Demos

‘I wish it were farther. The man was openly exultant; he stood for Demos grasping the sceptre. I am glad, mother, that you leave Wanley before the air is poisoned.’

‘Mr. Mutimer does not see that side of the question?’

‘Not he! Do you imagine the twentieth century will leave one green spot on the earth’s surface?’

‘My dear, it will always be necessary to grow grass and corn.’

‘By no means; depend upon it. Such things will be cultivated by chemical processes. There will not be one inch left to nature; the very oceans will somehow be tamed, the snow-mountains will be levelled. And with nature will perish art. What has a hungry Demos to do with the beautiful?’

Mrs. Eldon sighed gently.

‘I shall not see it.’

Her eyes dreamed upon the soft-swaying boughs of a young chestnut. Hubert was watching her face; its look and the meaning implied in her words touched him profoundly.

‘Mother!’ he said under his breath.

‘My dear?’

He drew nearer to her and just stroked with his fingers the silver lines which marked the hair on either side of her brows. He could see that she trembled and that her lips set themselves in hard self-conquest.

‘What do you wish me to do when we have left the Manor?’

His own voice was hurried between two quiverings of the throat; his mother’s only whispered in reply.

‘That is for your own consideration, Hubert.’

‘With your counsel, mother.’

‘My counsel?’

‘I ask it I will follow it. I wish to be guided by you.’

He knelt by her, and his mother pressed his head against her bosom.

Later, she asked—

‘Did you call also on the Walthams?’

He shook his head.

‘Should you not do so, dear?

‘I think that must be later.’

The subject was not pursued.

The next day was Saturday. In the afternoon Hubert took a walk which had been his favourite one ever since he could remember, every step of the way associated with recollections of childhood, boyhood, or youth. It was along the lane which began in a farmyard close by the Manor and climbed with many turnings to the top of Stanbury Hill. This was ever the first route re-examined by his brother Godfrey and himself on their return from school at holiday-time. It was a rare region for bird-nesting, so seldom was it trodden save by a few farm-labourers at early morning or when the day’s work was over. Hubert passed with a glance of recognition the bramble in which he had found his first spink’s nest, the shadowed mossy bank whence had fluttered the hapless wren just when the approach of two prowling youngsters should have bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country; but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away, was but an isolated black patch on the earth’s beauty, not, as he now understood it, a malignant cancer-spot, spreading day by day, corrupting, an augury of death. In those days it had seemed fast in the order of things that Wanley Manor should be his home through life; how otherwise? Was it not the abiding-place of the Eldons from of old? Who had ever hinted at revolution? He knew now that revolution had been at work from an earlier time than that; whilst he played and rambled with his brother the framework of their life was crumbling about them. Belwick was already throwing a shadow upon Wanley. And now behold! he stood at the old gate, rested his hands where they had been wont to rest, turned his eyes in the familiar direction; no longer a mere shadow, there was Belwick itself.

His heart was hot with outraged affection, with injured pride. On the scarcely closed grave of that passion which had flamed through so brief a life sprang up the flower of natural tenderness, infinitely sweet and precious. For the first time he was fully conscious of what it meant to quit Wanley for ever; the past revealed itself to him, lovelier and more loved because parted from him by so hopeless a gulf. Hubert was not old enough to rate experience at its true value, to acquiesce in the law which wills that the day must perish before we can enjoy to the full its light and odour. He could only feel his loss, and rebel against the fate which had ordained it.

He had climbed but half-way up the hill; from this point onwards there was no view till the summit was reached, for the lane proceeded between high banks and hedges. To gain the very highest point he had presently to quit the road by a stile and skirt the edge of a small rising meadow, at the top of which was an old cow-house with a few trees growing about it. Thence one had the finest prospect in the county.

He reached the stone shed, looked back for a moment over Wanley, then walked round to the other side. As he turned the corner of the building his eye was startled by the unexpected gleam of a white dress. A girl stood there; she was viewing the landscape through a field-glass, and thus remained unaware of his approach on the grass. He stayed his step and observed her with eyes of recognition. Her attitude, both hands raised to hold the glass, displayed to perfection the virginal outline of her white-robed form. She wore a straw hat of the plain masculine fashion; her brown hair was plaited in a great circle behind her head, not one tendril loosed from the mass; a white collar closely circled her neck; her waist was bound with a red girdle. All was grace and purity; the very folds towards the bottom of her dress hung in sculpturesque smoothness; the form of her half-seen foot bowed the herbage with lightest pressure. From the boughs above there fell upon her a dancing network of shadow.

