Demos: A Story of English Socialism — Chapter XII

CHAPTER XII

The New Wanley Lecture Hall had been publicly dedicated to the service of the New Wanley Commonwealth, and only in one respect did the day’s proceedings fall short of Mutimer’s expectations.

He had hoped to have all the Waltham family at his luncheon party, but in the event Alfred alone felt himself able to accept the invitation.

Mutimer had even nourished the hope that something might happen before that day to allow of Adela’s appearing not merely in the character of a guest, but, as it were, _ex officio_.

By this time he had resolutely forbidden his eyes to stray to the right hand or the left, and kept them directed with hungry, relentless steadiness straight along the path of his desires.

He had received no second letter from his mother, nor had Alice anything to report of danger-signals at home; from Emma herself came a letter regularly once a week, a letter of perfect patience, chiefly concerned with her sister’s health.

He had made up his mind to declare nothing till the irretrievable step was taken, when reproaches only could befall him; to Alice as little as to any one else had he breathed of his purposes.

And he could no longer even take into account the uncertainty of his success; to doubt of that would have been insufferable at the point which he had reached in self-abandonment.

Yet day after day saw the postponement of the question which would decide his fate.

Between him and Mrs. Waltham the language of allusion was at length put aside;

he spoke plainly of his wishes, and sought her encouragement.

This was not wanting, but the mother begged for time.

Let the day of the ceremony come and go.

Richard passed through it in a state of exaltation and anxiety which bordered on fever.

Mr. Westlake and his wife came down from London by an early train, and he went over New Wanley with them before luncheon.

The luncheon itself did not lack festive vivacity; Richard, in surveying his guests from the head of the board, had feelings not unlike those wherein King Polycrates lulled himself of old; there wanted, in truth, one thing to complete his self-complacence, but an extra glass or two of wine enrubied his imagination, and he already saw Adela’s face smiling to him from the table’s unoccupied end.

What was such conquest in comparison with that which fate had accorded him?

There was a satisfactory gathering to hear Mr. Westlake’s address;

Richard did not fail to note the presence of a few reporters, only it seemed to him that their pencils might have been more active.

Here, too, was Adela at length; every time his name was uttered, perforce she heard; every encomium bestowed upon him by the various speakers was to him like a new bud on the tree of hope.

After all, why should he feel this humility towards her?

What man of prominence, of merit, at all like his own would ever seek her hand?

The semblance of chivalry which occasionally stirred within him was, in fact, quite inconsistent with his reasoned view of things; the English working class has, on the whole, as little of that quality as any other people in an elementary stage of civilisation.

He was a man, she a woman.

A lady, to be sure, but then-- After Mutimer, Alfred Waltham had probably more genuine satisfaction in the ceremony than any one else present.

Mr. Westlake he was not quite satisfied with; there was a mildness and restraint about the style of the address which to Alfred’s taste smacked of feebleness; he was for Cambyses’ vein.

Still it rejoiced him to hear the noble truths of democracy delivered as it were from the bema.

To a certain order of intellect the word addressed by the living voice to an attentive assembly is always vastly impressive; when the word coincides with private sentiment it excites enthusiasm.

Alfred hated the aristocratic order of things with a rabid hatred.

In practice he could be as coarsely overbearing with his social inferiors as that scion of the nobility--existing of course somewhere--who bears the bell for feebleness of the pia mater; but that made him none the less a sound Radical.

In thinking of the upper classes he always thought of Hubert Eldon, and that name was scarlet to him.

Never trust the thoroughness of the man who is a revolutionist on abstract principles; personal feeling alone goes to the root of the matter.

Many were the gentlemen to whom Alfred had the happiness of being introduced in the course of the day.

Among others was Mr. Keene the journalist.

At the end of a lively conversation Mr. Keene brought out a copy of the ‘Belwick Chronicle,’ that day’s issue.

‘You’ll find a few things of mine here,’ he said.

‘Put it in your pocket, and look at it afterwards.

By-the-by, there is a paragraph marked; I meant it for Mutimer.

Never mind, give it him when you’ve done with it.

’ Alfred bestowed the paper in the breast pocket of his greatcoat, and did not happen to think of it again till late that evening.

His discovery of it at length was not the only event of the day which came just too late for the happiness of one with whose fortunes we are concerned.

