The cab which had passed Adela and her brother at a short distance from Wanley brought faces to the windows or door of almost every house as it rolled through the village street. The direction in which it was going, the trunk on the roof, the certainty that it had come from Agworth station, suggested to everyone that young Eldon sat within. The occupant had, however, put up both windows just before entering the village, and sight of him was not obtained. Wanley had abundant matter for gossip that evening. Hubert’s return, giving a keener edge to the mystery of his so long delay, would alone have sufficed to wagging tongues; hut, in addition, Mrs. Mewling was on the warpath, and the intelligence she spread was of a kind to run like wildfire.
The approach to the Manor was a carriage-road, obliquely ascending the bill from a point some quarter of a mile beyond the cottages which once housed Belwick’s abbots. Of the house scarcely a glimpse could be caught till you were well within the gates, so thickly was it embosomed in trees. This afternoon it wore a cheerless face; most of the blinds were still down, and the dwelling might have been unoccupied, for any sign of human activity that the eye could catch. There was no porch at the main entrance, and the heavy nail-studded door greeted a visitor somewhat sombrely. On the front of a gable stood the words ‘Nisi Dominus.’
The vehicle drew up, and there descended a young man of pale countenance, his attire indicating long and hasty travel. He pulled vigorously at the end of a hanging bell-chain, and the door was immediately opened by a man-servant in black. Hubert, for he it was, pointed to his trunk, and, whilst it was being carried into the house, took some loose coin from his pocket. He handed the driver a sovereign.
‘I have no change, sir,’ said the man, after examining the coin. But Hubert had already turned away; he merely waved his hand, and entered the house. For a drive of two miles, the cabman held himself tolerably paid.
The hall was dusky, and seemed in need of fresh air. Hubert threw off his hat, gloves, and overcoat; then for the first time spoke to the servant, who stood in an attitude of expectancy.
‘Mrs. Eldon is at home?’
‘At home, sir, but very unwell. She desires me to say that she fears she may not be able to see you this evening.’
‘Is there a fire anywhere?’
‘Only in the library, sir.’
‘I will dine there. And let a fire be lit in my bedroom.’
‘Yes, sir. Will you dine at once, sir?’
‘In an hour. Something light; I don’t care what it is.’
‘Shall the fire be lit in your bedroom at once, sir?’
‘At once, and a hot bath prepared. Come to the library and tell me when it is ready.’
The servant silently departed. Hubert walked across the hall, giving a glance here and there, and entered the library. Nothing had been altered here since his father’s, nay, since his grandfather’s time. That grandfather—his name Hubert—had combined strong intellectual tendencies with the extravagant tastes which gave his already tottering house the decisive push. The large collection of superbly-bound books which this room contained were nearly all of his purchasing, for prior to his time the Eldons had not been wont to concern themselves with things of the mind. Hubert, after walking to the window and looking out for a moment on the side lawn, pushed a small couch near to the fireplace, and threw himself down at full length, his hands beneath his head. In a moment his position seemed to have become uneasy; he turned upon his side, uttering an exclamation as if of pain. A minute or two and again he moved, this time with more evident impatience. The next thing he did was to rise, step to the bell, and ring it violently.
The same servant appeared.
‘Isn’t the bath ready?’ Hubert asked. His former mode of speaking had been brief and decided; he was now almost imperious.
‘I believe it will be in a moment, sir,’ was the reply, marked, perhaps, by just a little failure in the complete subservience expected.
Hubert looked at the man for an instant with contracted brows, but merely said—‘Tell them to be quick.’
The man returned in less than three minutes with a satisfactory announcement, and Eldon went upstairs to refresh himself.
Two hours later he had dined, with obvious lack of appetite, and was deriving but slight satisfaction from a cigar, when the servant entered with a message from Mrs. Eldon: she desired to see her son.
Hubert threw his cigar aside, and made a gesture expressing his wish to be led to his mother’s room. The man conducted him to the landing at the head of the first flight of stairs; there a female servant was waiting, who, after a respectful movement, led the way to a door at a few yards’ distance. She opened it and drew back. Hubert passed into the room.
It was furnished in a very old-fashioned style—heavily, richly, and with ornaments seemingly procured rather as evidences of wealth than of taste; successive Mrs. Eldons had used it as a boudoir. The present lady of that name sat in a great chair near the fire. Though not yet fifty, she looked at least ten years older; her hair had streaks of white, and her thin delicate features were much lined and wasted. It would not be enough to say that she had evidently once been beautiful, for in truth she was so still, with a spiritual beauty of a very rare type. Just now her face was set in a sternness which did not seem an expression natural to it; the fine lips were much more akin to smiling sweetness, and the brows accepted with repugnance anything but the stamp of thoughtful charity.
After the first glance at Hubert she dropped her eyes. He, stepping quickly across the floor, put his lips to her cheek; she did not move her head, nor raise her hand to take his.
‘Will you sit there, Hubert?’ she said, pointing to a chair which was placed opposite hers. The resemblance between her present mode of indicating a wish and her son’s way of speaking to the servant below was very striking; even the quality of their voices had much in common, for Hubert’s was rather high-pitched. In face, however, the young man did not strongly evidence their relation to each other: he was not handsome, and had straight low brows, which made his aspect at first forbidding.
‘Why have you not come to me before this?’ Mrs. Eldon asked when her son had seated himself, with his eyes turned upon the fire.
‘I was unable to, mother. I have been ill.’
She cast a glance at him. There was no doubting the truth of what he said; at this moment he looked feeble and pain-worn.
‘Where did your illness come upon you?’ she asked, her tone unsoftened.
‘In Germany. I started only a few hours after receiving the letter in which you told me of the death.’
‘My other letters you paid no heed to?’
‘I could not reply to them.’
He spoke after hesitation, but firmly, as one does who has something to brave out.
‘It would have been better for you if you had been able, Hubert. Your refusal has best you dear.’
He looked up inquiringly.
‘Mr. Mutimer,’ his mother continued, a tremor in her voice, ‘destroyed his will a day or two before he died.’
Hubert said nothing. His fingers, looked together before him, twitched a little; his face gave no sign.
