Demos

What would life be with him, away from the protections of a wealthy home, when circumstances would have made him once more the London artisan, and in doing so would have added harshness to his natural temper; when he would no longer find it worth while to preserve the semblance of gentle breeding? Was there strength in her to endure that?

Presently he turned, and she heard him speak her name. She raised her eyes with a half-smile of abashment. He approached and took her hand.

‘Have you thought what this means to me?’ he asked, in a much softer voice.

‘I know it must be very hard.’

‘I don’t mean in that way. I’m not thinking of the change back to poverty. It’s my work in New Wanley; my splendid opportunity of helping on Socialism. Think, just when everything is fairly started! You can’t feel it as I do, I suppose. You haven’t the same interest in the work. I hoped once you would have had.’

Adela remembered what her brother had said, but she could not allude to it. To question was useless. She thought of a previous occasion on which he had justified himself when accused.

He still held her hand.

‘Which would do the most good with this money, he or I?’

‘We cannot ask that question.’

‘Yes, we can. We ought to. At all events, I ought to. Think what it means. In my hands the money is used for the good of a suffering class, for the good of the whole country in the end. He would just spend it on himself, like other rich men. It isn’t every day that a man of my principles gets the means of putting them into practice. Eldon is well enough off; long ago he’s made up his mind to the loss of Wanley. It’s like robbing poor people just to give money where it isn’t wanted.’

She withdrew her hand, saying coldly:

‘I can understand your looking at it in this way. But we can’t help it.’

‘Why can’t we?’ His voice grew disagreeable in its effort to be insinuating. ‘It seems to me that we can and ought to help it. It would be quite different if you and I had just been enjoying ourselves and thinking of no one else.’ He thought it a skilful stroke to unite their names thus. ‘We haven’t done anything of the kind; we’ve denied ourselves all sorts of things just to be able to spend more on New Wanley. You know what I’ve always said, that I hold the money in trust for the Union. Isn’t it true? I don’t feel justified in giving it up. The end is too important. The good of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, is at stake.’

Adela looked him in the face searchingly.

‘But how can we help it? There is the will.’

Mutimer met her eyes.

‘No one knows of it but ourselves, Adela.’

It was not indignation that her look expressed, but at first a kind of shocked surprise and then profound trouble. It was with difficulty that she found words.

‘You are not speaking in earnest?’

‘I am!’ he exclaimed, almost hopefully. ‘In downright earnest. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’ He said it because he felt that her gaze was breeding shame in him. ‘It isn’t for myself, it’s for the cause, for the good of my fellowmen. Don’t say anything till you’ve thought. Look, Adela, you’re not hardhearted, and you know how it used to pain you to read of the poor wretches who can’t earn enough to keep themselves alive. It’s for their sake. If they could be here and know of this, they’d go down on their knees to you. You can’t rob them of a chance! It’s like snatching a bit of bread out of their mouths when they’re dying of hunger.’

The fervour with which he pleaded went far to convince himself; for the moment he lost sight of everything but the necessity of persuading Adela, and his zeal could scarcely have been greater had he been actuated by the purest unselfishness. He was speaking as Adela had never heard him speak, with modulations of the voice which were almost sentimental, like one pleading for love. In his heart he despaired of removing her scruples, but he overcame this with vehement entreaty. A true instinct forbade him to touch on her own interests; he had not lived so long with Adela without attaining some perception of the nobler ways of thought. But as often as he raised his eyes to hers he saw the futility of all his words. Her direct gaze at length brought him to unwilling silence.

‘Would you then,’ Adela asked gravely, ‘destroy this will?’

‘Yes.’

The monosyllable was all he cared to reply.

‘I can scarcely believe you. Such a thing is impossible. You could not do it.’

‘It’s my duty to do it.’

‘This is unworthy of you. It is a crime, in law and in conscience. How can you so deceive yourself? After such an act as that, whatever you did would be worthless, vain.’

‘Why?’

‘Because no one can do great work of the kind you aim at unless he is himself guided by the strictest honour. Every word you spoke would be a falsehood. Oh, can’t you see that, as plainly as the light of day? The results of your work! Why, nothing you could possibly do with all this money would be one-half as good as to let everyone know that you honourably gave it up when it was in your power dishonestly to keep it! Oh, surely that is the kind of example that the world needs! What causes all the misery but dishonesty and selfishness? If you do away with that, you gain all you are working for. The example! You should prize the opportunity. You are deceiving yourself; it is a temptation that you are yielding to. Think a moment; you will see that I am right. You cannot do a thing so unworthy of yourself.’