Hubert only half smiled; he stood with his hands joined behind him, his eyes fixed upon her face, waiting for her to turn But several moments passed and she was still intent on the landscape. He spoke.

‘Will you let me look?’

Her hands fell, all but dropping the glass; still, she did not start with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only abrupt motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with a grace as spontaneous as that we see in a fawn that glances back before flight.

‘Oh, Mr. Eldon! How silently you have come!’

The wild rose of her cheeks made rivalry for an instant with the richer garden blooms, and the subsiding warmth left a pearly translucency as of a lily petal against the light.

She held her hand to him, delicately gloved, warm; the whole of it was hidden within Hubert’s clasp.

‘What were you looking at so attentively?’ he asked.

‘At Agworth station,’ replied Adela, turning her eyes again in that quarter. ‘My brother’s train ought to be in by now, I think. He comes home every Saturday.’

‘Does he?’

Hubert spoke without thought, his look resting upon the maiden’s red girdle.

‘I am glad that you are well again,’ Adela said with natural kindness. ‘You have had a long illness.’

‘Yes; it has been a tiresome affair. Is Mrs. Waltham well?’

‘Quite, thank you.’

‘And your brother?’

‘Alfred never had anything the matter with him in his life, I believe,’ she answered, with a laugh.

‘Fortunate fellow! Will you lend me the glass?’

She held it to him, and at the same moment her straying eye caught a glimpse of white smoke, far off.

‘There comes the train!’ she exclaimed. ‘You will be able to see it between these two hills.’

Hubert looked and returned the glass to her, but she did not make use of it.

‘Does he walk over from Agworth?’ was Hubert’s next question.

‘Yes. It does him good after a week of Belwick.’

‘There will soon be little difference between Belwick and Wanley,’ rejoined Hubert, drily.

Adela glanced at him; there was sympathy and sorrow in the look.

‘I knew it would grieve you,’ she said.

‘And what is your own feeling? Do you rejoice in the change as a sign of progress?’

‘Indeed, no. I am very, very sorry to have our beautiful valley so spoilt. It is only—’

Hubert eyed her with sudden sharpness of scrutiny; the look seemed to check her words.

‘Only what?’ he asked. ‘You find compensations?’

‘My brother won’t hear of such regrets,’ she continued with a little embarrassment ‘He insists on the good that will be done by the change.’

‘From such a proprietor as I should have been to a man of Mr. Mutimer’s activity. To be sure, that is one point of view.’

Adela blushed.

‘That is not my meaning, Mr. Eldon, as you know. I was speaking of the change without regard to who brings it about. And I was not giving my own opinion; Alfred’s is always on the side of the working people; he seems to forget everybody else in his zeal for their interests. And then, the works are going to be quite a new kind of undertaking. You have heard of Mr. Mutimer’s plans of course?’

‘I have an idea of them.’

‘You think them mistaken?’

‘No. I would rather say they don’t interest me. That seems to disappoint you, Miss Waltham. Probably you are interested in them?’

At the sound of her own name thus formally interjected, Adela just raised her eyes from their reflective gaze on the near landscape; then she became yet more thoughtful.

‘Yes, I think I am,’ she replied, with deliberation. ‘The principle seems a just one. Devotion to a really unselfish cause is rare, I am afraid.’

‘You have met Mr. Mutimer?

‘Once. My brother made his acquaintance, and he called on us.’

‘Did he explain his scheme to you in detail?’

‘Not himself. Alfred has told me all about it. He, of course, is delighted with it; he has joined what he calls the Union.’

‘Are you going to join?’ Hubert asked, smiling.

‘I? I doubt whether they would have me.’

She laughed silverly, her throat tremulous, like that of a bird that sings. How significant the laugh was! the music of how pure a freshet of life!

‘All the members, I presume,’ said Hubert, ‘are to be speedily enriched from the Wanley Mines and Iron Works?’

It was jokingly uttered, but Adela replied with some earnestness, as if to remove a false impression.

