and our cause than any namby-pamby

Socialist, such as the late Dukeling of New Wanley. Socialist indeed!

But enough. We have probably heard the last of this _parvenu_ and

his loudly trumpeted schemes. No true friend of the Revolution can be

grieved.’

Mutimer bit his lip.

‘Heard the last of me, have they? Don’t be too hasty, Roodhouse.’

CHAPTER XXVII

A week later; the scene, the familiar kitchen in Wilton Square. Mrs.

Mutimer, upon whom time has laid unkind hands since last we saw her,

is pouring tea for Alice Rodman, who has just come all the way from

the West End to visit her. Alice, too, has suffered from recent

vicissitudes; her freshness is to seek, her bearing is no longer

buoyant, she is careless in attire. To judge from the corners of her

mouth, she is confirmed in querulous habits; her voice evidences the

same.

She was talking of certain events of the night before.

‘It was about half-past twelve--I’d just got into bed--when the servant

knocks at my door. “Please, mum,” she says, “there’s a policeman wants

to see master.” You may think if I wasn’t frightened out of my life! I

don’t think it was two minutes before I got downstairs, and there the

policeman stood in the hall. I told him I was Mrs. Rodman, and then he

said a young man called Henry Mutimer had got locked up for making a

disturbance outside a music hall, and he’d sent to my husband to

bail him out. Well, just as we were talking in comes Willis. Rare

and astonished he was to see me with all my things huddled on and a

policeman in the house. We did so laugh afterwards; he said he thought

I’d been committing a robbery. But he wouldn’t bail ‘Arry, and I

couldn’t blame him. And now he says ‘Arry ‘ll have to do as best he can.

He won’t get him another place.’

‘He’s lost his place too?’ asked the mother gloomily.

‘He was dismissed yesterday. He says that’s why he went drinking too

much. Out of ten days that he’s been in the place he’s missed two and

hasn’t been punctual once. I think you might have seen he got off at the

proper time in the morning, mother.’

‘What’s the good o’ blamin’ me?’ exclaimed the old woman fretfully.

‘A deal o’ use it is for me to talk. If I’m to be held ‘countable he

doesn’t live here no longer; I know that much.’

‘Dick was a fool to pay his fine. I’d have let him go to prison for

seven days; it would have given him a lesson.’

Mrs. Mutimer sighed deeply, and lost herself in despondent thought.

Alice sipped her tea and went on with her voluble talk.

‘I suppose he’ll show up some time to-night unless Dick keeps him. But

he can’t do that, neither, unless he makes him sleep on the sofa in

their sitting-room. A nice come-down for my lady, to be living in two

furnished rooms! But it’s my belief they’re not so badly off as they

pretend to be. It’s all very well for Dick to put on his airs and go

about saying he’s given up every farthing; he doesn’t get me to believe

that. He wouldn’t go paying away his pounds so readily. And they have

attendance from the landlady; Mrs. Adela doesn’t soil her fine finger’s,

trust her. You may depend upon it, they’ve plenty. She wouldn’t speak a

word for us; if she cared to, she could have persuaded Mr. Eldon to

let me keep my money, and then there wouldn’t have been all this law

bother.’

‘What bother’s that?’

‘Why, Dick says he’ll go to law with my husband to recover the money he

paid him when we were married. It seems he has to answer for it, because

he’s what they call the administrator, and Mr. Eldon can compel him to

make it all good again.’

‘But I thought you said you’d given it all up?’

‘That’s my own money, what was settled on me. I don’t see what good it

was to me; I never had a penny of it to handle. Now they want to get all

the rest out of us. How are we to pay back the money that’s spent and

gone, I’d like to know? Willis says they’ll just have to get it if they

can. And here’s Dick going on at me because we don’t go into lodgings!

I don’t leave the house before I’m obliged, I know that much. We may as

well be comfortable as long as we can.

‘The mean thing, that Adela!’ she pursued after a pause. ‘She was to

have married Mr. Eldon, and broke it off when she found he wasn’t going

to be as rich as she thought; then she caught hold of Dick. I should

like to have seen her face when she found that will!--I wish it had been

me!’

Alice laughed unpleasantly. Her mother regarded her with an air of

curious inquiry, then murmured:

‘Dick and she did the honest thing. I’ll say so much for them.’

‘I’ll be even with Mrs. Adela yet,’ pursued Alice, disregarding the

remark. ‘She wouldn’t speak for me, but she’s spoken for herself, no

fear. She and her airs!’

There was silence; then Mrs. Mutimer said:

‘I’ve let the top bedroom for four-and-six.’

‘’Arry’s room? What’s he going to do then?’

‘He’ll have to sleep on the chair-bedstead, here in the kitchen. That

is, if I have him in the ‘ouse at all. And I don’t know yet as I shall.’

‘Have you got enough money to go on with?’ Alice asked.

‘Dick sent me a pound this morning. I didn’t want it’

‘Has he been to see you yet, mother?’

The old woman shook her head.

‘Do you want him to come, or don’t you?’

There was silence. Alice looked at her mother askance. The leathern mask

of a face was working with some secret emotion.

‘He’ll come if he likes, I s’pose,’ was her abrupt answer.

In the renewed silence they heard some one enter the house and descend

the kitchen stairs. ‘Arry presented himself. He threw his hat upon a

chair, and came forward with a swagger to seat himself at the tea-table.

His mother did not look at him.

‘Anything to eat?’ he asked, more loudly than was necessary, as if he

found the silence oppressive.

‘There’s bread and butter,’ replied Alice, with lofty scorn.

‘Hullo! Is it you?’ exclaimed the young man, affecting to recognise his

sister. ‘I thought you was above coming here Have they turned you out of

your house?’