He stood for a moment doggedly, then replied:

‘I can and I shall do it.’

‘Never!’ Adela rose and faced him. ‘You shall listen to me till you understand. You, who pride yourself on your high motives! For your own sake scorn this temptation. Let me take the will away. I will put it somewhere till to-morrow. You will see clearly by then. I know how dreadful this loss seems to you, but you must be stronger.’

He stood between her and the table on which the parchment lay, and waved her back as she approached. Adela’s voice trembled, but there was not a note in it that he could resent.

‘You wrong yourself, and you are cruel to me. How could I live with you if you did such a thing? How could I remain in this house when it was no longer yours? It is impossible, a thousand times impossible. You cannot mean it! If you do this in spite of everything I can say, you are more cruel than if you raised your hand and struck me. You make my life a shame; you dishonour and degrade me.’

‘That’s all nonsense,’ he replied sullenly, the jealous motive possessing him again at the sight of her gleaming eyes. ‘It’s you who don’t understand, and just because you have no sympathy with my work. Any one would think you cared for nothing but to take the money from me, just to—’

Even in his access of spiteful anger he checked himself, and dropped to another tone.

‘I take all the responsibility. You have nothing to do with it. What seems right to me, I shall do. I am your husband, and you’ve no voice in a thing like this.’

‘No voice? Have I no right to save you from ruin? Must a wife stand by and see her husband commit a crime? Have you no duty to me? What becomes of our married life if you rob me of all respect for you?’

‘I tell you I am doing it with a good motive. If you were a thorough Socialist, you would respect me all the more. This money was made out of overworked—’

He was laying his hand on the will; she sprang forward and grasped his arm.

‘Richard, give it to me!’

‘No, I shall not.’

He had satisfied himself that if the will was actually destroyed she would acquiesce in silence; the shame she spoke of would constrain her. He pushed her away without violence, and moved towards the door. But her muteness caused him to turn and regard her. She was leaning forward, her lips parted, her eyes fixed in despair.

‘Richard!’

‘Well?’

‘Are you trying me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you believe that I should let you do that and help you to hide it?’

‘You will come to see that I was right, and be glad that I paid no heed to you.’

‘Then you don’t know me. Though you are my husband I would make public what you had done. Nothing should silence me. Do you drive me to that?’

The absence of passion in her voice impressed him far more than violence could have done. Her countenance had changed from pleading to scorn.

He stood uncertain.

‘Now indeed,’ Adela continued, ‘I am doing what no woman should have to do.’ Her voice became bitter. ‘I have not a man’s strength; I can only threaten you with shame which will fall more heavily on myself.’

‘Your word against mine,’ he muttered, trying to smile.

‘You could defend yourself by declaring me infamous?’

Did he know the meaning of that flash across her face? Only when the words were uttered did their full significance strike Adela herself.

‘You could defend yourself by saying that I lied against you?’

He regarded her from beneath his eyebrows as she repeated the question. In the silence which followed he seated himself on the chair nearest to him. Adela too sat down.

For more than a quarter of an hour they remained thus, no word exchanged. Then Adela rose and approached her husband.

‘If I order the carriage,’ she said softly, ‘will you come with me at once to Belwick?’

He gave no answer. He was sitting with his legs crossed, the will held over his knee.

‘I am sorry you have this trial,’ she continued, ‘deeply sorry. But you have won, I know you have won!’

He turned his eyes in a direction away from her, hesitated, rose.

‘Get your things on.’

He was going to the door.

‘Richard!’

She held her hand for the parchment.

‘You can’t trust me to the bottom of the stairs?’ he asked bitterly.

She all but laughed with glad confidence.

‘Oh, I will trust you!’

CHAPTER XXV

Adela and her husband did not return from Belwick till eight o’clock in the evening. In the first place Mr. Yottle had to be sent for from a friend’s house in the country, where he was spending Sunday; then there was long waiting for a train back to Agworth. The Rodmans, much puzzled to account for the disorder, postponed dinner. Adela, however, dined alone, and but slightly, though she had not eaten since breakfast. Then fatigue overcame her. She slept an unbroken sleep till sunrise.