‘Had you come to me at once,’ Mrs. Eldon pursued, ‘had you listened to my entreaties, to my commands’—her voice rang right queenly—‘this would not have happened. Mr. Mutimer behaved as generously as he always has. As soon as there came to him certain news of you, he told me everything. I refused to believe what people were saying, and he too wished to do so. He would not write to you himself; there was one all sufficient test, he held, and that was a summons from your mother. It was a test of your honour, Hubert—and you failed under it.’
He made no answer.
‘You received my letters?’ she went on to ask. ‘I heard you had gone from England, and could only hope your letters would be forwarded. Did you get them?’
‘With the delay of only a day or two.’
‘And deliberately you put me aside?’
‘I did.’
She looked at him now for several moments. Her eyes grew moist. Then she resumed, in a lower voice—
‘I said nothing of what was at stake, though I knew. Mr. Mutimer was perfectly open with me. “I have trusted him implicitly,” he said, “because I believe him as staunch and true as his brother. I make no allowances for what are called young man’s follies: he must be above anything of that kind. If he is not—well, I have been mistaken in him, and I can’t deal with him as I wish to do.” You know what he was, Hubert, and you can imagine him speaking those words. We waited. The bad news was confirmed, and from you there came nothing. I would not hint at the loss you were incurring; of my own purpose I should have refrained from doing so, and Mr. Mutimer forbade me to appeal to anything but your better self. If you would not come to me because I wished it, I could not involve you and myself in shame by seeing you yield to sordid motives.’
Hubert raised his head. A choking voice kept him silent for a moment only.
‘Mother, the loss is nothing to you; you are above regrets of that kind; and for myself, I am almost glad to have lost it.’
‘In very truth,’ answered the mother, ‘I care little about the wealth you might have possessed. What I do care for is the loss of all the hopes I had built upon you. I thought you honour itself; I thought you high-minded. Young as you are, I let you go from me without a fear. Hubert, I would have staked my life that no shadow of disgrace would ever fall upon your head! You have taken from me the last comfort of my age.’
He uttered words she could not catch.
‘The purity of your soul was precious to me,’ she continued, her accents struggling against weakness; ‘I thought I had seen in you a love of that chastity without which a man is nothing; and I ever did my best to keep your eyes upon a noble ideal of womanhood. You have fallen. The simpler duty, the point of every-day honour, I could not suppose that you would fail in. From the day when you came of age, when Mr. Mutimer spoke to you, saying that in every respect you would be as his son, and you, for your part, accepted what he offered, you owed it to him to respect the lightest of his reasonable wishes. The wish which was supreme in him you have utterly disregarded. Is it that you failed to understand him? I have thought of late of a way you had now and then when you spoke to me about him; it has occurred to me that perhaps you did him less than justice. Regard his position and mine, and tell me whether you think he could have become so much to us if he had not been a gentleman in the highest sense of the word. When Godfrey first of all brought me that proposal from him that we should still remain in this house, it seemed to me the most impossible thing. You know what it was that induced me to assent, and what led to his becoming so intimate with us. Since then it has been hard for me to remember that he was not one of our family. His weak points it was not difficult to discover; but I fear you did not understand what was noblest in his character. Uprightness, clean-heartedness, good faith—these things he prized before everything. In you, in one of your birth, he looked to find them in perfection. Hubert, I stood shamed before him.’
The young man breathed hard, as if in physical pain. His eyes were fixed in a wide absent gaze. Mrs. Eldon had lost all the severity of her face; the profound sorrow of a pure and noble nature was alone to be read there now.
‘What,’ she continued—‘what is this class distinction upon which we pride ourselves? What does it mean, if not that our opportunities lead us to see truths to which the eyes of the poor and ignorant are blind? Is there nothing in it, after all—in our pride of birth and station? That is what people are saying nowadays: you yourself have jested to me about our privileges. You almost make me dread that you were right. Look back at that man, whom I came to honour as my own father. He began life as a toiler with his hands. Only a fortnight ago he was telling me stories of his boyhood, of seventy years since. He was without education; his ideas of truth and goodness he had to find within his own heart. Could anything exceed the noble simplicity of his respect for me, for you boys? We were poor, but it seemed to him that we had from nature what no money could buy. He was wrong; his faith misled him. No, not wrong with regard to all of us; my boy Godfrey was indeed all that he believed. But think of himself; what advantage have we over him? I know no longer what to believe. Oh, Hubert!’
He left his chair and walked to a more distant part of the room, where he was beyond the range of lamp and firelight. Standing here, he pressed his hand against his side, still breathing hard, and with difficulty suppressing a groan.
He came a step or two nearer.
‘Mother,’ he said, hurriedly, ‘I am still far from well. Let me leave you: speak to me again to-morrow.’
Mrs. Eldon made an effort to rise, looking anxiously into the gloom where he stood. She was all but standing upright—a thing she had not done for a long time—when Hubert sprang towards her, seizing her hands, then supporting her in his arms. Her self-command gave way at length, and she wept.
Hubert placed her gently in the chair and knelt beside her. He could find no words, but once or twice raised his face and kissed her.
‘What caused your illness?’ she asked, speaking as one wearied with suffering. She lay back, and her eyes were closed.
‘I cannot say,’ he answered. ‘Do not speak of me. In your last letter there was no account of how he died.’
‘It was in church, at the morning service. The pew-opener found him sitting there dead, when all had gone away.’
‘But the vicar could see into the pew from the pulpit? The death must have been very peaceful.’
‘No, he could not see; the front curtains were drawn.’
‘Why was that, I wonder?’
Mrs. Eldon shook her head.
‘Are you in pain?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Why do you breathe so strangely?’
‘A little pain. Oh, nothing; I will see Manns to-morrow.’
His mother gazed long and steadily into his eyes, and this time he bore her look.
‘Mother, you have not kissed me,’ he whispered.
‘And cannot, dear. There is too much between us.’
His head fell upon her lap.
‘Hubert!’
He pressed her hand.
‘How shall I live when you have gone from me again? When you say good-bye, it will be as if I parted from you for ever.’