‘Oh, that is quite a mistake. Mr. Eldon. There is no question of anyone being enriched, least of all Mr. Mutimer himself. The workmen will receive just payment, not mere starvation wages, but whatever profit there is will be devoted to the propaganda.’

‘Propaganda! Starvation wages! Ah, I see you have gone deeply into these matters. How strangely that word sounds on your lips—propaganda!’

Adela reddened.

‘Why strangely, Mr. Eldon?’

‘One associates it with such very different speakers; it has such a terrible canting sound. I hope you will not get into the habit of using it—for your own sake.’

‘I am not likely to use it much. I suppose I have heard it so often from Alfred lately. Please don’t think,’ she added rather hastily, ‘that I have become a Socialist. Indeed, I dislike the name; I find it implies so many things that I could never approve of.’

Her way of speaking the last sentence would have amused a dispassionate critic, it was so distinctively the tone of Puritan maidenhood. From lips like Adela’s it is delicious to hear such moral babbling. Oh, the gravity of conviction in a white-souled English girl of eighteen! Do you not hear her say those words: ‘things that I could never approve of’?

As her companion did not immediately reply, she again raised the field-glass to her eyes and swept the prospect.

‘Can you see your brother on the road?’ Hubert inquired.

‘No, not yet. There is a trap driving this way. Why, Alfred sitting in it! Oh, it is Mr. Mutimer’s trap I see. He must have met Alfred at the station and have given him a ride.’

‘Evidently they are great friends,’ commented Eldon.

Adela did not reply. After gazing a little longer, she said—

‘He will be home before I can get there.’

She screwed up the glasses and turned as if to take leave. But Hubert prepared to walk by her side, and together they reached the lane.

‘Now I am going to run down the hill,’ Adela said, laughing. ‘I can’t ask you to join in such childishness, and I suppose you are not going this way, either?’

‘No, I am walking back to the Manor,’ the other replied soberly. ‘We had better say good-bye. On Monday we shall leave Wanley, my mother and I.’

‘On Monday?’

The girl became graver.

‘But only to go to Agworth?’ she added.

‘I shall not remain at Agworth. I am going to London.’

‘To—to study?’

‘Something or other, I don’t quite know what. Good-bye!’

‘Won’t you come to say good-bye to us—to mother?’

‘Shall you be at home to-morrow afternoon, about four o’clock say?’

‘Oh, yes; the very time.’

‘Then I will come to say good-bye.’

‘In that case we needn’t say it now, need we? It is only good afternoon.’

She began to walk down the lane.

‘I thought you were going to run,’ cried Hubert.

She looked back, and her silver laugh made chorus with the joyous refrain of a yellow-hammer, piping behind the hedge. Till the turn of the road she continued walking, then Hubert had a glimpse of white folds waving in the act of flight, and she was beyond his vision.

CHAPTER VIII

Adela reached the house door at the very moment that Mutimer’s trap drove up. She had run nearly all the way down the hill, and her soberer pace during the last ten minutes had not quite reduced the flush in her cheeks. Mutimer raised his hat with much aplomb before he had pulled up his horse, and his look stayed on her whilst Alfred Waltham was descending and taking leave.

‘I was lucky enough to overtake your brother in Agworth,’ he said.

‘Ah, you have deprived him of what he calls his constitutional,’ laughed Adela.

‘Have I? Well, it isn’t often I’m here over Saturday, so he can generally feel safe.’

The hat was again aired, and Richard drove away to the Wheatsheaf Inn, where he kept his horse at present.

Brother and sister went together into the parlour, where Mrs. Waltham immediately joined them, having descended from an upper room.

‘So Mr. Mutimer drove you home!’ she exclaimed, with the interest which provincial ladies, lacking scope for their energies, will display in very small incidents.

‘Yes. By the way, I’ve asked him to come and have dinner with us to-morrow. He hadn’t any special reason for going to town, and was uncertain whether to do so or not, so I thought I might as well have him here.’

Mr. Alfred always spoke in a somewhat emphatic first person singular when domestic arrangements were under, discussion; occasionally the habit led to a passing unpleasantness of tone between himself and Mrs. Waltham. In the present instance, however, nothing of the kind was to be feared; his mother smiled very graciously.

‘I’m glad you thought of it,’ she said. ‘It would have been very lonely for him in his lodgings.’