On going down next morning she found ‘Arry alone in the dining-room; he was standing at the window with hands in pocket, and, after a glance round, averted his face again, a low growl his only answer to her morning salutation. Mr. Rodman was the next to appear. He shook hands as usual. In his ‘I hope you are well?’ there was an accent of respectful sympathy. Personally, he seemed in his ordinary spirits. He proceeded to talk of trifles, but in such a tone as he might have used had there been grave sickness in the house. And presently, with yet lower voice and a smile of good-humoured resignation, he said—

‘Our journey, I fear, must be postponed.’

Adela smiled, not quite in the same way, and briefly assented.

‘Alice is not very well,’ Rodman then remarked. ‘I advised her to have breakfast upstairs. I trust you excuse her?’

Mutimer made his appearance. He just nodded round, and asked, as he seated himself at table—

‘Who’s been letting Freeman loose? He’s running about the garden.’

The dog furnished a topic for a few minutes’ conversation, then there was all but unbroken silence to the end of the meal. Richard’s face expressed nothing in particular, unless it were a bad night. Rodman kept up his smile, and, eating little himself, devoted himself to polite waiting upon Adela. When he rose from the table, Richard said to his brother—

‘You’ll go down as usual. I shall be at the office in half-an-hour.’

Adela presently went to the drawing-room. She was surprised to find Alice sitting there. Mrs. Rodman had clearly not enjoyed the unbroken rest which gave Adela her appearance of freshness and calm; her eyes were swollen and red, her lips hung like those of a fretful child that has tired itself with sobbing, her hair was carelessly rolled up, her attire slatternly. She sat in sullen disorder. Seeing Adela, she dropped her eyes, and her lips drew themselves together. Adela hesitated to approach her, but was moved to do so by sheer pity.

‘I’m afraid you’ve had a bad night,’ she said kindly.

‘Yes, I suppose I have,’ was the ungracious reply.

Adela stood before her for a moment, but could find nothing else to say. She was turning when Alice looked up, her red eyes almost glaring, her breast shaken with uncontrollable passion.

‘I think you might have had some consideration,’ she exclaimed. ‘If you didn’t care to speak a word for yourself, you might have thought about others. What are we to do, I. should like to know?’

Adela was struck with consternation. She had been prepared for petulant bewailing, but a vehement outburst of this kind was the last thing she could have foreseen, above all to have it directed against herself.

‘What do you mean, Alice?’ she said with pained surprise.

‘Why, it’s all your doing, I suppose,’ the other pursued, in the same voice. ‘What right had you to let him go off in that way without saying a word to us? If the truth was known, I expect you were at the bottom of it; he wouldn’t have been such a fool, whatever he says. What right had you, I’d like to know?’

Adela calmed herself as she listened. Her surprise at the attack was modified and turned into another channel by Alice’s words.

‘Has Richard told you what passed between us?’ she inquired. It cost her nothing to speak with unmoved utterance; the difficulty was not to seem too indifferent.

‘He’s told us as much as he thought fit. His duty! I like that! As if you couldn’t have stopped him, if you’d chosen! You might have thought of other people.’

‘Did he tell you that I tried to stop him?’ Adela asked, with the same quietness of interrogation.

‘Why, did you?’ cried Alice, looking up scornfully.

‘No.’

‘Of course not! Talk about duty! I should think that was plain enough duty. I only wish he’d come to me with his talk about duty. It’s a duty to rob people, I suppose? Oh, I understand him well enough. It’s an easy way of getting out of his difficulties; as well lose his money this way as any other. He always thinks of himself first, trust him! He’ll go down to New Wanley and make a speech, no doubt, and show off—with his duty and all the rest of it! What’s going to become of me? You’d no right to let him go before telling us.’

‘You would have advised him to say nothing about the will?’

‘Advised him!’ she laughed angrily. ‘I’d have seen if I couldn’t do something more than advise.’

‘I fear you wouldn’t have succeeded in making your brother act dishonourably,’ Adela replied.

It was the first sarcasm that had ever passed her lips, and as soon as it was spoken she turned to leave the room, fearful lest she might say things which would afterwards degrade her in her own eyes. Her body quivered. As she reached the door Rodman opened it and entered. He bowed to let her pass, searching her face the while.