Hubert was silent.
‘Unless,’ she continued—‘unless I have your promise that you will no longer dishonour yourself.’
He rose from her side and stood in front of the fire; his mother looked and saw that he trembled.
‘No promise, Hubert,’ she said, ‘that you cannot keep. Rather than that, we will accept our fate, and be nothing to each other.’
‘You know very well, mother, that that is impossible. I cannot speak to you of what drove me to disregard your letters. I love and honour you, and shall have to change my nature before I cease to do so.’
‘To me, Hubert, you seem already to have changed. I scarcely know you.’
‘I can’t defend myself to you,’ he said sadly. ‘We think so differently on subjects which allow of no compromise, that, even if I could speak openly, you would only condemn me the more.’
His mother turned upon him a grief-stricken and wondering face.
‘Since when have we differed so?’ she asked. ‘What has made us strangers to each other’s thoughts? Surely, surely you are at one with me in condemning all that has led to this? If your character has been too weak to resist temptation, you cannot have learnt to make evil your good?’
He kept silence.
‘You refuse me that last hope?’
Hubert moved impatiently.
‘Mother, I can’t see beyond to-day! I know nothing of what is before me. It is the idlest trifling with words to say one will do this or that, when action in no way depends on one’s own calmer thought. In this moment I could promise anything you ask; if I had my choice, I would be a child again and have no desire but to do your will, to be worthy in your eyes. I hate my life and the years that have parted me from you. Let us talk no more of it.’
Neither spoke again for some moments; then Hubert asked coldly—
‘What has been done?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Mrs. Eldon, in the same tone. ‘Mr. Yottle has waited for your return before communicating with the relatives in London.’
‘I will go to Belwick in the morning,’ he said. Then, after reflection, ‘Mr. Mutimer told you that he had destroyed his will?’
‘No. He had it from Mr. Yottle two days before his death, and on the day after—the Monday—Mr. Yottle was to have come to receive instructions for a new one. It is nowhere to be found: of course it was destroyed.’
‘I suppose there is no doubt of that?’ Hubert asked, with a show of indifference.
‘There can be none. Mr. Yottle tells me that a will which existed. before Godfrey’s marriage was destroyed in the same way.’
‘Who is the heir?’
‘A great-nephew bearing the same name. The will contained provision for him and certain of his family. Wanley is his; the personal property will be divided among several.’
‘The people have not come forward?’
‘We presume they do not even know of Mr. Mutimer’s death. There has been no direct communication between him and them for many years.’
Hubert’s next question was, ‘What shall you do, mother?’
‘Does it interest you, Hubert? I am too feeble to move very far. I must find a home either here in the village or at Agworth.’
He looked at her with compassion, with remorse.
‘And you, my boy?’ asked his mother, raising her eyes gently.
‘I? Oh, the selfish never come to harm, be sure! Only the gentle and helpless have to suffer; that is the plan of the world’s ruling.’
‘The world is not ruled by one who thinks our thoughts, Hubert.’
He had it on his lips to make a rejoinder, but checked the impulse.
‘Say good-night to me,’ his mother continued. ‘You must go and rest. If you still feel unwell in the morning, a messenger shall go to Belwick. You are very, very pale.’
Hubert held his hand to her and bent his head. Mrs. Eldon offered her cheek; he kissed it and went from the room.
At seven o’clock on the following morning a bell summoned a servant to Hubert’s bedroom. Though it was daylight, a lamp burned near the bed; Hubert lay against pillows heaped high.
‘Let someone go at once for Dr. Manns,’ he said, appearing to speak with difficulty. ‘I wish to see him as soon as possible. Mrs. Eldon is to know nothing of his visit—you understand me!’
The servant withdrew. In rather less than an hour the doctor made his appearance, with every sign of having been interrupted in his repose. He was a spare man, full bearded and spectacled.
‘Something wrong?’ was his greeting as he looked keenly at his summoner. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’
‘Yes,’ Hubert replied, ‘something is confoundedly wrong. I have been playing strange tricks in the night, I fancy.’
‘Fever?’
‘As a consequence of something else. I shall have to tell you what must be repeated to no one, as of course you will see. Let me see, when was it?—Saturday to-day? Ten days ago, I had a pistol-bullet just here,’—he touched his right side. ‘It was extracted, and I seemed to be not much the worse. I have just come from Germany.’
Dr. Manns screwed his face into an expression of sceptical amazement.
‘At present,’ Hubert continued, trying to laugh, ‘I feel considerably the worse. I don’t think I could move if I tried. In a few minutes, ten to one, I shall begin talking foolery. You must keep people away; get what help is needed. I may depend upon you?’
The doctor nodded, and, whistling low, began an examination.
On the dun borderland of Islington and Hoxton, in a corner made by the intersection of the New North Road and the Regent’s Canal, is discoverable an irregular triangle of small dwelling-houses, bearing the name of Wilton Square. In the midst stands an amorphous structure, which on examination proves to be a very ugly house and a still uglier Baptist chapel built back to back. The pair are enclosed within iron railings, and, more strangely, a circle of trees, which in due season do veritably put forth green leaves. One side of the square shows a second place of worship, the resort, as an inscription declares, of ‘Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.’ The houses are of one storey, with kitchen windows looking upon small areas; the front door is reached by an ascent of five steps.
The canal—maladetta e sventurata fossa—stagnating in utter foulness between coal-wharfs and builders’ yards, at this point divides two neighbourhoods of different aspects. On the south is Hoxton, a region of malodorous market streets, of factories, timber yards, grimy warehouses, of alleys swarming with small trades and crafts, of filthy courts and passages leading into pestilential gloom; everywhere toil in its most degrading forms; the thoroughfares thundering with high-laden waggons, the pavements trodden by working folk of the coarsest type, the corners and lurking-holes showing destitution at its ugliest. Walking northwards, the explorer finds himself in freer air, amid broader ways, in a district of dwelling-houses only; the roads seem abandoned to milkmen, cat’s-meat vendors, and costermongers. Here will be found streets in which every window has its card advertising lodgings: others claim a higher respectability, the houses retreating behind patches of garden-ground, and occasionally showing plastered pillars and a balcony. The change is from undisguised struggle for subsistence to mean and spirit-broken leisure; hither retreat the better-paid of the great slave-army when they are free to eat and sleep. To walk about a neighbourhood such as this is the dreariest exercise to which man can betake himself; the heart is crushed by uniformity of decent squalor; one remembers that each of these dead-faced houses, often each separate blind window, represents a ‘home,’ and the associations of the word whisper blank despair.