A little after dark, when the bell was ringing which summoned Mutimer’s workpeople to the tea provided for them, Hubert Eldon was approaching the village by the road from Agworth: he was on foot, and had chosen his time in order to enter Wanley unnoticed.

His former visit, when he was refused at the Walthams’ door, had been paid at an impulse; he had come down from London by an early train, and did not even call to see his mother at her new house in Agworth.

Nor did ho visit her on his way back; he walked straight to the railway station and took the first train townwards.

To-day he came in a more leisurely way.

It was certain news contained in a letter from his mother which brought him, and with her he spent some hours before starting to walk towards Wanley.

‘I hear,’ Mrs. Eldon had written, ‘from Wanley something which really surprises me.

They say that Adela Waltham is going to marry Mr. Mutimer.

The match is surely a very strange one.

I am only fearful that it is the making of interested people, and that the poor girl herself has not had much voice in deciding her own fate.

Oh, this money!

Adela was worthy of better things.

’ Mrs. Eldon saw her son with surprise, the more so that she divined the cause of his coming.

When they had talked for a while, Hubert frankly admitted what it was that had brought him.

‘I must know,’ he said, ‘whether the news from Wanley is true’ ‘But can it concern you, Hubert?

’ his mother asked gently.

He made no direct reply, but expressed his intention of going over to Wanley.

‘Whom shall you visit, dear?

’ ‘Mr. Wyvern.

’ ‘The vicar?

But you don’t know him personally.

’ ‘Yes, I know him pretty well.

We write to each other occasionally.

’ Mrs. Eldon always practised most reserve when her surprise was greatest--an excellent rule, by-the-by, for general observation.

She looked at her son with a half-smile of wonder, but only said ‘Indeed?

’ ‘I had made his acquaintance before his coming to Wanley,’ Hubert explained.

His mother just bent her head, acquiescent.

And with that their conversation on the subject ended.

But Hubert received a tender kiss on his cheek when he set forth in the afternoon.

To one entering the valley after nightfall the situation of the much-discussed New Wanley could no longer be a source of doubt.

Two blast-furnaces sent up their flare and lit luridly the devastated scene.

Having glanced in that direction Hubert did his best to keep his eyes averted during the remainder of the walk.

He was surprised to see a short passenger train rush by on the private line connecting the works with Agworth station; it was taking away certain visitors who had lingered in New Wanley after the lecture.

Knowing nothing of the circumstances, he supposed that general traffic had been commenced.

He avoided the village street, and reached the Vicarage by a path through fields.

He found the vicar at dinner, though it was only half-past six.

The welcome he received was, in Mr. Wyvern’s manner, almost silent; but when he had taken a place at the table he saw satisfaction on his host’s face.

The meal was very plain, but the vicar ate with extraordinary appetite; he was one of those men in whom the demands of the stomach seem to be in direct proportion to the activity of the brain.

A question Hubert put about the train led to a brief account of what was going on.

Mr. Wyvern spoke on the subject with a gravity which was not distinctly ironical, but suggested criticism.

They repaired to the study.

A volume of Plato was open on the reading-table.

‘Do you remember Socrates’ prayer in the “Phaedrus”?

’ said the vicar, bending affectionately over the page.

He read a few words of the Greek, then gave a free rendering.

‘Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward be at one.

May I esteem the wise alone wealthy, and may I have such abundance of wealth as none but the temperate can carry.

’ He paused a moment.

‘Ah, when I came hither I hoped to find Pan undisturbed.

Well, well, after all, Hephaestus was one of the gods.

’ ‘How I envy you your quiet mind!

’ said Hubert.

‘Quiet?

Nay, not always so.

Just now I am far from at peace.

What brings you hither to-day?

’ The equivoque was obviated by Mr. Wyvern’s tone.

‘I have heard stories about Adela Waltham.

Is there any truth in them?

’ ‘I fear so; I fear so.

’ ‘That she is really going to marry Mr. Mutimer?

’ He tried to speak the name without discourtesy, but his lips writhed after it.

‘I fear she is going to marry him,’ said the vicar deliberately.

Hubert held his peace.

‘It troubles me.

It angers me,’ said Mr. Wyvern.

‘I am angry with more than one.

’ ‘Is there an engagement?

’ ‘I am unable to say.

Tattle generally gets ahead of fact.