When she was gone he approached to Alice, whom he had at once observed:

‘What have you been up to?’ he asked sternly.

Her head was bent before him, and she gave no answer.

‘Can’t you speak? What’s made her look like that? Have you been quarrelling with her?’

‘Quarrelling?’

‘You know what I mean well enough. Just tell me what you said. I thought I told you to stay upstairs? What’s been going on?’

‘I told her she ought to have let us know,’ replied Alice, timorous, but affecting the look and voice of a spoilt child.

‘Then you’ve made a fool of yourself!’ he exclaimed with subdued violence. ‘You’ve got to learn that when I tell you to do a thing you do it—or I’ll know the reason why! You’d no business to come out of your room. Now you’ll just find her and apologise. You understand? You’ll go and beg her pardon at once.’

Alice raised her eyes in wretched bewilderment.

‘Beg her pardon?’ she faltered. ‘Oh, how can I? Why, what harm have I done, Willis? I’m sure I shan’t beg her pardon.’

‘You won’t? If you talk to me in that way you shall go down on your knees before her. You won’t?’

His voice had such concentrated savagery in its suppression that Alice shrank back in terror.

‘Willis! How can you speak so! What have I done?’

‘You’ve made a confounded fool of yourself, and most likely spoilt the last chance you had, if you want to know. In future, when I say a thing understand that I mean it; I don’t give orders for nothing. Go and find her and beg her pardon. I’ll wait here till you’ve done it.’

‘But I can’t! Willis, you won’t force me to do that? I’d rather die than humble myself to her.’

‘Do you hear me?’

She stood up, almost driven to bay. Her eyes were wet, her poor, crumpled prettiness made a deplorable spectacle.

‘I can’t, I can’t! Why are you so unkind to me? I have only said what any one would. I hate her! My lips won’t speak the words. You’ve no right to ask me to do such a thing.’

Her wrist was caught in a clutch that seemed to crush the muscles, and she was flung back on to the chair. Terror would not let the scream pass her lips: she lay with open mouth and staring eyes.

Rodman looked at her for an instant, then seemed to master his fury and laughed.

‘That doesn’t improve your beauty. Now, no crying out before you’re hurt. There’s no harm done. Only you’ve to learn that I mean what I say, that’s all. Now I haven’t hurt you, so don’t pretend.’

‘Oh, you have hurt me!’ she sobbed wretchedly, with her fingers round her injured wrist. ‘I never thought you could be so cruel. Oh, my hand! What harm have I done? And you used to say you’d never be unkind to me, never! Oh, how miserable I am! Is this how you’re going to treat me? As if I could help it! Willis, you won’t begin to be cruel? Oh, my hand!’

‘Let me look at it. Pooh, what’s amiss?’ He spoke all at once in his usual good-natured voice. ‘Now go and find Adela, whilst I wait here.’

‘You’re going to force me to do that?’

‘You’re going to do it. Now don’t make me angry again.’

She rose, frightened again by his look. She took a step or two, then turned back to him.

‘If I do this, will you be kind to me, the same as before?’

‘Of course I will. You don’t take me for a brute?’

She held her bruised wrist to him.

‘Will you—will you kiss it well again?’

The way in which she said it was as nearly pathetic as anything from poor Alice could be. Her misery was so profound, and this childish forgiveness of an outrage was so true a demonstration of womanly tenderness which her character would not allow to be noble. Her husband laughed rather uneasily, and did her bidding with an ill grace. But yet she could not go.

‘You’ll promise never to speak—’

‘Yes, yes, of course I promise. Come back to me. Mind, shall know how you did it.’

‘But why? What is she to us?’

‘I’ll tell you afterwards.’

There was a dawning of jealousy in her eyes.

‘I don’t think you ought to make your wife lower herself—’

His brow darkened.

‘Will you do as I tell you?’

She moved towards the door, stopped to dry her wet cheeks, half looked round. What she saw sped her on her way.

Adela was just descending the stairs, dressed to go out. Alice let her go past without speaking, but followed her through the hall and into the garden. Adela turned, saying gently—

‘Do you wish to speak to me?’

‘I’m sorry I said those things. I didn’t mean it. I don’t think it was your fault.’

The other smiled; then in that voice which Stella had spoken of as full of forgiveness—

‘No, it is not my fault, Alice. It couldn’t be otherwise.’