Neither of the two happened to be regarding Adela, or they would have seen a look of dismay flit across her countenance and pass into one of annoyance. When the talk had gone on for a few minutes Adela interposed a question.

‘Will Mr. Mutimer stay for tea also, do you think, Alfred?’

‘Oh, of course; why shouldn’t he?’

It is the country habit; Adela might have known what answer she would receive. She got out of the difficulty by means of a little disingenuousness.

‘He won’t want us to talk about Socialism all the time, will he?’

‘Of course not, my dear,’ replied Mrs. Waltham. ‘Why, it will be Sunday.’ 4

Alfred shouted in mirthful scorn.

‘Well, that’s one of the finest things I’ve heard for a long time, mother! It’ll be Sunday, and therefore we are not to talk about improving the lot of the human race. Ye gods!’

Mrs. Waltham was puzzled for an instant, but the Puritan assurance did not fail her.

‘Yes, but that is only improvement of their bodies, Alfred—food and clothing. The six days are for that you know.’

‘Mother, mother, you will kill me! You are so uncommonly funny! I wonder your friends haven’t long ago found some way of doing without bodies altogether. Now, I pray you, do not talk nonsense. Surely that is forbidden on the Sabbath, if only the Jewish one.’

‘Mother is quite right, Alfred,’ remarked Adela, with quiet affimativeness, as soon as her voice could be heard. ‘Your Socialism is earthly; we have to think of other things besides bodily comforts.’

‘Who said we hadn’t?’ cried her brother. ‘But I take leave to inform you that you won’t get much spiritual excellence out of a man who lives a harder life than the nigger-slaves. If you women could only put aside your theories and look a little at obstinate facts! You’re all of a piece. Which of you was it that talked the other day about getting the vicar to pray for rain? Ho, ho, ho! Just the same kind of thing.’

Alfred’s combativeness had grown markedly since his making acquaintance with Mutimer. He had never excelled in the suaver virtues, and now the whole of the time he spent at home was devoted to vociferous railing at capitalists, priests, and women, his mother and sister serving for illustrations of the vices prevalent in the last-mentioned class. In talking he always paced the room, hands in pockets, and at times fairly stammered in his endeavour to hit upon sufficiently trenchant epithets or comparisons. When reasoning failed with his auditors, he had recourse to volleys of contemptuous laughter. At times he lost his temper, muttered words such as ‘fools!’—‘idiots!’ and flung out into the open air. It looked as if the present evening was to be a stormy one. Adela noted the presage and allowed herself a protest in limine.

‘Alfred, I do hope you won’t go on in this way whilst Letty is here. You mayn’t think it, but you pain her very much.’

‘Pain her! It’s her education. She’s had none yet, no more than you have. It’s time you both began to learn.’

It being close upon the hour for tea, the young lady of whom there was question was heard to ring the door-bell. We have already had a passing glimpse of her, but since then she has been honoured by becoming Alfred’s affianced. Letty Tew fulfilled all the conditions desirable in one called to so trying a destiny. She was a pretty, supple, sweet-mannered girl, and, as is the case with such girls, found it possible to worship a man whom in consistency she must have deemed the most condemnable of heretics. She and Adela were close friends; Adela indeed, had no other friend in the nearer sense. The two were made of very different fibre, but that had not as yet distinctly shown.

Adela’s reproof was not wholly without effect; her brother got through the evening without proceeding to his extremest truculence, still the conversation was entirely of his leading, consequently not a little argumentative. He had brought home, as he always did on Saturday, a batch of ultra periodicals, among them the ‘Fiery Cross,’ and his own eloquence was supplemented by the reading of excerpts from these lively columns. It was a combat of three to one, but the majority did little beyond throwing up hands at anything particularly outrageous. Adela said much less than usual. ‘I tell you what it is, you three!’ Alfred cried, at a certain climax of enthusiasm, addressing the ladies with characteristic courtesy, ‘we’ll found a branch of the Union in Wanley; I mean, in our particular circle of thickheads. Then, as soon as Mutimer’s settlement gets going, we can coalesce. Now you two girls give next week to going round and soliciting subscriptions for the “Fiery Cross.” People have had time to get over the first scare, and you know they can’t refuse such as you. Quarterly, one-and-eightpence, including postage.’

