Demos

The weather made it possible to spread the children’s tea in the open air. At four o’clock Letty came, and was quietly happy in being allowed to superintend one of the tables. Adela was already on affectionate terms with many of the little ones, though others regarded her with awe rather than warmth of confidence. This was strange, when we remember how childlike she had formerly been with children. But herein, too, there was a change; she could not now have caught up Letty’s little sister and trotted with her about the garden as she was used to do. She could no longer smile in the old simple, endearing way; it took some time before a child got accustomed to her eyes and lips. Her movements, though graceful as ever, were subdued to matronly gravity; never again would Adela turn and run down the hill, as after that meeting with Hubert Eldon. But her sweetness was in the end irresistible to all who came within the circle of its magic. You saw its influence in Letty, whose eyes seemed never at rest save when they were watching Adela, who sprang to her side with delight if the faintest sign did but summon her. You saw its influence, moreover, when, the tea over, the children ranged themselves on the lawn to hear her read. After the first few sentences, everywhere was profoundest attention; the music of her sweetly modulated voice, the art which she learnt only from nature, so allied themselves with the beauty of the pages she read that from beginning to end not a movement interrupted her.

Whilst she was reading a visitor presented himself at the Manor, and asked if Mrs. Mutimer was at home. The servant explained how and where Mrs. Mutimer was engaged, for the party was held in a quarter of the garden hidden from the approach to the front door.

‘Is Miss Mutimer within?’ was the visitor’s next inquiry.

Receiving an affirmative reply, he begged that Miss Mutimer might be informed of Mr. Keene’s desire to see her. And Mr. Keene was led to the drawing-room.

Alice was reposing on a couch; she did not trouble herself to rise when the visitor entered, but held a hand to him, at the same time scarcely suppressing a yawn. Novel reading has a tendency to produce this expression of weariness. Then she smiled, as one does in greeting an old acquaintance.

‘Who ever would have expected to see you!’ she began, drawing away her hand when it seemed to her that Mr. Keene had detained it quite long enough. ‘Does Dick expect you?’

‘Your brother does not expect me, Miss Mutimer,’ Keene replied. He invariably began conversation with her in a severely formal and respectful tone, and to-day there was melancholy in his voice.

‘You’ve just come on your own—because you thought you would?’

‘I have come because I could not help it, Miss Mutimer. It is more than a month since I had the happiness of seeing you.’

He stood by the couch, his body bent in deference, his eyes regarding her with melancholy homage.

‘Mrs. Mutimer has a tea-party of children from New Wanley,’ said Alice with a provoking smile. ‘Won’t you go and join them? She’s reading to them, I believe; no doubt it’s something that would do you good.’

‘Of course I will go if you send me. I would go anywhere at your command.’

‘Then please do. Turn to the right when you get out into the garden.’

Keene stood for an instant with his eyes on the ground, then sighed deeply—groaned, in fact—smote his breast, and marched towards the door like a soldier at drill. As soon as he had turned his back Alice gathered herself from the couch, and, as soon as she stood upright, called to him.

‘Mr. Keene!’

He halted and faced round.

‘You needn’t go unless you like, you know.’

He almost ran towards her.

‘Just ring the bell, will you? I want some tea, and I’ll give you a cup if you care for it.’

She took a seat, and indicated with a finger the place where he might repose. It was at a three yards’ distance. Then they talked as they were wont to, with much coquetry on Alice’s side, and on Keene’s always humble submissiveness tempered with glances and sighs. They drank tea, and Keene used the opportunity of putting down his cup to take a nearer seat.

‘Miss Mutimer—’

‘Yes?’

‘Is there any hope for me? You remember you said I was to wait a month, and I’ve waited longer.’

‘Yes, you have been very good,’ said Alice, smiling loftily.

‘Is there any hope for me?’ he repeated, with an air of encouragement.

‘Less than ever,’ was the girl’s reply, lightly given, indeed, but not to be mistaken for a jest.

‘You mean that? Come, now, you don’t really mean that? There must be, at all events, as much hope as before.’

‘There isn’t. There never was so little hope. There’s no hope at all,

not a scrap

!’

She pressed her lips and looked at him with a grave face. He too became grave, and in a changed way.

‘I am not to take this seriously?’ he asked with bated breath.

‘You are. There’s not one scrap of hope, and it’s better you should know it.’

‘Then—there—there must be somebody else?’ he groaned, his distress no longer humorous.

Alice continued to look him in the face for a moment, and at length nodded twice.

‘There

is

 somebody else?’

She nodded three times.