‘Don’t think of it another moment.’

Alice would gladly have retreated, but durst not omit what seemed to her the essential because the bitterest words.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘No, no!’ exclaimed Adela quickly. ‘Go and lie down a little; you look so tired. Try not to be unhappy, your husband will not let harm come to you.’

Alice returned to the house, hating her sister-in-law with a perfect hatred.

The hated one took her way into Wanley. She had no pleasant mission—that of letting her mother and Letty know what had happened. The latter she found in the garden behind the house dancing her baby-boy up and down in the sunlight. Letty did not look very matronly, it must be confessed; but what she lacked in mature dignity was made up in blue-eyed and warm-checked happiness. At the sight of Adela she gave a cry of joy.

‘Why, mother’s just getting ready to go and say good-bye to you. As soon as she comes down and takes this little rogue I shall just slip my own things on. We didn’t think you’d come here.’

‘We’re not going to-day,’ Adela replied, playing with the baby’s face.

‘Not going?’

‘Business prevents Richard.’

‘How you frightened us by leaving church yesterday! I was on my way to ask about you, but Mr. Wyvern met me and said there was nothing the matter. And you went to Agworth, didn’t you?’

‘To Belwick. We had to see Mr. Yottle, the solicitor.’

Mrs. Waltham issued from the house, and explanations were again demanded.

‘Could you give baby to the nurse for a few minutes?’ Adela asked Letty. ‘I should like to speak to you and mother quietly.’

The arrangement was effected and all three went into the sitting-room. There Adela explained in simple words all that had come to pass; emotionless herself, but the cause of utter dismay in her hearers. When she ceased there was blank silence.

Mrs. Waltham was the first to find her voice.

‘But surely Mr. Eldon won’t take everything from you? I don’t think he has the power to—it wouldn’t be just; there must be surely some kind of provision in the law for such a thing. What did Mr. Yottle say?’

‘Only that Mr. Eldon could recover the whole estate.’

‘The estate!’ exclaimed Mrs. Waltham eagerly. ‘But not the money?’

Adela smiled.

‘The estate includes the money, mother. It means everything.’

‘Oh, Adela!’ sighed Letty, who sat with her hands on her lap, bewildered.

‘But surely not Mrs. Rodman’s settlement?’ cried the elder lady, who was rapidly surveying the whole situation.

‘Everything,’ affirmed Adela.

‘But what an extraordinary, what an unheard-of thing! Such injustice I never knew! Oh, but Mr. Eldon is a gentleman—he can never exact his legal rights to the full extent. He has too much delicacy of feeling for that.’ Adela glanced at her mother with a curious openness of look—the expression which by apparent negation of feeling reveals feeling of special significance. Mrs. Waltham caught the glance and checked her flow of speech.

‘Oh, he could never do that!’ she murmured the next moment, in a lower key, clasping her hands together upon her knees. ‘I am sure he wouldn’t.’

‘You must remember, mother,’ remarked Adela with reserve, ‘that Mr. Eldon’s disposition cannot affect us.’

‘My dear child, what I meant was this: it is impossible for him to go to law with your husband to recover the uttermost farthing. How are you to restore money that is long since spent? and it isn’t as if it had been spent in the ordinary way—it has been devoted to public purposes. Mr. Eldon will of course take all these things into consideration. And really one must say that it is very strange for a wealthy man to leave his property entirely to strangers.’

‘Not entirely,’ put in Adela rather absently.

‘A hundred and seven pounds a year!’ exclaimed her mother protestingly. ‘My dear love, what can be done with such a paltry sum as that!’

‘We must do a good deal with it, dear mother. It will be all we have to depend upon until Richard finds—finds some position.’

‘But you are not going to leave the Manor at once?’

‘As soon as ever we can. I don’t know what arrangement my husband is making. We shall see Mr. Yottle again to-morrow.’

‘Adela, this is positively shocking! It seems incredible I never thought such things could happen. No wonder you looked white when you went out of church. How little I imagined! But you know you can come here at any moment. You can sleep with me, or we’ll have another bed put up in the room. Oh, dear; oh, dear! It will take me a long time to understand it. Your husband could not possibly object to your living here till he found you a suitable home. What will Alfred say? Oh, you must certainly come here. I shan’t have a moment’s’ rest if you go away somewhere whilst things are in this dreadful state.’