‘That’s what’ll happen to you, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Arry cast a glance towards his mother. Seeing that her eyes were fixed

in another direction, he began pantomimic interrogation of Alice. The

latter disregarded him.

‘Arry presented an appearance less than engaging. He still bore the

traces of last night’s debauch and of his sojourn in the police-cell.

There was dry mud on the back of his coat, his shirt-cuffs and collar

were of a slaty hue, his hands and face filthy. He began to eat bread

and butter, washing down each morsel with a gulp of tea. The spoon

remained in the cup whilst he drank. To ‘Arry it was a vast relief to be

free from the conventionalities of Adela’s table.

‘That lawyer fellow Yottle’s been to see them to-day,’ he remarked

presently.

Alice looked at him eagerly.

‘What about?’

‘There was talk about you and Rodman.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Couldn’t hear. I was in the other room. But I heard Yottle speaking

your name.’

He had, in fact, heard a few words through the keyhole, but not enough

to gather the sense of the conversation, which had been carried on in

discreet tones.

‘There you are!’ Alice exclaimed, addressing her mother. ‘They’re

plotting against us, you see.’

‘I don’t think it ‘ud be Dick’s wish to do you harm,’ said Mrs. Mutimer

absently.

‘Dick ‘ll do whatever she tells him.’

‘Adela, eh?’ observed ‘Arry. ‘She’s a cat.’

‘You mind your own business!’ returned his sister.

‘So it is my business. She looked at me as if I wasn’t good enough to

come near her ‘igh-and-mightiness. I’m glad to see _her_ brought down a

peg, chance it!’

Alice would not condescend to join her reprobate brother, even in abuse

of Adela. She very shortly took leave of her mother, who went up to the

door with her.

‘Are you going to see Dick?’ Mrs. Mutimer said, in the passage.

‘I shan’t see him till he comes to my house,’ replied Alice sharply.

The old woman stood on the doorstep till her daughter was out of sight,

then sighed and returned to her kitchen.

Alice returned to her more fashionable quarter by omnibus. Though Rodman

had declined to make any change in their establishment, he practised

economy in the matter of his wife’s pin-money. Gone were the delights

of shopping, gone the little lunches in confectioners’ shops to which

Alice, who ate sweet things like a child, had been much addicted. Even

the carriage she could seldom make use of, for Rodman had constant need

of it--to save cab-fares, he said. It was chiefly employed in taking

him to and from the City, where he appeared to have much business at

present.

On reaching home Alice found a telegram from her husband.

‘Shall bring three friends to dinner. Be ready for us at half-past

seven.’

Yet he had assured her that he would dine quietly alone with her at

eight o’clock. Alice, who was weary of the kind of men her husband

constantly brought, felt it as a bitter disappointment. Besides, it was

already after six, and there were no provisions in the house. But for

her life she durst not cause Rodman annoyance by offering a late or

insufficient dinner. She thanked her stars that her return had been even

thus early.

The men when they presented themselves were just of the kind she

expected--loud-talking--their interests divided between horse-racing and

the money-market; she was a cipher at her own table, scarcely a remark

being addressed to her. The conversation was meaningless to her;

it seemed, indeed, to be made purposely mysterious; terms of the

stock-exchange were eked out with nods and winks. Rodman was in far

better spirits than of late, whence Alice gathered that some promising

rascality was under consideration.

The dinner over, she was left to amuse herself as she could in the

drawing-room. Rodman and his friends continued their talk round the

table, and did not break up till close upon mid night. Then she heard

the men take their departure. Rodman presently came up to her and threw

himself into a chair. His face was very red, a sign with which Alice was

familiar; but excessive potations apparently had not produced the usual

effect, for he was still in the best of tempers.

‘Seen that young blackguard?’ he began by asking.

‘I went to see mother, and he came while I was there.’

‘He’ll have to look after himself in future. You don’t catch me helping

him again.’

‘He says Mr. Yottle came to see them to-day.’

‘To see who?’

‘Dick and his wife. He heard them talking about us.’

Rodman laughed.

‘Let ‘em go ahead! I wish them luck.’

‘But can’t they ruin us if they like?’

‘It’s all in a life. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been ruined, old

girl. Let’s enjoy ourselves whilst we can. There’s nothing like plenty

of excitement.’

‘It’s all very well for you, Willis. But if you had to sit at home all

day doing nothing, you wouldn’t find it so pleasant.’

‘Get some novels.’

‘I’m tired of novels,’ she replied, sighing.

‘So Yottle was with them?’ Rodman said musingly, a smile still on his

face. ‘I wish I knew what terms they’ve come to with Eldon.’

‘I wish I could do something to pay out that woman!’ exclaimed Alice

bitterly. ‘She’s at the bottom of it all. She hates both of us. Dick ‘ud

never have gone against you but for her.’

Rodman, extended in the low chair at full length, fixed an amused look

on her.

‘You’d like to pay her out, eh?’

‘Wouldn’t I just!’

‘Ha! ha! what a vicious little puss you are! It’s a good thing I don’t

tell you everything, or you might do damage.’

Alice turned to him with eagerness.

‘What do you mean?’

He let his head fall back, and laughed with a drunken man’s hilarity.

Alice persisted with her question.

‘Come and sit here,’ Rodman said, patting his knee.

Alice obeyed him.

‘What is it, Willis? What have you found out? Do tell me, there’s a

dear!’

‘I’ll tell you one thing, old girl: you’re losing your good looks.

Nothing like what you were when I married you.’

She flushed and looked miserable.

‘I can’t help my looks. I don’t believe you care how I look.’

‘Oh, don’t I, though! Why, do you think I’d have stuck to you like this

if I didn’t? What was to prevent me from realising all the cash I could

and clearing off, eh? ‘Twouldn’t have been the first--’

‘The first what?’ Alice asked sharply.