‘Then I’ll go. Good-bye, Miss Mutimer. Yes, I’ll go.’

He did not offer to shake hands, but bowed and moved away dejectedly.

‘But you’re not going back to London?’ Alice asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You’d better not do that. They’ll know you’ve called. You’d far better stay and see Dick; don’t you think so?’

He shook his head and still moved towards the door.

‘Mr. Keene!’ Alice raised her voice. ‘Please do as I tell you. It isn’t my fault, and I don’t see why you should pay no heed to me all at once. Will you attend to me, Mr. Keene?’

‘What do you wish me to do?’ he asked, only half turning.

‘To go and see Mrs. Mutimer in the garden, and accept her invitation to dinner.’

‘I haven’t got a dress-suit,’ he groaned.

‘No matter. If you go away I’ll never speak to you again, and you know you wouldn’t like that.’

He gazed at her miserably—his face was one which lent itself to a miserable expression, and the venerable appearance of his frockcoat and light trousers filled in the picture of mishap.

‘Have you been joking with me?’

‘No, I’ve been telling you the truth. But that’s no reason why you should break loose all at once. Please do as I tell you; go to the garden now and stop to dinner. I am not accustomed to ask a thing twice.’

She was almost serious. Keene smiled in a sickly way, bowed, and went to do her bidding.

CHAPTER XX

Among the little girls who had received invitations to the tea-party were two named Rendal, the children of the man whose dismissal from New Wanley had been announced by Mutimer. Adela was rather surprised to see them in the garden. They were eight and nine years old respectively, and she noticed that both had a troubled countenance, the elder showing signs of recent tears. She sought them out particularly for kind words during tea-time. After the reading she noticed them standing apart, talking to each other earnestly; she saw also that they frequently glanced at her. It occurred to her that they might wish to say something and had a difficulty in approaching. She went to them, and a question or two soon led the elder girl to disclose that she was indeed desirous of speaking in private. Giving a hand to each, she drew them a little apart. Then both children began to cry, and the elder sobbed out a pitiful story. Their mother was wretchedly ill and had sent them to implore Mrs. Mutimer’s good word that the father might be allowed another chance. It was true he had got drunk—the words sounded terrible to Adela from the young lips—but he vowed that henceforth he would touch no liquor. It was ruin to the family to be sent away; Rendal might not find work for long enough; there would be nothing for it but to go to a Belwick slum as long as their money lasted, and thence to the workhouse. For it was well understood that no man who had worked at New Wanley need apply to the ordinary employers; they would have nothing to do with him. The mother would have come herself, but could not walk the distance.

Adela was pierced with compassion.

‘I will do my best,’ she said, as soon as she could trust her voice. ‘I promise you I will do my best.’

She could not say more, and the children evidently hoped she would have been able to grant their father’s pardon forthwith. They had to be content with Adela’s promise, which did not sound very cheerful, but meant more than they could understand.

She could not do more than give such a promise, and even as she spoke there was a coldness about her heart. The coldness became a fear when she met her husband on his return from the works. Richard was not in the same good temper as at mid-day. He was annoyed to find Keene in the house—of late he had grown to dislike the journalist very cordially—and he had heard that the Rendal children had been to the party, which enraged him. You remember he accused the man of impudence in addition to the offence of drunkenness. Rendal, foolishly joking in his cups, had urged as extenuation of his own weakness the well-known fact that ‘Arry Mutimer had been seen one evening unmistakably intoxicated in the street of Wanley village. Someone reported these words to Richard, and from that moment it was all over with the Rendals.

Adela, in her eagerness to plead, quite forgot (or perhaps she had never known) that with a certain order of men it is never wise to prefer a request immediately before dinner. She was eager, too, to speak at once; a fear, which she would not allow to become definite, drove her upon the undertaking without delay. Meeting Richard on the stairs she begged him to come to her room.

‘What is it?’ he asked with small ceremony, as soon as the door closed behind him.

She mastered her voice, and spoke with a sweet clearness of advocacy which should have moved his heart to proud and noble obeisance. Mutimer was not very accessible to such emotions.

‘It’s like the fellow’s impertinence,’ he said, ‘to send his children to you. I’m rather surprised you let them stay after what I had told you. Certainly I shall not overlook it. The thing’s finished I it’s no good talking about it.’

The fear had passed, but the coldness about her heart was more deadly. For a moment it seemed as if she could not bring herself to utter another word; she drew apart, she could not raise her face, which was beautiful in marble pain. But there came a rush of such hot anguish as compelled her to speak again. Something more than the fate of that poor family was at stake. Is not the quality of mercy indispensable to true nobleness? Had she voiced her very thought, Adela would have implored him to exalt himself in her eyes, to do a good deed which cost him some little effort over himself. For she divined with cruel certainty that it was not the principle that made him unyielding.