Wilton Square is on the north side of the foss, on the edge of the quieter district, and in one of its houses dwelt at the time of which I write the family on whose behalf Fate was at work in a valley of mid-England. Joseph Mutimer, nephew to the old man who had just died at Wanley Manor, had himself been at rest for some five years; his widow and three children still lived together in the home they had long occupied. Joseph came of a family of mechanics; his existence was that of the harmless necessary artisan. He earned a living by dint of incessant labour, brought up his family in an orderly way, and departed with a certain sense of satisfaction at having fulfilled obvious duties—the only result of life for which he could reasonably look. With his children we shall have to make closer acquaintance; but before doing so, in order to understand their position and follow with intelligence their several stories, it will be necessary to enter a little upon the subject of ancestry.
Joseph Mutimer’s father, Henry by name, was a somewhat remarkable personage. He grew to manhood in the first decade of our century, and wrought as a craftsman in a Midland town. He had a brother, Richard, some ten years his junior, and the two were of such different types of character, each so pronounced in his kind, that, after vain attempts to get along together, they parted for good, heedless of each other henceforth, pursuing their sundered destinies. Henry was by nature a political enthusiast, of insufficient ballast, careless of the main chance, of hot and ready tongue; the Chartist movement gave him opportunities of action which he used to the utmost, and he became a member of the so-called National Convention, established in Birmingham in 1839. Already he had achieved prominence by being imprisoned as the leader of a torch-light procession, and this taste of martyrdom naturally sharpened his zeal. He had married young, but only visited his family from time to time. His wife for the most part earned her own living, and ultimately betook herself to London with her son Joseph, the single survivor of seven children. Henry pursued his career of popular agitation, supporting himself in miscellaneous ways, writing his wife an affectionate letter once in six months, and making himself widely known as an uncompromising Radical of formidable powers. Newspapers of that time mention his name frequently; he was always in hot water, and once or twice narrowly escaped transportation. In 1842 he took active part in the riots of the Midland Counties, and at length was unfortunate enough to get his head broken. He died in hospital before any relative could reach him.
Richard Mutimer regarded with detestation the principles to which Henry had sacrificed his life. From childhood he was staid, earnest, and iron-willed; to whatsoever he put his hand, he did it thoroughly, and it was his pride to receive aid from no man. Intensely practical, he early discerned the truth that a man’s first object must be to secure himself a competency, seeing that to one who lacks money the world is but a great debtors’ prison. To make money, therefore, was his aim, and anything that interfered with the interests of commerce and industry from the capitalist’s point of view he deemed unmitigated evil. When his brother Henry was leading processions and preaching the People’s Charter, Richard enrolled himself as a special constable, cursing the tumults which drew him from business, but determined, if he got the opportunity, to strike a good hard blow in defence of law and order. Already he was well on the way to possess a solid stake in the country, and the native conservatism of his temperament grew stronger as circumstances bent themselves to his will; a proletarian conquering wealth and influence naturally prizes these things in proportion to the effort their acquisition has cost him. When he heard of his brother’s death, he could in conscience say nothing more than ‘Serve him right!’ For all that, he paid the funeral expenses of the Chartist—angrily declining an offer from Henry’s co-zealots, who would have buried the martyr at their common charges—and proceeded to inquire after the widow and son. Joseph Mutimer, already one- or two-and-twenty, was in no need of help; he and his mother, naturally prejudiced against the thriving uncle, declared themselves satisfied with their lot, and desired no further connection with a relative who was practically a stranger to them.
So Richard went on his way and heaped up riches. When already middle-aged he took to himself a wife, his choice being marked with characteristic prudence. The woman he wedded was turned thirty, had no money, and few personal charms, but was a lady. Richard was fully able to appreciate education and refinement; to judge from the course of his later life, one would have said that he had sought money only as a means, the end he really aimed at being the satisfaction of instincts which could only have full play in a higher social sphere. No doubt the truth was that success sweetened his character, and developed, as is so often the case, those possibilities of his better nature which a fruitless struggle would have kept in the germ or altogether crushed. His excellent wife influenced him profoundly; at her death the work was continued by the daughter she left him. The defects of his early education could not of course be repaired, but it is never too late for a man to go to school to the virtues which civilise. Remaining the sturdiest of Conservatives, he bowed in sincere humility to those very claims which the Radical most angrily disallows: birth, hereditary station, recognised gentility—these things made the strongest demand upon his reverence. Such an attitude was a testimony to his own capacity for culture, since he knew not the meaning of vulgar adulation, and did in truth perceive the beauty of those qualities to which the uneducated Iconoclast is wholly blind. It was a joyous day for him when he saw his daughter the wife of Godfrey Eldon. The loss which so soon followed was correspondingly hard to bear, and but for Mrs. Eldon’s gentle sympathy he would scarcely have survived the blow. We know already how his character had impressed that lady; such respect was not lightly to be won, and he came to regard it as the most precious thing that life had left him.
But the man was not perfect, and his latest practical undertaking curiously enough illustrated the failing which he seemed most completely to have outgrown. It was of course a deplorable error to think of mining in the beautiful valley which had once been the Eldons’ estate. Richard Mutimer could not perceive that. He was a very old man, and possibly the instincts of his youth revived as his mind grew feebler; he imagined it the greatest kindness to Mrs. Eldon and her son to increase as much as possible the value of the property he would leave at his death. They, of course, could not even hint to him the pain with which they viewed so barbarous a scheme; he did not as much as suspect a possible objection. Intensely happy in his discovery and the activity to which it led, he would have gone to his grave rich in all manner of content but for that fatal news which reached him from London, where Hubert Eldon was sup posed to be engaged in sober study in an interval of University work. Doubtless it was this disappointment that caused his sudden death, and so brought about a state of things which could he have foreseen it, would have occasioned him the bitterest grief.
