Demos

Then it came to pass that someone saw Mutimer approach the Walthams’ house just before dinner time; saw him, moreover, ring and enter. A couple of hours, and the ominous event was everywhere being discussed. Well, well, it was not difficult to see what that meant. Trust Mrs. Waltham for shrewd generalship. Adela Waltham had been formerly talked of in connection with young Eldon; but Eldon was now out of the question, and behold his successor, in a double sense! Mrs. Mewling surrendered her Sunday afternoon nap and flew from house to house—of course in time for the dessert wine at each. Her cry was haro! Really, this was sharp practice on Mrs. Waltham’s part; it was stealing a march before the commencement of the game. Did there not exist a tacit understanding that movements were postponed until Mutimer’s occupation of the Manor? Adela was a very nice young girl, to be sure, a very nice girl indeed, but one must confess that she had her eyes open. Would it not be well for united Wanley to let her know its opinion of such doings?

In the meantime Richard was enjoying himself, with as little thought of the Wanley gossips as of—shall we say, the old curtained pew in Wanley Church? He was perfectly aware that the Walthams did not represent the highest gentility, that there was a considerable interval, for example, between Mrs. Waltham and Mrs. Westlake; but the fact remained that he had never yet been on intimate terms with a family so refined. Radical revolutionist though he was, he had none of the grossness or obstinacy which would have denied to the bourgeois household any advantage over those of his own class. At dinner he found himself behaving circumspectly. He knew already that the cultivated taste objects to the use of a table-knife save for purposes of cutting; on the whole he saw grounds for the objection. He knew, moreover, that manducation and the absorption of fluids must be performed without audible gusto; the knowledge cost him some self-criticism. But there were numerous minor points of convention on which he was not so clear; it had never occurred to him, for instance, that civilisation demands the breaking of bread, that, in the absence of silver, a fork must suffice for the dissection of fish, that a napkin is a graceful auxiliary in the process of a meal and not rather an embarrassing superfluity of furtive application. Like a wise man, he did not talk much during dinner, devoting his mind to observation. Of one thing he speedily became aware, namely, that Mr. Alfred Waltham was so very much in his own house that it was not wholly safe to regard his demeanour as exemplary. Another point well certified was that if any person in the world could be pointed to as an unassailable pattern of comely behaviour that person was Mr. Alfred Waltham’s sister. Richard observed Adela as closely as good manners would allow.

Talking little as yet—the young man at the head of the table gave others every facility for silence—Richard could occupy his thought in many directions. Among other things, he instituted a comparison between the young lady who sat opposite to him and someone—not a young lady, it is true, but of the same sex and about the same age. He tried to imagine Emma Vine seated at this table; the effort resulted in a disagreeable warmth in the lobes of his ears. Yes, but—he attacked himself—not Emma Vine dressed as he was accustomed to see her; suppose her possessed of all Adela Waltham’s exterior advantages. As his imagination was working on the hint, Adela herself addressed a question to him. He looked up, he let her voice repeat itself in inward echo. His ears were still more disagreeably warm.

It was a lovely day—warm enough to dine with the windows open. The faintest air seemed to waft sunlight from corner to corner of the room; numberless birds sang on the near boughs and hedges; the flowers on the table were like a careless gift of gold-hearted prodigal summer. Richard transferred himself in spirit to a certain square on the borders of Hoxton and Islington, within scent of the Regent’s Canal. The house there was now inhabited by Emma and her sisters; they also would be at dinner. Suppose he had the choice: there or here? Adela addressed to him another question. The square vanished into space.

How often he had spoken scornfully of that word ‘lady’! Were not all of the sex women? What need for that hateful distinction? Richard tried another experiment with his imagination. ‘I had dinner with some people called Waltham last Sunday. The old woman I didn’t much care about; but there was a young woman—’ Well, why not? On the other hand, suppose Emma Vine called at his lodgings. ‘A young woman called this morning, sir—’ Well, why not?

Dessert was on the table. He saw Adela’s fingers take an orange, her other hand holding a little fruit-knife. Now, who could have imagined that the simple paring of an orange could be achieved at once with such consummate grace and so naturally? In Richard’s country they first bite off a fraction of the skin, then dig away with what of finger-nail may be available. He knew someone who would assuredly proceed in that way.