‘Richard, are you sure that the man has offended before?’

‘Oh, of course he has. I’ve no doubt of it. I remember feeling uncertain when I admitted him first of all. I didn’t like his look.’

‘But you have not really had to complain of him before. Your suspicions

may

 be groundless. And he has a good wife, I feel sure of that. The children are very clean and nicely dressed. She will help him to avoid drink in future. It is impossible for him to fail again, now that he knows how dreadful the results will be to his wife and his little girls.’

‘Pooh! What does he care about them? If I begin letting men off in that way, I shall be laughed at. There’s an end of my authority. Don’t bother your head about them. I must go and get ready for dinner.’

An end of

my

 authority. Yes, was it not the intelligence of her maiden heart returning to her? She had no pang from the mere refusal of a request of hers; Richard had never affected tenderness—not what she understood as tenderness—and she did not expect it of him. The union between them had another basis. But the understanding of his motives was so terribly distinct in her! It had come all at once; it was like the exposure of something dreadful by the sudden raising of a veil. And had she not known what the veil covered? Yet for the poor people’s sake, for his own sake, she must try the woman’s argument.

‘Do you refuse me, Richard? I will be guarantee for him. I promise you he shall not offend again. He shall apologise humbly to you for his—his words. You won’t really refuse me?’

‘What nonsense! How can you promise for him, Adela? Ask for something reasonable, and you may be sure I shan’t refuse you. The fellow has to go as a warning. It mustn’t be thought we’re only playing at making rules. I can’t talk any more; I shall keep dinner waiting.’

Pride helped her to show a smooth face through the evening, and in the night she conquered herself anew. She expelled those crying children from her mind; she hardened her heart against their coming misery. It was wrong to judge her husband so summarily; nay, she had not judged him, but had given way to a wicked impulse, without leaving herself a moment to view the case. Did he not understand better than she what measures were necessary to the success of his most difficult undertaking? And then was it certain that expulsion meant ruin to the Rendals? Richard would insist on the letter of the regulations, just, as he said, for the example’s sake; but of course he would see that the man was put in the way of getting new employment and did not suffer in the meantime. In the morning she made atonement to her husband.

‘I was wrong in annoying you yesterday,’ she said as she walked with him from the house to the garden gate. ‘In such things you are far better able to judge. You won’t let it trouble you?’

It was a form of asceticism; Adela had a joy in humbling herself and crushing her rebel instincts. She even raised her eyes to interrogate him. On Richard’s face was an uneasy smile, a look of puzzled reflection. It gratified him intensely to hear such words, yet he could not hear them without the suspicions of a vulgar nature brought in contact with nobleness.

‘Well, yes,’ he replied, ‘I think you were a bit too hasty: you’re not practical, you see. It wants a practical man to manage those kind of things.’

The reply was not such as completes the blessedness of pure submission. Adela averted her eyes. Another woman would perchance have sought to assure herself that she was right in crediting him with private benevolence to the family he was compelled to visit so severely. Such a question Adela could not ask. It would have been to betray doubt; she imagined a replying glance which would shame her. To love, to honour, to obey:—many times daily she repeated to herself that threefold vow, and hitherto the first article had most occupied her striving heart. But she must not neglect the second; perhaps it came first in natural order.

At the gate Richard nodded to her kindly.

‘Good-bye. Be a good girl.’

What was it that caused a painful flutter at her heart as he spoke so? She did not answer, but watched him for a few moments as he walked away.

Did

he

 love

her

? The question which she had not asked herself for a long time came of that heart-tremor. She had been living so unnatural a life for a newly wedded woman, a life in which the intellect and the moral faculties held morbid predominance. ‘Be a good girl.’ How was it that the simple phrase touched her to emotion quite different in kind from any thing she had known since her marriage, more deeply than any enthusiasm, as with a comfort more sacred than any she had known in prayer? As she turned to go back to the house a dizziness affected her eyes; she had to stand still for a moment. Involuntarily she clasped her hands upon her bosom and looked away into the blue summer sky. Did he love her? She had never asked him that, and all at once she felt a longing to hasten after him and utter the question. Would he know what she meant?