He had never lost sight of his relatives in London, and had made for them such modest provision as suited his view of the fitness of things. To leave wealth to young men of the working class would have seemed to him the most inexcusable of follies; if such were to rise at all, it must be by their own efforts and in consequence of their native merits; otherwise, let them toil on and support themselves honestly. From secret sources he received information of the capabilities and prospects of Joseph Mutimer’s children, and the items of his will were regulated accordingly.
So we return to the family in Wilton Square. Let us, before proceeding with the story, enumerate the younger Mutimers. The first-born, now aged five-and-twenty, had his great-uncle’s name; Joseph Mutimer, married, and no better off in worldly possessions than when he had only himself to support, came to regret the coldness with which he had received the advances of his uncle the capitalist, and christened his son Richard, with half a hope that some day the name might stand the boy in stead. Richard was a mechanical engineer, employed in certain ironworks where hydraulic machinery was made. The second child was a girl, upon whom had been bestowed the names Alice Maud, after one of the Queen’s daughters; on which account, and partly with reference to certain personal characteristics, she was often called ‘the Princess.’ Her age was nineteen, and she had now for two years been employed in the show-rooms of a City warehouse. Last comes Henry, a lad of seventeen; he had been suffered to aim at higher things than the rest of the family. In the industrial code of precedence the rank of clerk is a step above that of mechanic, and Henry—known to relatives and friends as ‘Arry—occupied the proud position of clerk in a drain-pipe manufactory.
At ten o’clock on the evening of Easter Sunday, Mrs. Mutimer was busy preparing supper. She had laid the table for six, had placed at one end of it a large joint of cold meat, at the other a vast flee-pudding, already diminished by attack, and she was now slicing a conglomerate mass of cold potatoes and cabbage prior to heating it in the frying-pan, which hissed with melted dripping just on the edge of the fire. The kitchen was small, and everywhere reflected from some bright surface either the glow of the open grate or the yellow lustre of the gas-jet; red curtains drawn across the window added warmth and homely comfort to the room. It was not the kitchen of pinched or slovenly working folk; the air had a scent of cleanliness, of freshly scrubbed boards and polished metal, and the furniture was super-abundant. On the capacious dresser stood or hung utensils innumerable; cupboards and chairs had a struggle for wall space; every smallest object was in the place assigned to it by use and wont.
The housewife was an active woman of something less than sixty; stout, fresh-featured, with a small keen eye, a firm mouth, and the look of one who, conscious of responsibilities, yet feels equal to them; on the whole a kindly and contented face, if lacking the suggestiveness which comes of thought. At present she seemed on the verge of impatience; it was supper time, but her children lingered.
‘There they are, and there they must wait, I s’pose,’ she murmured to herself as she finished slicing the vegetables and went to remove the pan a little from the fire.
A knock at the house door called her upstairs. She came down again, followed by a young girl of pleasant countenance, though pale and anxious-looking. The visitor’s dress was very plain, and indicated poverty; she wore a long black jacket, untrimmed, a boa of cheap fur, tied at the throat with black ribbon, a hat of grey felt, black cotton gloves.
‘No one here?’ she asked, seeing the empty kitchen.
‘Goodness knows where they all are. I s’pose Dick’s at his meeting; but Alice and ‘Arry had ought to be back by now. Sit you down to the table, and I’ll put on the vegetables; there’s no call to wait for them. Only I ain’t got the beer.’
‘Oh, but I didn’t mean to come for supper,’ said the girl, whose name was Emma Vine. ‘I only ran in to tell you poor Jane’s down again with rheumatic fever.’
Mrs. Mutimer was holding the frying-pan over the fire, turning the contents over and over with a knife.
‘You don’t mean that!’ she exclaimed, looking over her shoulder. ‘Why, it’s the fifth time, ain’t it?’
‘It is indeed, and worse to get through every time. We didn’t expect she’d ever be able to walk again last autumn.’
‘Dear, dear! what a thing them rheumatics is, to be sure! And you’ve heard about Dick, haven’t you?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Oh, I thought maybe it had got to you. He’s lost his work, that’s all.’
‘Lost his work?’ the girl repeated, with dismay. ‘Why?’
‘Why? What else had he to expect? ‘Tain’t likely they’ll keep a man as goes about making all his mates discontented and calling his employers names at every street corner. I’ve been looking for it every week. Yesterday one of the guvnors calls him up and tells him—just in a few civil words—as perhaps it ‘ud be better for all parties if he’d find a place where he was more satisfied. “Well an’ good,” says Dick—you know his way—and there he is.’
The girl had seated herself, and listened to this story with downcast eyes. Courage seemed to fail her; she drew a long, quiet sigh. Her face was of the kind that expresses much sweetness in irregular features. Her look was very honest and gentle, with pathetic meanings for whoso had the eye to catch them; a peculiar mobility of the lips somehow made one think that she had often to exert herself to keep down tears. She spoke in a subdued voice, always briefly, and with a certain natural refinement in the use of uncultured language. When Mrs. Mutimer ceased, Emma kept silence, and smoothed the front of her jacket with an unconscious movement of the hand.
Mrs. Mutimer glanced at her and showed commiseration.
‘Well, well, don’t you worrit about it, Emma,’ she said; ‘you’ve quite enough on your hands. Dick don’t care—not he; he couldn’t look more high-flyin’ if someone had left him a fortune. He says it’s the best thing as could happen. Nay, I can’t explain; he’ll tell you plenty soon as he gets in. Cut yourself some meat, child, do, and don’t wait for me to help you. See, I’ll turn you out some potatoes; you don’t care for the greens, I know.’
The fry had hissed vigorously whilst this conversation went on; the results were brown and unctuous.
‘Now, if it ain’t too bad!’ cried the old woman, losing self-control. ‘That ‘Arry gets later every Sunday, and he knows very well as I have to wait for the beer till he comes.’
I’ll fetch it,’ said Emma, rising.