‘Never mind. You see I didn’t do it. Too bad to leave the Princess in

the lurch, wouldn’t it be?’

Alice seemed to have forgotten the other secret. She searched his face

for a moment, deeply troubled, then asked:

‘Willis, I want to know who Clara is?’

He moved his eyes slowly, and regarded her with a puzzled look.

‘Clara? What Clara?’

‘Somebody you know of. You’ve got a habit of talking in your sleep

lately. You were calling out “Clara!” last night, and that’s the second

time I’ve heard you.’

He was absent for a few seconds, then laughed and shook his head.

‘I don’t know anybody called Clara. It’s your mistake.’

‘I’m quite sure it isn’t,’ Alice murmured discontentedly.

‘Well, then, we’ll say it is,’ he rejoined in a firmer voice. ‘If I

talk in my sleep, perhaps it’ll be better for you to pay no attention. I

might find it inconvenient to live with you.’

Alice looked frightened at the threat.

‘You’ve got a great many secrets from me,’ she said despondently.

‘Of course I have. It is for your good. I was going to tell you one just

now, only you don’t seem to care to bear it.’

‘Yes, yes, I do!’ Alice exclaimed, recollecting. ‘Is it something about

Adela?’

He nodded.

‘Wouldn’t it delight you to go and get her into a terrible row with

Dick?’

‘Oh, do tell me! What’s she been doing?’

‘I can’t quite promise you the fun,’ he replied, laughing. ‘It may miss

fire. What do you think of her meeting Eldon alone in the wood that

Monday afternoon, the day after she found the will, you know?’

‘You mean that?’

‘I saw them together.’

‘But she--you don’t mean she--?’

Even Alice, with all her venom against her brother’s wife, had a

difficulty in attributing this kind of evil to Adela. In spite of

herself she was incredulous.

‘Think what you like,’ said Rodman. ‘It looks queer, that’s all.’

It was an extraordinary instance of malice perpetrated out of sheer

good-humour. Had he not been assured by what he heard in the wood of the

perfectly innocent relations between Adela and Eldon, he would naturally

have made some profitable use of his knowledge before this. As long

as there was a possibility of advantage in keeping on good terms with

Adela, he spoke to no one of that meeting which he had witnessed. Even

now he did not know but that Adela had freely disclosed the affair

to her husband. But his humour was genially mischievous. If he could

gratify Alice and at the same time do the Mutimers an ill turn, why not

amuse himself?

‘I’ll tell Dick the very first thing in the morning!’ Alice declared,

aglow with spiteful anticipation.

Rodman approved the purpose, and went off to bed laughing uproariously.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Adela allowed a week to pass before speaking of her desire to visit

Mrs. Westlake. In Mutimer a fit of sullenness had followed upon his

settlement in lodgings. He was away from home a good deal, but his hours

of return were always uncertain, and Adela could not help thinking

that he presented himself at unlikely times, merely for the sake of

surprising her and discovering her occupation. Once or twice she had no

knowledge of his approach until he opened the door of the room; when she

remarked on his having ascended the stairs so quietly, he professed not

to understand her. On one of those occasions she was engaged on a letter

to her mother; he inquired to whom she was writing, and for reply

she merely held out the sheet for his perusal. He glanced at the

superscription, and handed it back. Breathing this atmosphere of

suspicion, she shrank from irritating him by a mention of Stella, and to

go without his express permission was impossible. Stella did not write;

Adela began to fear lest her illness had become more serious. When she

spoke at length, it was in one of the moments of indignation, almost of

revolt, which at intervals came to her, she knew not at what impulse. At

Wanley her resource at such times had been to quit the house, and pace

her chosen walk in the garden till she was weary. In London she had

no refuge, and the result of her loss of fresh air had speedily shown

itself in moods of impatience which she found it very difficult to

conquer. Her husband came home one afternoon about five o’clock, and,

refusing to have any tea, sat for several hours in complete silence;

occasionally he pretended to look at a pamphlet which he had brought in

with him, but for the most part he sat, with his legs crossed, frowning

at vacancy. Adela grew feverish beneath the oppression of this brooding

ill-temper; her endeavour to read was vain; the silence was a constraint

upon her moving, her breathing. She spoke before she was conscious of an

intention to do so.

‘I think I must go and see Mrs. Westlake to-morrow morning.’

Mutimer vouchsafed no answer, gave no sign of having heard. She repeated

the words.

‘If you must, you must.’

‘I wish to,’ Adela said with an emphasis she could not help. ‘Do you

object to my going?’

He was surprised at her tone.

‘I don’t object. I’ve told you I think you get no good there. But go if

you like.’

She said after a silence:

‘I have no other friend in London; and if it were only on account of her

kindness to me, I owe her a visit.’

‘All right, don’t talk about it any more; I’m thinking of something.’

The evening wore on. At ten o’clock the servant brought up a jug of

beer, which she fetched for Mutimer every night; he said he could not

sleep without this sedative. It was always the sign for Adela to go to

bed.

She visited Stella in the morning, and found her still suffering. They

talked for an hour, then it was time for Adela to hasten homewards,

in order to have dinner ready by half-past one. From Stella she had no

secret, save the one which she did her best to make a secret even to

herself; she spoke freely of her mode of life, though without comment.

Stella made no comments in her replies.

‘And you cannot have lunch with me?’ she asked when her friend rose.

‘I cannot; dear.’

‘May I write to you?’ Stella said with a meaning look.

‘Yes, to tell me how you are.’

Adela had not got far from the house when she saw her husband walking

towards her. She looked at him steadily.

‘I happened to be near,’ he explained, ‘and thought I might as well go

home with you.’

‘I might have been gone.’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t have waited long.’