’ ‘It is monstrous!

’ burst from the young man.

‘They are taking advantage of her innocence.

She is a child.

Why do they educate girls like that?

I

should say, how can they leave them so uneducated?

In an ideal world it would be all very well, but see what comes of it here?

She is walking with her eyes open into horrors and curses, and understands as little of what awaits her as a lamb led to butchery.

Do you stand by and say nothing?

’ ‘It surprises me that you are so affected,’ remarked the vicar quietly.

‘No doubt.

I can’t reason about it.

But I know that my life will be hideous if this goes on to the end.

’ ‘You are late.

’ ‘Yes, I am late.

I was in Wanley some weeks ago; I did not tell you of it.

I called at their house; they were not at home to me.

Yet Adela was sitting at the window.

What did that mean?

Is her mother so contemptible that my change of fortune leads her to treat me in that way?

’ ‘But does no other reason occur to you?

’ asked Mr. Wyvern, with grave surprise.

‘Other reason!

What other?

’ ‘You must remember that gossip is active.

’ ‘You mean that they have heard abou--?

’ ‘Somehow it had become the common talk of the village very shortly after my arrival here.

’ Hubert dropped his eyes in bewilderment.

‘Then they think me unfit to associate with them?

She--Adela will look upon me as a vile creature!

But it wasn’t so when I saw her immediately after my illness.

She talked freely and with just the same friendliness as before.

’ ‘Probably she had heard nothing then.

’ ‘And her mother only began to poison her mind when it was advantageous to do so?

’ Hubert laughed bitterly.

‘Well, there is an end of it,’ he pursued.

‘Yes, I was forgetting all that.

Oh, it is quite intelligible; I don’t blame them.

By all means let her be preserved from contagion!

Pooh!

I don’t know my own mind.

Old fancies that I used to have somehow got hold of me again If I ever marry, it must be a woman of the world, a woman with brain and heart to judge human nature.

It is gone, as if I had never had such a thought.

Poor child, to be sure; but that’s all one can say.

’ His tone was as far from petulance as could be.

Hubert’s emotions were never feebly coloured; his nature ran into extremes, and vehemence of scorn was in him the true voice of injured tenderness.

Of humility he knew but little, least of all where his affections were concerned, but there was the ring of noble metal in his self-assertion.

He would never consciously act or speak a falsehood, and was intolerant of the lies, petty or great, which conventionality and warped habits of thought encourage in those of weaker personality.

‘Let us be just,’ remarked Mr. Wyvern, his voice sounding rather sepulchral after the outburst of youthful passion.

‘Mrs. Waltham’s point of view is not inconceivable.

I, as you know, am not altogether a man of formulas, but I am not sure that my behaviour would greatly differ from hers in her position; I mean as regards yourself.

’ ‘Yes, yes; I admit the reasonableness of it,’ said Hubert more calmly, ‘granted that you have to deal with children.

But Adela is too old to have no will or understanding.

It may be she has both.

After all she would scarcely allow herself to be forced into a detestable marriage.

Very likely she takes her mother’s practical views.

’ ‘There is such a thing as blank indifference in a young girl who has suffered disappointment.

’ ‘I could do nothing,’ exclaimed Hubert.

‘That she thinks of me at all, or has ever seriously done so, is the merest supposition.

There was nothing binding between us.

If she is false to herself, experience and suffering must teach her.

’ The vicar mused.

‘Then you go your way untroubled?

’ was his next question.

‘If I am strong enough to overcome foolishness.

’ ‘And if foolishness persists in asserting itself?

’ Hubert kept gloomy silence.

‘Thus much I can say to you of my own knowledge,’ observed Mr. Wyvern with weight.

‘Miss Waltham is not one to speak words lightly.

You call her a child, and no doubt her view of the world is childlike; but she is strong in her simplicity.

A pledge from her will, or I am much mistaken, bear no two meanings.

Her marriage with Mr. Mutimer would be as little pleasing to me as to you, but I cannot see that I have any claim to interpose, or, indeed, power to do so.

Is it not the same with yourself?

’ ‘No, not quite the same.

’ ‘Then you have hope that you might still affect her destiny?

’ Hubert did not answer.

‘Do you measure the responsibility you would incur?

I fear not, if you have spoken sincerely.