Metamorphosis! Richard Mutimer speculates on asthetic problems.

‘You, gentlemen, I dare say will be wicked enough to smoke,’ remarked Mrs. Waltham, as she rose from the table.

‘I tell you what we shall be wicked enough to do, mother,’ exclaimed Alfred. ‘We shall have two cups of coffee brought out into the garden, and spare your furniture!’

‘Very well, my son. Your two cups evidently mean that Adela and I are not invited to the garden.’

‘Nothing of the kind. But I know you always go to sleep, and Adela doesn’t like tobacco smoke.’

‘I go to sleep, Alfred! You know very well that I have a very different occupation for my Sunday afternoons.’

‘I really don’t care anything about smoking,’ observed Mutimer, with a glance at Adela.

‘Oh, you certainly shall not deprive yourself on my account, Mr. Mutimer,’ said the girl, good-naturedly. ‘I hope soon to come out into the garden, and I am not at all sure that my objection to tobacco is serious.’

Ah, if Mrs. Mewling could have heard that speech! Mrs. Mewling’s age was something less than fifty; probably she had had time to forget how a young girl such as Adela speaks in pure frankness and never looks back to muse over a double meaning.

It was nearly three o’clock. Adela compared her watch with the sitting-room clock, and, the gentlemen having retired, moved about the room with a look of uneasiness. Her mother stood at the window, seemingly regarding the sky, in reality occupying her thoughts with things much nearer. She turned and found Adela looking at her.

‘I want just to run over and speak to Letty,’ Adela said. ‘I shall very soon be back.’

‘Very well, dear,’ replied her mother, scanning her face absently. ‘But don’t let them keep you.’

Adela quickly fetched her hat and left the house. It was her habit to walk at a good pace, always with the same airy movement, as though her feet only in appearance pressed the ground. On the way she again consulted her watch, and it caused her to flit still faster. Arrived at the abode of the Tews, she fortunately found Letty in the garden, sitting with two younger sisters, one a child of five years. Miss Tew was reading aloud to them, her book being ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ At the sight of Adela the youngest of the three slipped down from her seat and ran to meet her with laughter and shaking of curls.

‘Carry me round! carry me round!’ cried the little one.

For it was Adela’s habit to snatch up the flaxen little maiden, seat her upon her shoulder, and trot merrily round a circular path in the garden. But the sister next in age, whose thirteenth year had developed deep convictions, interposed sharply—

‘Eva, don’t be naughty! Isn’t it Sunday?’

The little one, saved on the very brink of iniquity, turned away in confusion and stood with a finger in her mouth.

‘I’ll come and carry you round to-morrow, Eva,’ said the visitor, stooping to kiss the reluctant face. Then, turning to the admonitress, ‘Jessie, will you read a little? I want just to speak to Letty.’

Miss Jessie took the volume, made her countenance yet sterner, and, having drawn Eva to her side, began to read in measured tones, reproducing as well as she could the enunciation of the pulpit. Adela beckoned to her friend, and the two walked apart.

‘I’m in such a fix,’ she began, speaking hurriedly, ‘and there isn’t a minute to lose. Mr. Mutimer has been having dinner with us; Alfred invited him. And I expect Mr. Eldon to come about four o’clock. I met him yesterday on the Hill; he came up just as I was looking out for Alfred with the glass, and I asked him if he wouldn’t come and say good-bye to mother this afternoon. Of course I’d no idea that Mr. Mutimer would come to dinner; he always goes away for Sunday. Isn’t it dreadfully awkward?’

‘You think he wouldn’t like to meet Mr. Mutimer?’ asked Letty, savouring the gravity of the situation.

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t. He spoke about him yesterday. Of course he didn’t say anything against Mr. Mutimer, but I could tell from his way of speaking. And then it’s quite natural, isn’t it? I’m really afraid. He’ll think it so unkind of me. I told him we should be alone, and I shan’t be able to explain. Isn’t it tiresome?’

‘It is, really! But of course Mr. Eldon will understand. To think that it should happen just this day!’

An idea flashed across Miss Tew’s mind.

‘Couldn’t you be at the door when he comes, and just—just say, you know, that you’re sorry, that you knew nothing about Mr. Mutimer coming?’