‘You indeed! I’d like to see Dick if he caught me a-sending you to the public-house.’
‘He won’t mind it for once.’
‘You get on with your supper, do. It’s only my fidgetiness; I can do very well a bit longer. And Alice, where’s she off to, I wonder? What it is to have a girl that age! I wish they was all like you, Emma. Get on with your supper, I tell you, or you’ll make me angry. Now, it ain’t no use taking it to ‘eart in that way. I see what you’re worritin’ over. Dick ain’t the man to be out o’ work long.’
‘But won’t it be the same at his next place?’ Emma inquired. She was trying to eat, but it was a sad pretence.
‘Nay, there’s no telling. It’s no good my talkin’ to him. Why don’t you see what you can do, Emma? ‘Tain’t as if he’d no one but his own self to think about Don’t you think you could make him see that? If anyone has a right to speak, it’s you. Tell him as he’d ought to have a bit more thought. It’s wait, wait, wait, and likely to be if things go on like this. Speak up and tell him as—’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that!’ murmured Emma. ‘Dick knows best.’
She stopped to listen; there was a noise above as of people entering the house.
‘Here they come at last,’ said Mrs. Mutimer. ‘Hear him laughin’? Now, don’t you be so ready to laugh with him. Let him see as it ain’t such good fun to everybody.’
Heavy feet tramped down the stone stairs, amid a sound of loud laughter and excited talk. The next moment the kitchen door was thrown open, and two young men appeared. The one in advance was Richard Mutimer; behind him came a friend of the family, Daniel Dabbs.
‘Well, what do you think of this?’ Richard exclaimed as he shook Emma’s hands rather carelessly. ‘Mother been putting you out of spirits, I suppose? Why, it’s grand; the best thing that could have happened! What a meeting we’ve had to-night! What doyousay, Dan?’
Richard represented—too favourably to make him anything but an exception—the best qualities his class can show. He was the English artisan as we find him on rare occasions, the issue of a good strain which has managed to procure a sufficiency of food for two or three generations. His physique was admirable; little short of six feet in stature, he had shapely shoulders, an erect well-formed head, clean strong limbs, and a bearing which in natural ease and dignity matched that of the picked men of the upper class—those fine creatures whose career, from public school to regimental quarters, is one exclusive course of bodily training. But the comparison, on the whole, was to Richard’s advantage. By no possibility could he have assumed that aristocratic vacuity of visage which comes of carefully induced cerebral atrophy. The air of the workshop suffered little colour to dwell upon his cheeks; but to features of so pronounced and intelligent a type this pallor added a distinction. He had dark brown hair, thick and long, and a cropped beard of hue somewhat lighter. His eyes were his mother’s—keen and direct; but they had small variety of expression; you could not imagine them softening to tenderness, or even to thoughtful dreaming. Terribly wide awake, they seemed to be always looking for the weak points of whatever they regarded, and their brightness was not seldom suggestive of malice. His voice was strong and clear; it would ring out well in public places, which is equivalent to saying that it hardly invited too intimate conference. You will take for granted that Richard displayed, alike in attitude and tone, a distinct consciousness of his points of superiority to the men among whom he lived; probably he more than suspected that he could have held his own in spheres to which there seemed small chance of his being summoned.
Just now he showed at once the best and the weakest of his points. Coming in a state of exaltation from a meeting of which he had been the eloquent hero, such light as was within him flashed from his face freely; all the capacity and the vigour which impelled him to strain against the strait bonds of his lot set his body quivering and made music of his utterance. At the same time, his free movements passed easily into swagger, and as he talked on, the false notes were not few. A working man gifted with brains and comeliness must, be sure of it, pay penalties for his prominence.
Quite another man was Daniel Dabbs: in him you saw the proletarian pure and simple. He was thick-set, square-shouldered, rolling in gait; he walked with head bent forward and eyes glancing uneasily, as if from lack of self-confidence. His wiry black hair shone with grease, and no accuracy of razor-play would make his chin white. A man of immense strength, but bull-necked and altogether ungainly—his heavy fist, with its black veins and terrific knuckles, suggested primitive methods of settling dispute; the stumpy fingers, engrimed hopelessly, and the filthy broken nails, showed how he wrought for a living. His face, if you examined it without prejudice, was not ill to look upon; there was much good humour about the mouth, and the eyes, shrewd enough, could glimmer a kindly light His laughter was roof-shaking—always a good sign in a man.
‘And what haveyougot to say of these fine doings, Mr. Dabbs?’ Mrs. Mutimer asked him.
‘Why, it’s like this ‘era, Mrs. Mutimer,’ Daniel began, having seated himself, with hands on widely-parted knees. ‘As far as the theory goes, I’m all for Dick; any man must be as knows his two times two. But about the Longwoods; well, I tell Dick they’ve a perfect right to get rid of him, finding him a dangerous enemy, you see. It was all fair and above board. Young Stephen Longwood ups an’ says—leastways not in these words, but them as means the same—says he, “Look ‘ere, Mutimer,” he says, “we’ve no fault to find with you as a workman, but from what we hear of you, it seems you don’t care much for us as employers. Hadn’t you better find a shop as is run on Socialist principles?” That’s all about it, you see; it’s a case of incompatible temperaments; there’s no ill-feelin’, not as between man and man, And that’s what I say, too.’
‘Now, Dick,’ said Mrs. Mutimer, ‘before you begin your sermon, who’s a-going to fetch my beer?’
‘Right, Mrs. Mutimer!’ cried Daniel, slapping his leg. ‘That’s what I call coming from theory to practice. Beer squares all—leastways for the time being—only for the time being, Dick. Where’s the jug? Better give me two jugs; we’ve had a thirsty night of it.’
‘We’ll make capital of this!’ said Richard, walking about the room in Daniel’s absence. ‘The great point gained is, they’ve shown they’re afraid of me. We’ll write it up in the paper next week, see if we don’t! It’ll do us a sight of good.’
‘And where’s your weekly wages to come from?’ inquired his mother.
‘Oh, I’ll look after that. I only wish they’d refuse me all round; the more of that kind of thing the better for us. I’m not afraid but I can earn my living.’