Your experience has not been of a kind to aid you in understanding her, and, I warn you, to make her subject to your caprices would be little short of a crime, whether now--heed me--or hereafter.

’ ‘Perhaps it is too late,’ murmured Hubert.

‘That may well be, in more senses than one.

’ ‘Can you not discover whether she is really engaged?

’ ‘If that were the case, I think I should have heard of it.

’ ‘If I were allowed to see her!

So much at least should be granted me.

I

should not poison the air she breathes.

’ ‘Do you return to Agworth to-night?

’ Mr. Wyvern inquired.

‘Yes, I shall walk back.

’ ‘Can you come to me again to-morrow evening?

’ It was agreed that Hubert should do so.

Mr. Wyvern gave no definite promise of aid, but the young man felt that he would do something.

‘The night is fine,’ said the vicar; ‘I will walk half a mile with you.

’ They left the Vicarage, and ten yards from the door turned into the path which would enable them to avoid the village street.

Not two minutes after their quitting the main road the spot was passed by Adela herself, who was walking towards Mr. Wyvern’s dwelling.

On her inquiring for the vicar, she learnt from the servant that he had just left home.

She hesitated, and seemed about to ask further questions or leave a message, but at length turned away from the door and retraced her steps slowly and with bent head.

She knew not whether to feel glad or sorry that the interview she had come to seek could not immediately take place.

This day had been a hard one for Adela.

In the morning her mother had spoken to her without disguise or affectation, and had told her of Mutimer’s indirect proposal.

Mrs. Waltham went on to assure her that there was no hurry, that Mutimer had consented to refrain from visits for a short time in order that she might take counsel with herself, and that--the mother’s voice trembled on the words--absolute freedom was of course left her to accept or refuse.

But Mrs. Waltham could not pause there, though she tried to.

She went on to speak of the day’s proceedings.

‘Think what we may, my dear, of Mr. Mutimer’s opinions, no one can deny that he is making a most unselfish use of his wealth.

We shall have an opportunity to-day of hearing how it is regarded by those who--who understand such questions.

’ Adela implored to be allowed to remain at home instead of attending the lecture, but on this point Mrs. Waltham was inflexible.

The girl could not offer resolute opposition in a matter which only involved an hour or two’s endurance.

She sat in pale silence.

Then her mother broke into tears, bewailed herself as a luckless being, entreated her daughter’s pardon, but in the end was perfectly ready to accept Adela’s self-sacrifice.

On her return from New Wanley, Adela sat alone till tea-time, and after that meal again went to her room.

She was not one of those girls to whom tears come as a matter of course on any occasion of annoyance or of grief; her bright eyes had seldom been dimmed since childhood, for the lightsomeness of her character threw off trifling troubles almost as soon as they were felt, and of graver afflictions she had hitherto known none since her father’s death.

But since the shock she received on that day when her mother revealed Hubert Eldon’s unworthiness, her emotional life had suffered a slow change.

Evil, previously known but as a dark mystery shadowing far-off regions, had become the constant preoccupation of her thoughts.

Drawing analogies from the story of her faith, she imaged Hubert as the angel who fell from supreme purity to a terrible lordship of perdition.

Of his sins she had the dimmest conception; she was told that they were sins of impurity, and her understanding of such could scarcely have been expressed save in the general language of her prayers.

Guarded jealously at every moment of her life, the world had made no blur on the fair tablet of her mind; her Eden had suffered no invasion.

She could only repeat to herself that her heart had gone dreadfully astray in its fondness, and that, whatsoever it cost her, the old hopes, the strength of which was only now proved, must be utterly uprooted.

And knowing that, she wept.

Sin was too surely sorrow, though it neared her only in imagination.

In a few weeks she seemed to have almost outgrown girlhood; her steps were measured, her smile was seldom and lacked mirth.

The revelation would have done so much; the added and growing trouble of Mutimer’s attentions threatened to sink her in melancholy.

She would not allow it to be seen more than she could help; cheerful activity in the life of home was one of her moral duties, and she strove hard to sustain it.

It was a relief to find herself alone each night, alone with her sickness of heart.

The repugnance aroused in her by the thought of becoming Mutimer’s wife was rather instinctive than reasoned.

From one point of view, indeed, she deemed it wrong, since it might be entirely the fruit of the love she was forbidden to cherish.