‘I’ve thought of something else,’ returned Adela, lowering her voice, as if to impart a project of doubtful propriety. ‘Suppose I walk towards the Manor and—and meet him on the way, before he gets very far? Then I could save him the annoyance, couldn’t I, dear?’

Letty widened her eyes. The idea was splendid, but—

‘You don’t think, dear, that it might be a little—that you might find it—?’

Adela reddened.

‘It is only a piece of kindness. Mr. Eldon will understand, I’m sure. He asked me so particularly if we should be alone. I really feel it a duty. Don’t you think I may go? I must decide at once.’

Letty hesitated.

‘If you really advise me not to—’ pursued Adela. ‘But I’m sure I shall be glad when it’s done.’

‘Then go, dear. Yes, I would go if I were you.’

Adela now faltered.

‘You really would go, in my place?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure I should. You see, it isn’t as if it was Mr. Mutimer you were going to meet.’

‘Oh, no, no That would be impossible.’

‘He will be very grateful,’ murmured Letty, without looking up.

‘If I go, it must be at once.’

‘Your mother doesn’t know he was coming?’

‘No. I don’t know why I haven’t told her, really. I suppose we were talking so much of other things last night. And then I only got home just as Alfred did, and he said at once that he had invited Mr. Mutimer. Yes, I will go. Perhaps I’ll come and see you again after church.’

Letty went back to ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ Her sister Jessie enjoyed the sound of her own voice, and did not offer to surrender the book, so she sat by little Eva’s side and resumed her Sunday face.

Adela took the road for the Manor, resisting the impulse to cast glances on either side as she passed the houses at the end of the village. She felt it to be more than likely that eyes were observing her, as it was an unusual time for her to be abroad, and the direction of her walk pointed unmistakably to one destination. But she made no account of secrecy; her errand was perfectly simple and with an object that no one could censure. If people tattled, they alone were to blame. For the first time she experienced a little resentment of the public criticism which was so rife in Wanley, and the experience was useful—one of those inappreciable aids to independence which act by cumulative stress on a character capable of development and softly mould its outlines.

She passed the church, then the vicarage, and entered the hedgeway which by a long curve led to the Manor. She was slackening her pace, not wishing to approach too near to the house, when she at length saw Hubert Eldon walking towards her. He advanced with a look which was not exactly indifferent yet showed no surprise; the smile only came to his face when he was near enough to speak.

‘I have come to meet you,’ Adela began, with frankness which cost her a little agitation of breath. ‘I am so very sorry to have misled you yesterday. As soon as I reached home, I found that my brother had invited Mr. Mutimer for to-day. I thought it would be best if I came and told you that—that we were not quite alone, as I said we should be.’

As she spoke Adela became distressed by perceiving, or seeming to perceive, that the cause which had led her to this step was quite inadequate. Of course it was the result of her having to forbear mention of the real point at issue; she could not say that she feared it might be disagreeable to her hearer to meet Mutimer. But, put in the other way, her pretext for coming appeared trivial. Only with an extreme effort she preserved her even tone to the end of her speech.

‘It is very kind of you,’ Hubert replied almost warmly. ‘I’m very sorry you have had the trouble.’

As she disclaimed thanks, Eldon’s tact discovered the way of safety. Facing her with a quiet openness of look, he said, in a tone of pleasant directness which Adela had often felt to be peculiarly his own—

‘I shall best thank you by admitting that I should have found it very unpleasant to meet Mr. Mutimer. You felt that, and hence your kindness. At the same time, no doubt, you pity me for my littleness.’

‘I think it perfectly natural that such a meeting should be disagreeable. I believe I understand your feeling. Indeed, you explained it to me yesterday.’

‘I explained it?’

‘In what you said about the works in the valley.’

‘True. Many people would have interpreted me less liberally.’

Adela’s eyes brightened a little. But when she raised them, they fell upon something which disturbed her cheerfulness. This was the face of Mrs. Mewling, who had come up from the direction of Wanley and was clearly about to pay a visit at the Manor. The lady smiled and murmured a greeting as she passed by.

‘I suppose Mrs. Mewling is going to see my mother,’ said Hubert, who also had lost a little of his naturalness.