Through all this Emma Vine had sat with her thoughtful eyes constantly turned on Richard. It was plain how pride struggled with anxiety in her mind. When Richard had kept silence for a moment, she ventured to speak, having tried in vain to meet his look.
‘Jane’s ill again, Richard,’ she said.
Mutimer had to summon his thoughts from a great distance; his endeavour to look sympathetic was not very successful.
‘Not the fever again?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she replied sadly.
‘Going to work in the wet, I suppose?’
He shrugged his shoulders; in his present mood the fact was not so much personally interesting to him as in the light of another case against capitalism. Emma’s sister had to go a long way to her daily employment, and could not afford to ride; the fifth attack of rheumatic fever was the price she paid for being permitted to earn ten shillings a week.
Daniel returned with both jugs foaming, his face on a broad grin of anticipation. There was a general move to the table. Richard began to carve roast beef like a freeman, not by any means like the serf he had repeatedly declared himself in the course of the evening’s oratory.
‘Her Royal ‘Ighness out?’ asked Daniel, with constraint not solely due to the fact that his mouth was full.
‘She’s round at Mrs. Took’s, I should think,’ was Mrs. Mutimer’s reply. ‘Staying supper, per’aps.’
Richard, after five minutes of surprising trencher-work, recommenced conversation. The proceedings of the evening at the hall, which was the centre for Socialist gatherings in this neighbourhood, were discussed by him and Daniel with much liveliness. Dan was disposed to take the meeting on its festive and humorous side; for him, economic agitation was a mode of passing a few hours amid congenial uproar. Whenever stamping and shouting were called for, Daniel was your man. Abuse of employers, it was true, gave a zest to the occasion, and to applaud the martyrdom of others was as cheery an occupation as could be asked; Daniel had no idea of sacrificing his own weekly wages, and therein resembled most of those who had been loud in uncompromising rhetoric. Richard, on the other hand, was unmistakably zealous. His sense of humour was not strong, and in any case he would have upheld the serious dignity of his own position. One saw from his way of speaking, that he believed himself about to become a popular hero; already in imagination he stood forth on platforms before vast assemblies, and heard his own voice denouncing capitalism with force which nothing could resist. The first taste of applause had given extraordinary impulse to his convictions, and the personal ambition with which they were interwoven. His grandfather’s blood was hot in him to-night. Henry Mutimer, dying in hospital of his broken skull, would have found euthanasia, could he in vision have seen this worthy descendant entering upon a career in comparison with which his own was unimportant.
The high-pitched voices and the clatter of knives and forks allowed a new-comer to enter the kitchen without being immediately observed. It was a tall girl of interesting and vivacious appearance; she wore a dress of tartan, a very small hat trimmed also with tartan and with a red feather, a tippet of brown fur about her shoulders, and a muff of the same material on one of her hands. Her figure was admirable; from the crest of her gracefully poised head to the tip of her well-chosen boot she was, in line and structure, the type of mature woman. Her face, if it did not indicate a mind to match her frame, was at the least sweet-featured and provoking; characterless somewhat, but void of danger-signals; doubtless too good to be merely played with; in any case, very capable of sending a ray, in one moment or another, to the shadowy dreaming-place of graver thoughts. Alice Maud Mutimer was nineteen. For two years she had been thus tall, but the grace of her proportions had only of late fully determined itself. Her work in the City warehouse was unexacting; she had even a faint impress of rose-petal on each cheek, and her eye was excellently clear. Her lips, unfortunately never quite closed, betrayed faultless teeth. Her likeness to Richard was noteworthy; beyond question she understood the charm of her presence, and one felt that the consciousness might, in her case, constitute rather a safeguard than otherwise.
She stood with one hand on the door, surveying the table. When the direction of Mrs. Mutimer’s eyes at length caused Richard and Daniel to turn their heads, Alice nodded to each.
‘What noisy people! I heard you out in the square.’
She was moving past the table, but Daniel, suddenly backing his chair, intercepted her. The girl gave him her hand, and, by way of being jocose, he squeezed it so vehemently that she uttered a shrill ‘Oh!’
‘Leave go, Mr. Dabbs! Leave go, I tell you! How dare you? I’ll hit you as hard as I can!’
Daniel laughed obstreperously.
‘Do! do!’ he cried. ‘What a mighty blow that ‘ud be! Only the left hand, though. I shall get over it.’
She wrenched herself away, gave Daniel a smart slap on the back, and ran round to the other side of the table, where she kissed Emma affectionately.
‘How thirsty I am!’ she exclaimed. ‘You haven’t drunk all the beer, I hope.’
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Dan replied. ‘Why, there ain’t more than ‘arf a pint; that’s not much use for a Royal ‘Ighness.’
She poured it into a glass. Alice reached across the table, raised the glass to her lips, and—emptied it. Then she threw off hat, tippet, and gloves, and seated herself But in a moment she was up and at the cupboard.
‘Now, mother, you don’t—youdon’tsay as there’s not a pickle!’
Her tone was deeply reproachful.
‘Why, there now,’ replied her mother, laughing; ‘I knew what it ‘ud be! I meant to a’ got them last night. You’ll have to make shift for once.’
The Princess took her seat with an air of much dejection. Her pretty lips grew mutinous; she pushed her plate away.
‘No supper for me! The idea of cold meat without a pickle.’
‘What’s the time?’ cried Daniel. ‘Not closing time yet. I can get a pickle at the “Duke’s Arms.” Give me a glass, Mrs. Mutimer.’
Alice looked up slily, half smiling, half doubtful.
‘You may go,’ she said. ‘I like to see strong men make themselves useful.’
Dan rose, and was off at once. He returned with the tumbler full of pickled walnuts. Alice emptied half a dozen into her plate, and put one of them whole into her mouth. She would not have been a girl of her class if she had not relished this pungent dainty. Fish of any kind, green vegetables, eggs and bacon, with all these a drench of vinegar was indispensable to her. And she proceeded to eat a supper scarcely less substantial than that which had appeased her brother’s appetite. Start not, dear reader; the Princess is only a subordinate heroine, and happens, moreover, to be a living creature.