The form of his reply discovered that he had no intention of calling

at the house; Adela understood that he had been in Avenue Road for some

time, probably had reached it very soon after her.

The next morning there arrived for Mutimer a letter from Alice. She

desired to see him; her husband would be from home all day, and she

would be found at any hour; her business was of importance--underlined.

Mutimer went shortly after breakfast, and Alice received him very much

as she would have done in the days before the catastrophe. She had

arrayed herself with special care; he found her leaning on cushions, her

feet on a stool, the eternal novel on her lap. Her brother had to stifle

anger at seeing her thus in appearance unaffected by the storm which had

swept away his own happiness and luxuries.

‘What is it you want?’ he asked at once, without preliminary greeting.

‘You are not very polite,’ Alice returned. ‘Perhaps you’ll take a

chair.’

‘I haven’t much time, so please don’t waste what I can afford.’

‘Are you so busy? Have you found something to do?’

‘I’m likely to have enough to do with people who keep what doesn’t

belong to them.’

‘It isn’t my doing, Dick,’ she said more seriously.

‘I don’t suppose it is.’

‘Then you oughtn’t to be angry with me.’

‘I’m not angry. What do you want?’

‘I went to see mother yesterday. I think she wants you to go; it looked

like it.’

‘I’ll go some day.’

‘It’s too bad that she should have to keep ‘Arry in idleness.’

‘She hasn’t to keep him. I send her money.’

‘But how are you to afford that?’

‘That’s not your business.’

Alice looked indignant.

‘I think you might speak more politely to me in my own house.’

‘It isn’t your own house.’

‘It is as long as I live in it. I suppose you’d like to see me go back

to a workroom. It’s all very well for you; if you live in lodgings,

that doesn’t say you’ve got no money. We have to do the best we can for

ourselves; we haven’t got your chances of making a good bargain.’

It was said with much intention; Alice hall closed her eyes and curled

her lips in a disdainful smile.

‘What chances? What do you mean?’

‘Perhaps if _I_‘d been a particular friend of Mr. Eldon’s--never mind.’

He flashed a look at her.

‘What are you talking about? Just speak plainly, will you? What do you

mean by “particular friend”? I’m no more a friend of Eldon’s than you

are, and I’ve made no bargain with him.’

‘I didn’t say _you_.’

‘Who then?’ he exclaimed sternly.

‘Don’t you know? Some one is so very proper, and such a fine lady, I

shouldn’t have thought she’d have done things without your knowing.’

He turned pale, and seemed to crush the floor with his foot, that he

might stand firm.

‘You’re talking of Adela?’

Alice nodded.

‘What about her? Say at once what you’ve got to say.’

Inwardly she was a little frightened, perhaps half wished that she had

not begun. Yet it was sweet to foresee the thunderbolt that would fall

on her enemy’s head. That her brother would suffer torments did not

affect her imagination; she had never credited him with strong feeling

for his wife; and it was too late to draw back.

‘You know that she met Mr. Eldon in the wood at Wanley on the day after

she found the will?’

Mutimer knitted his brows to regard her. But in speaking he was more

self-governed than before.

‘Who told you that?’

‘My husband. He saw them together.’

‘And heard them talking?’

‘Yes.’

Rodman had only implied this. Alice’s subsequent interrogation had

failed to elicit more from him than dark hints.

Mutimer drew a quick breath.

‘He must be good at spying. Next time I hope he’ll find out something

worth talking about.’

Alice was surprised.

‘You know about it?’

‘Just as much as Rodman, do you understand that?’

‘You don’t believe?’

She herself had doubts.

‘It’s nothing to you whether I believe it or not. Just be good enough in

future to mind your own business; you’ll have plenty of it before long.

I suppose that’s what you brought me here for?’

She made no answer; she was vexed and puzzled.

‘Have you anything else to say?’

Alice maintained a stubborn silence.

‘Alice, have you anything more to tell me about Adela?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Then you might have spared me the trouble. Tell Rodman with my

compliments that it would be as well for him to keep out of my way.’

He left her.

On quitting the house he walked at a great pace for a quarter of a mile

before he remembered the necessity of taking either train or omnibus.

The latter was at hand, but when he had ridden for ten minutes the

constant stoppages so irritated him that he jumped out and sought a

hansom. Even thus he did not travel fast enough; it seemed an endless

time before the ascent of Pentonville Hill began. He descended a little

distance from his lodgings.

As he was paying the driver another hansom went by; he by chance saw the

occupant, and it was Hubert Eldon. At least he felt convinced of it, and

he was in no mind to balance the possibilities of mistake. The hansom

had come from the street which Mutimer was just entering.

He found Adela engaged in cooking the dinner; she wore an apron, and the

sleeves of her dress were pushed up. As he came into the room she looked

at him with her patient smile; finding that he was in one of his worst

tempers, she said nothing and went on with her work. A coarse cloth

was thrown over the table; on it lay a bowl of vegetables which she was

preparing for the saucepan.

Perhaps it was the sight of her occupation, of the cheerful simplicity

with which she addressed herself to work so unworthy of her; he could

not speak at once as he had meant to. He examined her with eyes of

angry, half foiled suspicion. She had occasion to pass him; he caught

her arm and stayed her before him.

‘What has Eldon been doing here?’

She paused and shrank a little.

‘Mr. Eldon has not been here.’

He thought her face betrayed a guilty agitation.

‘I happen to have met him going away. I think you’d better tell me the

truth.’

‘I have told you the truth. If Mr. Eldon has been to the house, I was

not aware of it.’

He looked at her in silence for a moment, then asked:

‘Are you the greatest hypocrite living?’