A few more words and they again parted. Nothing further was said of the postponed visit. Adela hastened homewards, dreading lest she had made a great mistake, yet glad that she had ventured to come.

Her mother was just going out into the garden, where Alfred’s voice sounded frequently in laughter or denunciation. Adela would have been glad to sit alone for a short time, for Mrs. Waltham seemed to wish for her company She had only time to glance at herself in her looking-glass and just press a palm against each cheek.

Alfred was puffing clouds from his briar pipe, but Mutimer had ceased smoking. Near the latter was a vacant seat; Adela took it, as there was no other.

‘What a good thing the day of rest is!’ exclaimed Mrs. Waltham. ‘I always feel thankful when I think of the poor men who toil so all through the week in Belwick, and how they must enjoy their Sunday. You surely wouldn’t make any change in that, Mr. Mutimer?’

‘The change I should like to see would be in the other direction,’ Richard replied. ‘I would have holidays far more frequent. In the towns you can scarcely call Sunday a holiday. There’s nothing to do but to walk about the streets. On the whole it does far more harm than good.’

‘Do they never go to church?’ asked Adela. She was experiencing a sort of irritation against their guest, a feeling traceable to more than one source; Mutimer’s frequent glances did not tend to soothe it. She asked the question rather in a spirit of adverse criticism.

‘The working people don’t,’ was the reply, ‘except a Dissenting family here and there.’

‘Perhaps that is one explanation of the Sundays being useless to them.’

Adela would scarcely have ventured upon such a tone in reference to any secular matter; the subject being religion, she was of course justified in expressing herself freely.

Mutimer smiled and held back his rejoinder for a moment. By that time Alfred had taken his pipe from his lips and was giving utterance to unmeasured scorn.

‘But, Mr. Mutimer,’ said Mrs. Waltham, waving aside her son’s vehemence, ‘you don’t seriously tell us that the working people have no religion? Surely that would be too shocking!’

‘Yes, I say it seriously, Mrs. Waltham. In the ordinary sense of the word, they have no religion. The truth is, they have no time to think of it.’

‘Oh, but surely it needs no thought—’

Alfred exploded.

‘I mean,’ pursued his mother, ‘that, however busy we are, there must always be intervals to be spared from the world.’

Mutimer again delayed his reply. A look which he cast at Adela appeared to move her to speech.

‘Have they not their evenings free, as well as every Sunday?’

‘Happily, Miss Waltham, you can’t realise their lives,’ Richard began. He was not smiling now; Adela’s tone had struck him like a challenge, and he collected himself to meet her. ‘The man who lives on wages is never free; he sells himself body and soul to his employer. What sort of freedom does a man enjoy who may any day find himself and his family on the point of starvation just because he has lost his work? All his life long he has before his mind the fear of want—not only of straitened means, mind you, but of destitution and the workhouse. How can such a man put aside his common cares? Religion is a luxury; the working man has no luxuries. Now, you speak of the free evenings; people always do, when they’re asking why the working classes don’t educate themselves. Do you understand what that free evening means? He gets home, say, at six o’clock, tired out; he has to be up again perhaps at five next morning. What can he do but just lie about half asleep? Why, that’s the whole principle of the capitalist system of employment; it’s calculated exactly how long a man can be made to work in a day without making him incapable of beginning again on the day following—just as it’s calculated exactly how little a man can live upon, in the regulation of wages. If the workman returned home with strength to spare, employers would soon find it out, and workshop legislation would be revised—because of course it’s the capitalists that make the laws. The principle is that a man shall have no strength left for himself; it’s all paid for, every scrap of it, bought with the wages at each week end. What religion can such men have? Religion, I suppose, means thankfulness for life and its pleasures—at all events, that’s a great part of it—and what has a wage-earner to be thankful for?’

‘It sounds very shocking,’ observed Mrs. Waltham, somewhat disturbed by the speaker’s growing earnestness. Richard paid no attention and continued to address Adela.

‘I dare say you’ve heard of the early trains—workmen’s trains—that they run on the London railways. If only you could travel once by one of those! Between station and station there’s scarcely a man or boy in the carriage who can keep awake; there they sit, leaning over against each other, their heads dropping forward, their eyelids that heavy they can’t hold them up. I tell you it’s one of the most miserable sights to be seen in this world. If you saw it, Miss Waltham, you’d pity them, I’m very sure of that! You only need to know what their life means. People who have never known hardship often speak more cruelly than they think, and of course it always will be so as long as the rich and the poor are two different races, as much apart as if there was an ocean between them.’