‘Won’t you take a walnut, Miss Vine?’ Daniel asked, pushing the tumbler to the quiet girl, who had scarcely spoken through the meal.
She declined the offered dainty, and at the same time rose from the table, saying aside to Mrs. Mutimer that she must be going.
‘Yes, I suppose you must,’ was the reply. ‘Shall you have to sit up with Jane?’
‘Not all night, I don’t expect.’
Richard likewise left his place, and, when she offered to bid him good-night, said that he would walk a little way with her. In the passage above, which was gas-lighted, he found his hat on a nail, and the two left the house together.
‘Don’t you really mind?’ Emma asked, looking up into his face as they took their way out of the square.
‘Not I! I can get a job at Baldwin’s any day. But I dare say I shan’t want one long.’
‘Not want work?’
He laughed.
‘Work? Oh, plenty of work; but perhaps not the same kind. We want men who can give their whole time to the struggle—to go about lecturing and the like. Of course, it isn’t everybody can do it.’
The remark indicated his belief that he knew one man not incapable of leading functions.
‘And would they pay you?’ Emma inquired, simply.
‘Expenses of that kind are inevitable,’ he replied.
Issuing into the New North Road, where there were still many people hastening one way and the other, they turned to the left, crossed the canal—black and silent—and were soon among narrow streets. Every corner brought a whiff of some rank odour, which stole from closed shops and warehouses, and hung heavily on the still air. The public-houses had just extinguished their lights, and in the neighbourhood of each was a cluster of lingering men and women, merry or disputatious. Mid-Easter was inviting repose and festivity; to-morrow would see culmination of riot, and after that it would only depend upon pecuniary resources how long the muddled interval between holiday and renewed labour should drag itself out.
The end of their walk was the entrance to a narrow passage, which, at a few yards’ distance, widened itself and became a street of four-storeyed houses. At present this could not be discerned; the passage was a mere opening into massive darkness. Richard had just been making inquiries about Emma’s sister.
‘You’ve had the doctor?’
‘Yes, we’re obliged; she does so dread going to the hospital again. Each time she’s longer in getting well.’
Richard’s hand was in his pocket; he drew it out and pressed something against the girl’s palm.
‘Oh, how can I?’ she said, dropping her eyes. ‘No—don’t—I’m ashamed.’
‘That’s all right,’ he urged, not unkindly. ‘You’ll have to get her what the doctor orders, and it isn’t likely you and Kate can afford it.’
‘You’re always so kind, Richard. But I am—I am ashamed!’
‘I say, Emma, why don’t you call me Dick? I’ve meant to ask you that many a time.’
She turned her face away, moving as if abashed.
‘I don’t know. It sounds—perhaps I want to make a difference from what the others call you.’
He laughed with a sound of satisfaction.
‘Well, you mustn’t stand here; it’s a cold night. Try and come Tuesday or Wednesday.’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘Good night!’ he said, and, as he held her hand, bent to the lips which were ready.
Emma walked along the passage, and for some distance up the middle of the street. Then she stopped and looked up at one of the black houses. There were lights, more or less curtain-dimmed, in nearly all the windows. Emma regarded a faint gleam in the topmost storey. To that she ascended.
Mutimer walked homewards at a quick step, whistling to himself. A latch-key gave him admission. As he went down the kitchen stairs, he heard his mother’s voice raised in anger, and on opening the door he found that Daniel had departed, and that the supper table was already cleared. Alice, her feet on the fender and her dress raised a little, was engaged in warming herself before going to bed. The object of Mrs. Mutimer’s chastisement was the youngest member of the family, known as ‘Arry; even Richard, who had learnt to be somewhat careful in his pronunciation, could not bestow the aspirate upon his brother’s name. Henry, aged seventeen, promised to do credit to the Mutimers in physical completeness; already he was nearly as tall as his eldest brother; and, even in his lankness, showed the beginnings of well-proportioned vigour. But the shape of his head, which was covered with hair of the lightest hue, did not encourage hope of mental or moral qualities. It was not quite fair to judge his face as seen at present; the vacant grin of half timid, half insolent, resentment made him considerably more simian of visage than was the case under ordinary circumstances. But the features were unpleasant to look upon; it was Richard’s face, distorted and enfeebled with impress of sensual instincts.
‘As long as you live in this house, it shan’t go on,’ his mother was saying. ‘Sunday or Monday, it’s no matter; you’ll be home before eleven o’clock, and you’ll come home sober. You’re no better than a pig!’
‘Arry was seated in a far corner of the room, where he had dropped his body on entering. His attire was such as the cheap tailors turn out in imitation of extreme fashions: trousers closely moulded upon the leg, a huff waistcoat, a short coat with pockets everywhere. A very high collar kept his head up against his will; his necktie was crimson, and passed through a brass ring; he wore a silver watch-chain, or what seemed to be such. One hand was gloved, and a cane lay across his knees. His attitude was one of relaxed muscles, his legs very far apart, his body not quite straight.
‘What d’ you call sober, I’d like to know?’ he replied, with looseness of utterance. ‘I’m as sober ‘s anybody in this room. If a chap can’t go out with ‘s friends ‘t Easter an’ all—?’
‘Easter, indeed! It’s getting to be a regular thing, Saturday and Sunday. Get up and go to bed! I’ll have my say out with you in the morning, young man.’
‘Go to bed!’ repeated the lad with scorn. ‘Tell you I ain’t had no supper.’
Richard had walked to the neighbourhood of the fireplace, and was regarding his brother with anger and contempt. At this point of the dialogue he interfered.
‘And you won’t have any, either, that I’ll see to! What’s more, you’ll do as your mother bids you, or I’ll know the reason why. Go upstairs at once!’
It was not a command to be disregarded. ‘Arry rose, but half-defiantly.
‘What have you to do with it? You’re not my master.’
‘Do you hear what I say?’ Richard observed, yet more autocratically. ‘Take yourself off, and at once!’
The lad growled, hesitated, but approached the door. His motion was slinking; he could not face Richard’s eye. They heard him stumble up the stairs.