Adela drew farther away. She kept her eyes down. Long ago she had

suspected what was in Mutimer’s mind, but she had only been apprehensive

of the results of jealousy on his temper and on their relations to each

other; it had not entered her thought that she might have to defend

herself against an accusation. This violent question affected her

strangely. For a moment she referred it entirely to the secrets of

her heart, and it seemed impossible to deny what was imputed to her,

impossible even to resent his way of speaking. Was she not a hypocrite?

Had she not many, many times concealed with look and voice an inward

state which was equivalent to infidelity? Was not her whole life a

pretence, an affectation of wifely virtues? But the hypocrisy was

involuntary; her nature had no power to extirpate its causes and put in

their place the perfect dignity of uprightness.

‘Why do you ask me that?’ she said at length, raising her eyes for an

instant.

‘Because it seems to me I’ve good cause. I don’t know whether to believe

a word you say.’

‘I can’t remember to have told you falsehoods.’ Her cheeks flushed.

‘Yes, one; that I confessed to you.’

It brought to his mind the story of the wedding ring.

‘There’s such a thing as lying when you tell the truth. Do you remember

that I met you coming back to the Manor that Monday afternoon, a month

ago, and asked you where you’d been?’

Her heart stood still.

‘Answer me, will you?’

‘I remember it.’

‘You told me you’d been for a walk in the wood. You forgot to say who it

was you went to meet.’

How did he know of this? But that thought came to her only to pass. She

understood at length the whole extent of his suspicion. It was not only

her secret feelings that he called in question, he accused her of actual

dishonour as it is defined by the world--that clumsy world with its

topsy-turvydom of moral judgments. To have this certainty flashed

upon her was, as soon as she had recovered from the shock, a sensible

assuagement of her misery. In face of this she could stand her ground.

Her womanhood was in arms; she faced him scornfully.

‘Will you please to make plain your charge against me?’

‘I think it’s plain enough. If a married woman makes appointments in

quiet places with a man she has no business to see anywhere, what’s that

called? I fancy I’ve seen something of that kind before now in cases

before the Divorce Court.’

It angered him that she was not overwhelmed. He saw that she did not

mean to deny having met Eldon, and to have Alice’s story thus confirmed

inflamed his jealousy beyond endurance.

‘You must believe of me what you like,’ Adela replied in a slow, subdued

voice. ‘My word would be vain against that of my accuser, whoever it

is.’

‘Your accuser, as you say, happened not only to see you, but to hear you

talking.’

He waited for her surrender before this evidence. Instead of that Adela

smiled.

‘If my words were reported to you, what fault have you to find with me?’

Her confidence, together with his actual ignorance of what Rodman had

heard, troubled him with doubt.

‘Answer this question,’ he said. ‘Did you make an appointment with that

man?’

‘I did not.’

‘You did not? Yet you met him?’

‘Unexpectedly.’

‘But you talked with him?’

‘How can you ask? You know that I did.’

He collected his thoughts.

‘Repeat to me what you talked about.’

‘That I refuse to do.’

‘Of course you do!’ he cried, driven to frenzy. ‘And you think I

shall let this rest where it is? Have you forgotten that I came to the

Westlakes and found Eldon there with you? And what was he doing in this

street this morning if he hadn’t come to see you? I begin to understand

why you were so precious eager about giving up the will. That was your

fine sense of honesty, of course! You are full of fine senses, but your

mistake is to think I’ve no sense at all. What do you take me for?’

The thin crust of refinement was shattered; the very man came to light,

coarse, violent, whipped into fury by his passions, of which injured

self-love was not the least. Whether he believed his wife guilty or not

he could not have said; enough that she had kept things secret from

him, and that he could not overawe her. Whensoever he had shown anger in

conversation with her, she had made him sensible of her superiority; at

length he fell back upon his brute force and resolved to bring her to

his feet, if need be by outrage. Even his accent deteriorated as he

flung out his passionate words; he spoke like any London mechanic, with

defect and excess of aspirates, with neglect of g’s at the end of words,

and so on. Adela could not bear it; she moved to the door. But he caught

her and thrust her back; it was all but a blow. Her face half recalled

him to his senses.

‘Where are you going?’ he stammered.

‘Anywhere, anywhere, away from this house and from you!’ Adela replied.

Effort to command herself was vain; his heavy hand had completed the

effect of his language, and she, too, spoke as nature impelled her. ‘Let

me pass! I would rather die than remain here!’

‘All the same, you’ll stay where you are!’

‘Yes, your strength is greater than mine. You can hold me by force. But

you have insulted me beyond forgiveness, and we are as much strangers

as if we had never met. You have broken every bond that bound me to you.

You can make me your prisoner, but like a prisoner my one thought will

be of escape. I will touch no food whilst I remain here. I have no

duties to you, and you no claim upon me!’

‘All the same, you stay!’

Before her sobbing vehemence he had grown calm. These words were so

unimaginable on her lips that he could make no reply save stubborn

repetition of his refusal. And having uttered that he went from the

room, changing the key to the outside and locking her in. Fear lest he

might be unable to withhold himself from laying hands upon her was the

cause of his retreat. The lust of cruelty was boiling in him, as once

or twice before. Her beauty in revolt made a savage of him. He went into

the bedroom and there waited.

Adela sat alone, sobbing still, but tearless. Her high-spirited nature

once thoroughly aroused, it was some time before she could reason on

what had come to pass. The possibility of such an end to her miseries

had never presented itself even in her darkest hours; endurance was all

she could ever look forward to. As her blood fell into calmer flow she

found it hard to believe that she had not dreamt this scene of agony.

She looked about the room. There on the table were the vegetables she

had been preparing; her hands bore the traces of the work she had done

this morning. It seemed as though she had only to rise and go on with

her duties as usual.