Was it the instantaneous reward for having conscientiously striven to honour him? That there should be love on his side had not hitherto seemed of so much importance; probably she had taken it for granted; she had been so preoccupied with her own duties. Yet now it had all at once become of moment that she should know. ‘Be a good girl.’ She repeated the words over and over again, and made much of them. Perhaps she had given him no opportunity, no encouragement, to say all he felt; she knew him to be reserved in many things.

As she entered the house the dizziness again troubled her. But it passed as before.

Mr. Keene, who had stayed over-night, was waiting to take leave of her; the trap which would carry him to Agworth station had just driven up. Adela surprised the poor journalist by the warmth with which she shook his hand, and the kindness of her farewell. She was not deceived as to the motive of his visit, and just now she allowed herself to feel sympathy for him, though in truth she did not like the man.

This morning she could not settle to her work. The dreaming mood was upon her, and she appeared rather to encourage it, seeking a quiet corner of the garden and watching for a whole hour the sun-dappled trunk of a great elm. At times her face seemed itself to be a source of light, so vivid were the thoughts that transformed it Her eyes were moist once or twice, and then no dream of artist-soul ever embodied such passionate loveliness, such holy awe, as came to view upon her countenance. At lunch she was almost silent, but Alice, happening to glance at her, experienced a surprise; she had never seen Adela so beautiful and so calmly bright.

After lunch she attired herself for walking, and went to the village to see her mother. Lest Mrs. Waltham should be lonely, it had been arranged that Alfred should come home every evening, instead of once a week. Even thus, Adela had frequently reproached herself for neglecting her mother. Mrs. Waltham, however, enjoyed much content. The material comforts of her life were considerably increased, and she had many things in anticipation. Adela’s unsatisfactory health rendered it advisable that the present year should pass in quietness, but Mrs. Waltham had made up her mind that before long there should be a house in London, with the delights appertaining thereto. She did not feel herself at all too old to enjoy the outside view of a London season; more than that it would probably be difficult to obtain just yet. To-day she was in excellent spirits, and welcomed her daughter exuberantly.

‘You haven’t seen Letty yet?’ she asked. ‘To-day, I mean.’

‘No. Has she some news for me?’

‘Alfred has an excellent chance of promotion. That old Wilkinson is dead, and he thinks there’s no doubt he’ll get the place. It would be two hundred and fifty a year.’

‘That’s good news, indeed.’

Of course it would mean Letty’s immediate marriage. Mrs. Waltham discussed the prospect in detail. No doubt the best and simplest arrangement would be for the pair to live on in the same house. For the present, of course. Alfred was now firm on the commercial ladder, and in a few years his income would doubtless be considerable; then a dwelling of a very different kind could be found. With the wedding, too, she was occupying her thoughts.

‘Yours was not quite what it ought to have been, Adela. I felt it at the time, but then things were done in such a hurry. Of course the church must be decorated. The breakfast you will no doubt arrange to have at the Manor. Letty ought to have a nice, a really nice

trousseau

; I know you will be kind to her, my dear.’

As Alice had done, Mrs. Waltham noticed before long that Adela was far brighter than usual. She remarked upon it.

‘You begin to look really well, my love. It makes me happy to see you. How much we have to be thankful for! I’ve had a letter this morning from poor Lizzie Henbane; I must show it you. They’re in such misery as never was. Her husband’s business is all gone to nothing, and he is cruelly unkind to her. How thankful we ought to be!’

‘Surely not for poor Lizzie’s unhappiness!’ said Adela, with a return of her maiden archness.

‘On our own account, my dear. We have had so much to contend against. At one time, just after your poor father’s death, things looked very cheerless: I used to fret dreadfully on your account. But everything, you see, was for the best.’

Adela had something to say and could not find the fitting moment. She first drew her chair a little nearer to her mother.

‘Yes, mother, I am happy,’ she murmured.

‘Silly child! As if I didn’t know best. It’s always the same, but

you

 had the good sense to trust to my experience.’

Adela slipped from her seat and put her arms about her mother.

‘What is it, dear?’

The reply was whispered. Adela’s embrace grew closer; her face was hidden, and all at once she began to sob.

‘Love me, mother! Love me, dear mother!’

Mrs. Waltham beamed with real tenderness. For half an hour they talked as mother and child alone can. Then Adela walked back to the Manor, still dreaming. She did not feel able to call and see Letty.