‘But, my dear Alfred,’ cried Adela, ‘remember that Letty and I are not Socialists!’

‘Letty is, because I expect it of her, and you can’t refuse to keep her in countenance.’

The girls laughed merrily at this anticipated lordship; but Letty said presently—

‘I believe father will take the paper if I ask him. One is better than nothing, isn’t it, Alfred?’

‘Good. We book Stephen Tew, Esquire.’

‘But surely you mustn’t call him Esquire?’ suggested Adela.

‘Oh, he is yet unregenerate; let him keep his baubles.’

‘How are the regenerate designated?’

‘Comrade, we prefer.’

‘Also applied to women?’

‘Well, I suppose not. As the word hasn’t a feminine, call yourselves plain Letty Tew and Adela Waltham, without meaningless prefix.’

‘What nonsense you are talking, Alfred!’ remarked his mother. ‘As if everybody in Wanley could address young ladies by their Christian names!’

In this way did Alfred begin the ‘propaganda’ at home. Already the village was much occupied with the vague new doctrines represented by the name of Richard Mutimer; the parlour of the Wheatsheaf was loud of evenings with extraordinary debate, and gossips of a higher station had at length found a topic which promised to be inexhaustible. Of course the vicar was eagerly sounded as to his views. Mr. Wyvern preserved an attitude of scrupulous neutrality, contenting himself with correction of palpable absurdities in the stories going about. ‘But surely you are not a Socialist, Mr. Wyvern?’ cried Mrs. Mewling, after doing her best to pump the reverend gentleman, and discovering nothing. ‘I am a Christian, madam,’ was the reply, ‘and have nothing to do with economic doctrines.’ Mrs. Mewling spread the phrase ‘economic doctrines,’ shaking her head upon the adjective, which was interpreted by her hearers as condemnatory in significance. The half-dozen shopkeepers were disposed to secret jubilation; it was probable that, in consequence of the doings in the valley, trade would look up. Mutimer himself was a centre of interest such as Wanley had never known. When he walked down the street the news that he was visible seemed to spread like wildfire; every house had its gazers. Excepting the case of the Walthams, he had not as yet sought to make personal acquaintances, appearing rather to avoid opportunities. On the whole it seemed likely that he would be popular. The little group of mothers with marriageable daughters waited eagerly for the day when, by establishing himself at the Manor, he would throw off the present semi-incognito, and become the recognised head of Wanley society. He would discover the necessity of having a lady to share his honours and preside at his table. Persistent inquiry seemed to have settled the fact that he was not married already. To be sure, there were awesome rumours that Socialists repudiated laws divine and human in matrimonial affairs, but the more sanguine were inclined to regard this as calumny, their charity finding a support in their personal ambitions. The interest formerly attaching to the Eldons had altogether vanished. Mrs. Eldon and her son were now mere obstacles to be got rid of as quickly as possible. It was the general opinion that Hubert Eldon’s illness was purposely protracted, to suit his mother’s convenience. Until Mutimer’s arrival there had been much talk about Hubert; whether owing to Dr. Mann’s indiscretion or through the servants at the Manor, it had become known that the young man was suffering from a bullet-wound, and the story circulated by Mrs. Mewling led gossips to suppose that he had been murderously assailed in that land of notorious profligacy known to Wanley as ‘abroad.’ That, however, was now become an old story. Wanley was anxious for the Eldons to go their way, and leave the stage clear.

Everyone of course was aware that Mutimer spent his Sundays in London (a circumstance, it was admitted, not altogether reassuring to the ladies with marriageable daughters), and his unwonted appearance in the village on the evening of the present Saturday excited universal comment. Would he appear at church next morning? There was a general directing of eyes to the Manor pew. This pew had not been occupied since the fateful Sunday when, at the conclusion of the morning service, old Mr. Mutimer was discovered to have breathed his last. It was a notable object in the dim little church, having a wooden canopy supported on four slim oak pillars with vermicular moulding. From pillar to pillar hung dark curtains, so that when these were drawn the interior of the pew was entirely protected from observation. Even on the brightest days its occupants were veiled in gloom. To-day the curtains remained drawn as usual, and Richard Mutimer disappointed the congregation. Wanley had obtained assurance on one point—Socialism involved Atheism.