Her arm was painful, just below the shoulder. Yes, that was where he had

seized her with his hard hand to push her away from the door.

What had she said in her distraction? She had broken away from him,

and repudiated her wifehood. Was it not well done? If he believed her

unfaithful to him--

At an earlier period of her married life such a charge would have held

her mute with horror. Its effect now was not quite the same; she could

face the thought, interrogate herself as to its meaning, with a shudder,

indeed, but a shudder which came of fear as well as loathing. Life was

no longer an untried country, its difficulties and perils to be met with

the sole aid of a few instincts and a few maxims; she had sounded the

depths of misery and was invested with the woeful knowledge of what we

poor mortals call the facts of existence. And sitting here, as on the

desert bed of a river whose water had of a sudden ceased to flow, she

could regard her own relation to truths, however desolating, with the

mind which had rather brave all than any longer seek to deceive itself.

Of that which he imputed to her she was incapable; that such suspicion

of her could enter his mind branded him with baseness. But his jealousy

was justified; howsoever it had awakened in him, it was sustained by

truth. Was it her duty to tell him that, and so to render it impossible

for him to seek to detain her?

But would the confession have any such result? Did he not already

believe her criminal, and yet forbid her to leave him? On what terms did

she stand with a man whose thought was devoid of delicacy, who had again

and again proved himself without understanding of the principles of

honour? And could she indeed make an admission which would compel her at

the same time to guard against revolting misconceptions?

The question of how he had obtained this knowledge recurred to her. It

was evident that the spy had intentionally calumniated her, professing

to have heard her speak incriminating words. She thought of Rodman. He

had troubled her by his private request that she would appeal to Eldon

on Alice’s behalf, a request which was almost an insult. Could he have

been led to make it in consequence of his being aware of that meeting

in the wood? That might well be; she distrusted him and believed him

capable even of a dastardly revenge.

What was the troublesome thought that hung darkly in her mind and would

not come to consciousness? She held it at last; Mutimer had said that he

met Hubert in the street below. How to explain that? Hubert so near to

her, perhaps still in the neighbourhood?

Again she shrank with fear. What might it mean, if he had really come in

hope of seeing her? That was unworthy of him. Had she betrayed herself

in her conversation with him? Then he was worse than cruel to her.

It seemed to her that hours passed. From time to time she heard a

movement in the next room; Mutimer was still there. There sounded at the

house door a loud postman’s knock, and in a few minutes someone came up

the stairs, doubtless to bring a letter. The bedroom door opened; she

heard her husband thank the servant and again shut himself in.

The fire which she had been about to use for cooking was all but dead.

She rose and put fresh coals on. There was a small oblong mirror over

the mantelpiece; it showed her so ghastly a face that she turned quickly

away.

If she succeeded in escaping from her prison, whither should she go? Her

mother would receive her, but it was impossible to go to Wanley, to live

near the Manor. Impossible, too, to take refuge with Stella. If she

fled and hid herself in some other part of London, how was life to be

supported? But there were graver obstacles. Openly to flee from her

husband was to subject herself to injurious suspicions--it might be,

considering Mutimer’s character, to involve Hubert in some intolerable

public shame. Or, if that worst extremity were avoided’, would it not

be said that she had deserted her husband because he had suddenly become

poor?

That last thought brought the blood to her cheeks.

But to live with him after this, to smear over a deadly wound and

pretend it was healed, to read hourly in his face the cowardly triumph

over her weakness, to submit herself--Oh, what rescue from this hideous

degradation! She went to the window, as if it had been possible to

escape by that way; she turned again and stood moaning, with her hands

about her head. When was the worst to come in this life so long since

bereft of hope, so forsaken of support from man or God? The thought of

death came to her; she subdued the tumult of her agony to weigh it well

Whom would she wrong by killing herself? Herself, it might be; perchance

not even death would be sacred against outrage.

She heard a neighbouring clock strike five, and shortly after her

husband entered the room. Had she looked at him she would have seen an

inexplicable animation in his face. He paced the floor once or twice

in silence, then asked in a hard voice, though the tone was quite other

than before:

‘Will you tell me what it was you talked of that day in the wood?’

She did not reply.

‘I suppose by refusing to speak you confess that you dare not let me

know?’

Physical torture could not have wrung a word from her. She felt her

heart surge with hatred.

He went to the cupboard in which food was kept, took out a loaf of

bread, and cut a slice. He ate it, standing before the window. Then he

cleared the table and sat down to write a letter; it occupied him for

hall-an-hour. When it was finished, he put it in his pocket and began

again to pace the room.

‘Are you going to, sit like that all night?’ he asked suddenly.

She drew a deep sigh and rose from her seat. He saw that she no longer

thought of escaping him. She began to make preparations for tea. As

helpless in his hands as though he had purchased her in a slave market,

of what avail to sit like a perverse child? The force of her hatred

warned her to keep watch lest she brought herself to his level. Without

defence against indignities which were bitter as death, by law his

chattel, as likely as not to feel the weight of his hand if she again

roused his anger, what remained but to surrender all outward things to

unthinking habit, and to keep her soul apart, nourishing in silence

the fire of its revolt? It was the most pity-moving of all tragedies, a

noble nature overcome by sordid circumstances. She was deficient in the

strength of character which will subdue all circumstances; her strength

was of the kind that supports endurance rather than breaks a way to

freedom. Every day, every hour, is some such tragedy played through;

it is the inevitable result of our social state. Adela could have wept

tears of blood; her shame was like a branding iron upon her flesh.

She was on the second floor of a lodging-house in Pentonville, making

tea for her husband.

That husband appeared to have undergone a change since lie quitted her a

few hours ago. He was still venomous towards her, but his countenance

no longer lowered dangerously. Something distinct from his domestic

troubles seemed to be occupying him, something of a pleasant nature.