There was an afternoon postal delivery at Wanley, and the postman had just left the Manor as Adela returned. Alice, who for a wonder had been walking in the garden, saw the man going away, and, thinking it possible there might be a letter for her, entered the house to look. Three letters lay on the hall table; two were for Richard, the other was addressed to Mrs. Mutimer. This envelope Alice examined curiously. Whose writing could that be? She certainly knew it; it was a singular hand, stiff, awkward, untrained. Why, it was the writing of Emma’s sister, Kate, Mrs. Clay. Not a doubt of it. Alice had received a note from Mrs. Clay at the time of Jane Vine’s death, and remembered comparing the hand with her own and blessing herself that at all events she wrote with an elegant slope, and not in that hideous upright scrawl. The post-mark? Yes, it was London, E.C. But if Kate addressed a letter to Mrs. Mutimer it must be with sinister design, a design not at all difficult to imagine. Alice had a temptation. To take this letter and either open it herself or give it secretly to her brother? But the servant might somehow make it known that such a letter had arrived.

‘Anything for me, Alice?’

It was Adela’s voice. She had approached unheard; Alice was so intent upon her thoughts.

‘Yes, one letter.’

There was no help for it. Alice glanced at her sister-in-law, and strolled away again into the garden.

Adela examined the envelope. She could not conjecture from whom the letter came; certainly from some illiterate person. Was it for her husband? Was not the ‘Mrs.’ a mistake for ‘Mr.’ or perhaps mere ill-writing that deceived the eye? No, the prefix was so very distinct. She opened the envelope where she stood.

‘Mrs. Mutimer, I dare say you don’t know me nor my name, but I write to you because I think it only right as you should know the truth about your husband, and because me and my sister can’t go on any longer as we are. My sister’s name is Emma Vine. She was engaged to be married to Richard M. two years before he knew you, and to the last he put her off with make-believe and promises, though it was easy to see what was meant. And when our sister Jane was on her very death-bed, which she died not a week after he married you, and I know well as it was grief as killed her. And now we haven’t got enough to eat for Emma and me and my two little children, for I am a widow myself. But that isn’t all. Because he found that his friends in Hoxton was crying shame on him, he got it said as Emma had misbehaved herself, which was a cowardly lie, and all to protect himself. And now Emma is that ill she can’t work; it’s come upon her all at once, and what’s going to happen God knows. And his own mother cried shame on him, and wouldn’t live no longer in the big house in Highbury. He offered us money—I will say so much—but Emma was too proud, and wouldn’t hear of it. And then he went giving her a bad name. What do you think of your husband now, Mrs. Mutimer? I don’t expect nothing, but it’s only right you should know. Emma wouldn’t take anything, not if she was dying of starvation, but I’ve got my children to think of. So that’s all I have to say, and I’m glad I’ve said it.—Yours truly, KATE CLAY.’

Adela remained standing for a few moments when she had finished the letter, then went slowly to her room.

Alice returned from the garden in a short time. In passing through the hall she looked again at the two letters which remained. Neither of them had a sinister appearance; being addressed to the Manor they probably came from personal friends. She went to the drawing-room and glanced around for Adela, but the room was empty. Richard would not be home for an hour yet; she took up a novel and tried to pass the time so, but she had a difficulty in fixing her attention. In the end she once more left the house, and, after a turn or two on the lawn, strolled out of the gate.

She met her brother a hundred yards along the road. The sight of her astonished him.

‘What’s up now, Princess?’ he exclaimed. ‘House on fire? Novels run short?’

‘Something that I expect you won’t care to hear. Who do you think’s been writing to Adela? Someone in London.’

Richard stayed his foot, and looked at his sister with the eyes which suggested disagreeable possibilities.

‘Who do you mean?’ he asked briefly. ‘Not mother?’

The change in him was very sudden. He had been merry and smiling.

‘No; worse than that. She’s got a letter from Kate.’

‘From Kate? Emma’s sister?’ he asked in a low voice of surprise which would have been dismay had he not governed himself.

‘I saw it on the hall table; I remember her writing well enough. Just as I was looking at it Adela came in.’

‘Have you seen her since?’

Alice shook her head. She had this way of saving words. Richard walked on. His first movement of alarm had passed, and now he affected to take the matter with indifference. During the week immediately following his marriage he had been prepared for this very incident; the possibility had been one of the things he faced with a certain recklessness. But impunity had set his mind at ease, and the news in the first instant struck him with a trepidation which a few minutes’ thought greatly allayed. By a mental process familiar enough he at first saw the occurrence as he had seen it in the earlier days of his temptation, when his sense of honour yet gave him frequent trouble; he had to exert himself to recover his present standpoint. At length he smiled.

‘Just like that woman,’ he said, turning half an eye on Alice.

‘If she means trouble, you’ll have it,’ returned the girl sententiously.

‘Well, it’s no doubt over by this time.’

‘Over? Beginning, I should say,’ rema