Adela’s cheeks were warm. It was a novel sensation to be rebuked in this unconventional way. She was feeling a touch of shame as well as the slight resentment which was partly her class-instinct, partly of her sex.

‘I feel that I have no right to give any opinion,’ she said in an undertone.

‘Meaning, Adela,’ commented her brother, ‘that you have a very strong opinion and stick to it.’

‘One thing I dare say you are thinking, Miss Waltham,’ Richard pursued, ‘if you’ll allow me to say it. You think that I myself don’t exactly prove what I’ve been saying—I mean to say, that I at all events have had free time, not only to read and reflect, but to give lectures and so on. Yes, and I’ll explain that. It was my good fortune to have a father and mother who were very careful and hard-working and thoughtful people; I and my sister and brother were brought up in an orderly home, and taught from the first that ceaseless labour and strict economy were the things always to be kept in mind. All that was just fortunate chance; I’m not praising myself in saying I’ve been able to get more into my time than most other working men; it’s my father and mother I have to thank for it. Suppose they’d been as ignorant and careless as most of their class are made by the hard lot they have to endure; why, I should have followed them, that’s all. We’ve never had to go without a meal, and why? Just because we’ve all of us worked like slaves and never allowed ourselves to think of rest or enjoyment. When my father died, of course we had to be more careful than ever; but there were three of us to earn money, fortunately, and we kept up the home. We put our money by for the club every week, what’s more.’

‘The club?’ queried Miss Waltham, to whom the word suggested Pall Mall and vague glories which dwelt in her imagination.

‘That’s to make provision for times when we’re ill or can’t get work,’ Mutimer explained. ‘If a wage-earner falls ill, what has he to look to? The capitalist won’t trouble himself to keep him alive; there’s plenty to take his place. Well, that’s my position, or was a few months ago. I don’t suppose any workman has had more advantages. Take it as an example of the most we can hope for, and pray say what it amounts to! Just on the right side, just keeping afloat, just screwing out an hour here and there to work your brain when you ought to be taking wholesome recreation! That’s nothing very grand, it seems to me. Yet people will point to it and ask what there is to grumble at!’

Adela sat uneasily under Mutimer’s gaze; she kept her eyes down.

‘And I’m not sure that I should always have got on as easily,’ the speaker continued. ‘Only a day or two before I heard of my relative’s death, I’d just been dismissed from my employment; that was because they didn’t like my opinions. Well, I don’t say they hadn’t a right to dismiss me, just as I suppose you’ve a right to kill as many of the enemy as you can in time of war. But suppose I couldn’t have got work anywhere. I had nothing but my hands to depend upon; if I couldn’t sell my muscles I must starve, that’s all.’

Adela looked at him for almost the first time. She had heard this story from her brother, but it came more impressively from Mutimer’s own lips. A sort of heroism was involved in it, the championship of a cause regardless of self. She remained thoughtful with troublous colours on her face.

Mrs. Waltham was more obviously uneasy. There are certain things to which in good society one does not refer, first and foremost humiliating antecedents. The present circumstances were exceptional to be sure, but it was to be hoped that Mr. Mutimer would outgrow this habit of advertising his origin. Let him talk of the working-classes if he liked, but always in the third person. The good lady began to reflect whether she might not venture shortly to give him friendly hints on this and similar subjects.

But it was nearly tea-time. Mrs. Waltham shortly rose and went into the house, whither Alfred followed her. Mutimer kept his seat, and Adela could not leave him to himself, though for the moment he seemed unconscious of her presence. When they had been alone together for a little while, Richard broke the silence.

‘I hope I didn’t speak rudely to you; Miss Waltham. I don’t think I need fear to say what I mean, but I know there are always two ways of saying things, and perhaps I chose the roughest.’

Adela was conscious of having said a few hard things mentally, and this apology, delivered in a very honest voice, appealed to her instinct of justice. She did not like Mutimer, and consequently strove against the prejudice which the very sound of his voice aroused in her; it was her nature to aim thus at equity in her personal judgments.