He all but smiled now and then; the glances he cast at Adela were not

wholly occupied with her. He plainly wished to speak, but could not

bring himself to do so.

He ate and drank of what she put before him. Adela took a cup of tea,

but had no appetite for food. When he had satisfied himself, she removed

the things.

Another half-hour passed. Mutimer was pretending to read. Adela at

length broke the silence.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘I was wrong in refusing to tell you what passed

between Mr. Eldon and myself when I by chance met him. Someone seems to

have misled you. He began by hoping that we should not think ourselves

hound to leave the Manor until we had had full time to make the

necessary arrangements. I thanked him for his kindness, and then asked

something further. It was that, if he could by any means do so, he would

continue the works at New Wanley without any change, maintaining the

principles on which they had been begun. He said that was impossible,

and explained to me what his intentions were, and why he had formed

them. That was our conversation.’

Mutimer observed her with a smile which affected incredulity.

‘Will you take your oath that that is true?’ he asked.

‘No. I have told you because I now see that the explanation was owing,

since you have been deceived. If you disbelieve me, it is no concern of

mine.’

She had taken up some sewing, and, having spoken, went on with it.

Mutimer kept his eyes fixed upon her. His suspicions never resisted a

direct word from Adela’s lips, though other feelings might exasperate

him. What he had just heard he believed the more readily because it so

surprised him; it was one of those revelations of his wife’s superiority

which abashed him without causing evil feeling. They always had the

result of restoring to him for a moment something of the reverence with

which he had approached her in the early days of their acquaintance.

Even now he could not escape the impression.

‘What was Eldon doing about here to-day?’ he asked after a pause.

‘I have told you that I did not even know he had been near.’

‘Perhaps not. Now, will you just tell me this: Have you written to

Eldon, or had any letter from him since our marriage?’

Her fingers would not continue their work. A deadening sensation of

disgust made her close her eyes as if to shut out the meaning of his

question. Her silence revived his distrust.

‘You had rather not answer?’ he said significantly.

‘Cannot you see that it degrades me to answer such a question? What is

your opinion of me? Have I behaved so as to lead you to think that I am

an abandoned woman?’

After hesitating he muttered: ‘You don’t give a plain yes or no.’

‘You must not expect it. If you think I use arts to deceive you--if you

have no faith whatever in my purity--it was your duty to let me go from

you when I would have done so. It is horrible for us to live together

from the moment that there is such a doubt on either side. It makes me

something lower than your servant--something that has no name!’

She shuddered. Had not that been true of her from the very morrow of

their marriage? Her life was cast away upon shoals of debasement; no

sanctity of womanhood remained in her. Was not her indignation half

a mockery? She could not even defend her honesty, her honour in the

vulgarest sense of the word, without involving herself in a kind of

falsehood, which was desolation to her spirit. It had begun in her

advocacy of uprightness after her discovery of the will; it was imbuing

her whole nature, making her to her own conscience that which he had

called her--a very hypocrite.

He spoke more conciliatingly.

‘Well, there’s one thing, at all events, that you can’t refuse to

explain. Why didn’t you tell me that you had met Eldon, and what he

meant to do?’

She had not prepared herself for the question, and it went to the root

of her thoughts; none the less she replied instantly, careless how he

understood the truth.

‘I kept silence because the meeting had given me pain, because it

distressed me to have to speak with Mr. Eldon at that place and at that

time, because I _knew_ how you regard him, and was afraid to mention him

to you.’

Mutimer was at a loss. If Adela had calculated her reply with the

deepest art she could not have chosen words better fitted to silence

him.

‘And you have told me every word that passed between you?’ he asked.

‘That would be impossible. I have told you the substance of the

conversation.’

‘Why did you ask him to keep the works going on my plan?’

‘I can tell you no more.’

Her strength was spent. She put aside her sewing and moved towards the

door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I don’t feel well. I must rest.’

‘Just stop a minute. I’ve something here I want to show you.’

She turned wearily. Mutimer took a letter from his pocket.

‘Will you read that?’

She took it. It was written in a very clear, delicate hand, and ran

thus:--

‘DEAR SIR,--I who address you have lain for two years on a bed from

which I shall never move till I am carried to my grave. My age is

three-and-twenty; an accident which happened to me a few days after

my twenty-first birthday left me without the use of my limbs; it often

seems to me that it would have been better if I had died, but there

is no arguing with fate, and the wise thing is to accept cheerfully

whatever befalls us. I hoped at one time to take an active part in life,

and my interest in the world’s progress is as strong as ever, especially

in everything that concerns social reform. I have for some time known

your name, and have constantly sought information about your grand work

at New Wanley. Now I venture to write (by the hand of a dear friend),

to express my admiration for your high endeavour, and my grief at the

circumstances which have made you powerless to continue it.

‘I am possessed of means, and, as you see, can spend but little on

myself. I ask you, with much earnestness, to let me be of some small

use to the cause of social justice, by putting, in your hands the sum of

five hundred pounds, to be employed as may seem good to you. I need not

affect to be ignorant of your position, and it is my great fear lest

you should be unable to work for Socialism with your undivided energies.

Will you accept this money, and continue by means of public lecturing

to spread the gospel of emancipation? That I am convinced is your

first desire. If you will do me this great kindness, I shall ask your

permission to arrange that the same sum be paid to you annually, for

the next ten years, whether I still live or not. To be helping in this

indirect way would cheer me more than you can think. I enclose a draft

on Messrs.--.

‘As I do not know your private address, I send this to the office of

the “Piery Cross.” Pardon me for desiring to remain anonymous; many

reasons necessitate it. If you grant me this favour, will you advertise

the word “Accepted” in the “Times” newspaper within ten days?