Striving to read her conscience, which for years had been with her a daily task and was now become the anguish of every hour, she found it hard to establish valid reasons for steadfastly refusing a man who was her mother’s choice.

She read over the marriage service frequently.

There stood the promise--to love, to honour, and to obey.

Honour and obedience she might render him, but what of love?

The question arose, what did love mean?

Could there be such a thing as love of an unworthy object?

Was she not led astray by the spirit of perverseness which was her heritage?

Adela could not bring herself to believe that ‘to love’ in the sense of the marriage service and to ‘be in love’ as her heart understood it were one and the same thing.

The Puritanism of her training led her to distrust profoundly those impulses of mere nature.

And the circumstances of her own unhappy affection tended to confirm her in this way of thinking.

Letty Tew certainly thought otherwise, but was not Letty’s own heart too exclusively occupied by worldly considerations?

Yet it said ‘love.

’ Perchance that was something which would come after marriage; the promise, observe, concerned the future.

But she was not merely indifferent; she shrank from Mutimer.

She returned home from the lecture to-day full of dread--dread more active than she had yet known.

And it drove her to a step she had timidly contemplated for more than a week.

She stole from the house, bent on seeing Mr. Wyvern.

She could not confess to him, but she could speak of the conflict between her mother’s will and her own, and beg his advice; perhaps, if he appeared favourable, ask him to intercede with her mother.

She had liked Mr. Wyvern from the first meeting with him, and a sense of trust had been nourished by each succeeding conversation.

In her agitation she thought it would not be hard to tell him so much of the circumstances as would enable him to judge and counsel.

Yet it was with relief, on the whole, that she turned homewards with her object unattained.

It would be much better to wait and test herself yet further.

Why should she not speak with her mother about that vow she was asked to make?

She did not seek solitude again, but joined her mother and Alfred in the sitting-room.

Mrs. Waltham made no inquiry about the short absence.

Alfred had only just called to mind the newspaper which Mr. Keene had given him; and was unfolding it for perusal.

His eye caught a marked paragraph, one of a number under the heading ‘Gossip from Town.

’ As he read it he uttered a ‘Hullo!

’ of surprise.

‘Well, here’s the latest,’ he continued, looking at his companions with an amused eye.

‘Something about that fellow Eldon in a Belwick newspaper.

What do you think?

’ Adela kept still and mute.

‘Whatever it is, it cannot interest us, Alfred,’ said Mrs. Waltham, with dignity.

‘We had rather not hear it.

’ ‘Well, you shall read it for yourself,’ replied Alfred on a second thought.

‘I think you’d like to know.

’ His mother took the paper under protest, and glanced down at the paragraph carelessly.

But speedily her attention became closer.

‘An item of intelligence,’ wrote the London gossiper, ‘which I dare say will interest readers in certain parts of--shire.

A lady of French extraction who made a name for herself at a leading metropolitan theatre last winter, and who really promises great things in the Thespian art, is back among us from a sojourn on the Continent.

She is understood to have spent much labour in the study of a new part, which she is about to introduce to us of the modern Babylon.

But Albion, it is whispered, possesses other attractions for her besides appreciative audiences.

In brief, though she will of course appear under the old name, she will in reality have changed it for one of another nationality before presenting herself in the radiance of the footlights.

The happy man is Mr. Hubert Eldon, late of Wanley Manor.

We felicitate Mr. Eldon.

’ Mrs. Waltham’s hands trembled as she doubled the sheet: there was a gleam of pleasure on her face.

‘Give me the paper when you have done with it,’ she said.

Alfred laughed, and whistled a tune as he continued the perusal of Mr. Keene’s political and social intelligence, on the whole as trustworthy as the style in which it was written was terse and elegant.

Adela, finding she could feign indifference no longer, went from the room.

‘Where did you get this?

’ Mrs. Waltham asked with eagerness as soon as the girl was gone.

‘From the writer himself,’ Alfred replied, visibly proud of his intimacy with a man of letters.

‘Fellow called Keene.

Had a long talk with him.

’ ‘About this?

’ ‘Oh, no. I’ve only just come across it.

But he said he’d marked something for Mutimer.

I’m to pass the paper on to him.

’ ‘I suppose this is the same woman--?

’ ‘No doubt.

’ ‘You think it’s true?

’ ‘True?