‘With heartfelt sympathy and admiration, ‘I sign myself, ‘A FRIEND.’

Adela was unmoved; she returned the letter as if it had no interest for

her.

‘What do you think of that?’ said Mutimer, forgetting their differences

in his exultation.

‘I am glad you can continue your work,’ Adela replied absently.

She was moving away when he again stopped her.

‘Look here, Adela.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you still angry with me?’

She was silent.

‘I am sorry I lost my temper. I didn’t mean all I said to you. Will you

try and forget it?’

Her lips spoke for her.

‘I will try.’

‘You needn’t go on doing housework now,’ he said assuringly. ‘Are you

going? Come and say good-night.’

He approached her and laid his hand upon her shoulder. Adela shrank from

his touch, and for an instant gazed at him with wide eyes of fear.

He dropped his hands and let her go.

CHAPTER XXIX

The valley rested. On the morning of Mutimer’s departure from Wanley

there was no wonted clank of machinery, no smoke from the chimneys, no

roar of iron-smelting furnaces; the men and women of the colony stood

idly before their houses, discussing prospects, asking each other

whether it was seriously Mr. Eldon’s intention to raze New Wanley, many

of them grumbling or giving vent to revolutionary threats. They had

continued in work thus long since the property in fact changed hands,

and to most of them it seemed unlikely, in spite of every thing, that

they would have to go in search of new employments. This morning they

would hear finally.

The valley rested. For several days there had been constant rain; though

summer was scarcely over, it had turned cold and the sky was cheerless.

Over Stanbury Hill there were always heavy, dripping clouds, and the

leaves of Adela’s favourite wood were already falling. At the Manor

there was once more disorder; before Mutimer and his wife took their

departure the removal of furniture had commenced. Over the whole scene

brooded a spirit of melancholy. It needed faith in human energy to

imagine the pollutions swept away, and the seasons peacefully gliding as

of old between the hillsides and amid meadows and garden closes.

Hubert Eldon drove over from Agworth, and was in the Public Hall at the

appointed time. His business with the men was simple and brief. He had

to inform them that their employment here was at an end, but that

each one would receive a month’s wages and permission to inhabit their

present abodes for yet a fortnight. After that they had no longer

right of tenancy. He added that if any man considered himself specially

aggrieved by this arrangement, he was prepared to hear and judge the

individual case.

There was a murmur of discontent through the room, but no one took upon

himself to rise and become spokesman of the community. Disregarding the

manifestation, Hubert described in a few words how and when this final

business would be transacted; then he left the hall by the door which

led from the platform.

Then followed a busy week. Claims of all kinds were addressed to him,

some reasonable, most of them not to be entertained. Mr. Yottle was

constantly at the Manor; there he and Hubert held a kind of court.

Hubert was not well fitted for business of this nature; he easily became

impatient, and, in spite of humane intentions, often suffered from a

tumult of his blood, when opposed by some dogged mechanic.

‘I can’t help it!’ he exclaimed to Mr. Wyvern one right, after a day

of peculiar annoyance. ‘We are all men, it is true; but for the

brotherhood--feel it who can! I am illiberal, if you like, but in the

presence of those fellows I feel that I am facing enemies. It seems to

me that I have nothing in common with them but the animal functions.

Absurd? Yes, of course, it is absurd; but I speak of how intercourse

with them affects me. They are our enemies, yours as well as mine; they

are the enemies of every man who speaks the pure English tongue and does

not earn a living with his hands. When they face me I understand what

revolution means; some of them look at me as they would if they had

muskets in their hands.’

‘You are not conciliating,’ remarked the vicar.

‘I am not, and cannot be. They stir the worst feelings in me; I grow

arrogant, autocratic. As long as I have no private dealings with them I

can consider their hardships and judge their characters dispassionately;

but I must not come to close quarters.’

‘You have special causes of prejudice.’

‘True. If I were a philosopher I should overcome all that. However, my

prejudice is good in one way; it enables me thoroughly to understand the

detestation with which they regard me and the like of me. If I had been

born one of them I should be the most savage anarchist. The moral is,

that I must hold apart. Perhaps I shall grow cooler in time.’

The special causes of prejudice were quite as strong on the side of the

workmen; Hubert might have been far less aristocratic in bearing, they

would have disliked him as cordially. Most of them took it as a wanton

outrage that they should be driven from the homes in which they had

believed themselves settled for life. The man Redgrave--he of the six

feet two who had presented the address to Mutimer--was a powerful agent

of ill-feeling; during the first few days he was constantly gathering

impromptu meetings in New Wanley and haranguing them violently on

the principles of Socialism. But in less than a week he had taken his

departure, and the main trouble seemed at an end.

Mrs. Eldon was so impatient to return to the Manor that a room was

prepared for her as soon as possible, and she came from her house at

Agworth before Mutimer had been gone a week. Through the summer her

strength had failed rapidly; it was her own conviction that she could

live but a short time longer. The extreme agitation caused by the

discovery of the will had visibly enfeebled her; it was her one desire

to find herself once more in her old home, and there to breathe her

last. The journey from Agworth cost her extreme suffering; she was

prostrate, almost lifeless, for three days after it. But her son’s

society revived her. Knowing him established in his family possessions,

she only cared to taste for a little while this unhoped-for joy. Lying

on a couch in her familiar chamber, she delighted to have flowers

brought to her from the garden, even leaves from the dear old trees,

every one of which she knew as a friend. But she had constant thought

for those upon whose disaster her own happiness was founded; of Adela

she spoke often.

‘What will become of that poor child?’ she asked one evening, when

Hubert had been speaking of Rodman’s impracticable attitude, and of

the proceedings Mutimer was about to take. ‘Do you know anything of her

life, Hubert?’