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 suspicionsmaybe 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 ofmyauthority. 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.
Didheloveher? 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 nicetrousseau; 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, butyouhad 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,’ remarked Alice, swinging her parasol at a butterfly.
They finished their walk to the house in silence, and Richard went at once to his dressing-room. Here he sat down. After all, his mental disquiet was not readily to be dismissed; it even grew as he speculated and viewed likelihoods from all sides. Probably Kate had made a complete disclosure. How would it affect Adela?
You must not suppose that his behaviour in the case of the man Rendal had argued disregard for Adela’s opinion of him. Richard was incapable of understanding how it struck his wife, that was all. If he reflected on the matter, no doubt he was very satisfied with himself, feeling that he had displayed a manly resolution and consistency. But the present difficulty was grave. Whatever Adela might say, there could be no doubt as to her thought; she would henceforth—yes, despise him. That cut his thick skin to the quick; his nature was capable of smarting when thus assailed. For he had by no means lost his early reverence for Adela; nay, in a sense it had increased. His primitive ideas on woman had undergone a change since his marriage. Previously he had considered a wife in the light of property; intellectual or moral independence he could not attribute to her. But he had learnt that Adela was by no means his chattel. He still knew diffidence when he was inclined to throw a joke at her, and could not take her hand without involuntary respect—a sensation which occasionally irritated him. A dim inkling of what was meant by woman’s strength and purity had crept into his mind; he knew—in his heart he knew—that he was unworthy to touch her garment. And, to face the whole truth, he all but loved her; that was the meaning of his mingled sentiments with regard to her. A danger of losing her in the material sense would have taught him that better than he as yet knew it; the fear of losing her respect was not attributable solely to his restless egoism. He had wedded her in quite another frame of mind than that in which he now found himself when he thought of her. He cared much for the high opinion of people in general; Adela was all but indispensable to him. When he said, ‘My wife,’ he must have been half-conscious that the word bore a significance different from that he had contemplated. On the lips of those among whom he had grown up the word is desecrated, or for the most part so; it has contemptible, and ridiculous, and vile associations, scarcely ever its true meaning. Formerly he would have laughed at the thought of standing in awe of his wife; nay, he could not have conceived the possibility of such a thing; it would have appeared unnatural, incompatible with the facts of wedded life. Yet he sat here and almost dreaded to enter her presence.
A man of more culture might have thought: A woman cannot in her heart be revolted because another has been cast off for her. Mutimer could not reason so far. It would have been reasoning inapplicable to Adela, but from a certain point of view it might have served as a resource. Richard could only accept his instincts.
But it was useless to postpone the interview; come of it what would, he must have it over and done with. He could not decide how to speak until he knew what the contents of Kate’s letter were. He was nervously anxious to know.
Adela sat in her boudoir, with a book open on her lap. After the first glance on his entering she kept her eyes down. He sauntered up and stood before her in an easy attitude.
‘Who has been writing to you from London?’ he at once asked, abruptly in consequence of the effort to speak without constraint.
Adela was not prepared for such a question. She remembered all at once that Alice had seen the letter as it lay on the table. Why had Alice spoken to her brother about it? There could be only one explanation of that, and of his coming thus directly. She raised her eyes for a moment, and a slight shock seemed to affect her.
She was unconscious how long she delayed her reply.
‘Can’t you tell me?’ Richard said, with more roughness than he intended. He was suffering, and suffering affected his temper.
Adela drew the letter from her pocket and in silence handed it to him. He read it quickly, and, before the end was reached, had promptly chosen his course.
‘What do you think of this?’ was his question, as he folded the letter and rolled it in his hand. He was smiling, and enjoyed complete self-command.
‘I cannot think,’ fell from Adela’s lips. ‘I am waiting for jour words.’
He noticed at length, now he was able to inspect her calmly, that she looked faint, pain-stricken.
‘Alice told me who had written to you,’ Richard pursued, in his frankest tones. ‘It was well she saw the letter; you might have said nothing.’
‘That would have been very unjust to you,’ said Adela in a low regular voice. ‘I could only have done that if—if I had believed it.’
‘You don’t altogether believe it, then?’
She looked at him with full eyes and made answer:
‘You are my husband.’
It echoed in his ears; not to many men does it fall to hear those words so spoken. Another would have flung himself at her feet and prayed to her. Mutimer only felt a vast relief, mingled with gratitude. The man all but flattered himself that she had done him justice.
‘Well, you are quite right,’ he spoke. ‘It isn’t true, and if you knew this woman you would understand the whole affair. I dare say you can gather a good deal from the way she writes. It’s true enough that I was engaged to her sister, but it was broken off before I knew you, and for the reasons she says here. I’m not going to talk to you about things of that kind; I dare say you wouldn’t care to hear them. Of course she says I made it all up. Do you think I’m the kind of man to do that?’
Perhaps she did not know that she was gazing at him. The question interrupted her in a train of thought which was going on in her mind even while she listened. She was asking herself why, when they were in London, he had objected to a meeting between her and his mother. He had said his mother was a crotchety old woman who could not make up her mind to the changed circumstances, and was intensely prejudiced against women above her own class. Was that a very convincing description? She had accepted it at the time, but now, after reading this letter—? But could any man speak with that voice and that look, and lie? Her agitation grew intolerable. Answer she must; could she, could she say ‘No’ with truth? Answer she must, for he waited. In the agony of striving for voice there came upon her once more that dizziness of the morning, but in a more severe form. She struggled, felt her breath failing, tried to rise, and fell back unconscious.
At the same time Alice was sitting in the drawing-room, in conversation with Mr. Willis Rodman. ‘Arry having been invited for this evening, Rodman was asked with him, as had been the case before. ‘Arry was at present amusing himself in the stables, exchanging sentiments with the groom. Rodman sat near Alice, or rather he knelt upon a chair, so that at any moment he could assume a standing attitude before her. He talked in a low voice.
‘You’ll come out to-night?’
‘No, not to-night. You must speak to him to-night.’
Rodman mused.
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ resumed the girl eagerly, in a tone as unlike that she used to Mr. Keene as well could be. She was in earnest; her eyes never moved from her companion’s face; her lips trembled. ‘Why should you put it off? I can’t see why we keep it a secret. Dick can’t have a word to say against it; you know he can’t. Tell him to-night after dinner. Do! do!’
Rodman frowned in thought.
‘He won’t like it.’
‘But why not? I believe he will. He will, he shall, he must! I’m not to depend on him, surely?’
‘A day or two more, Alice.’
‘I can’t keep up the shamming!’ she exclaimed. ‘Adela suspects, I feel sure. Whenever you come in I feel that hot and red.’ She laughed and blushed. ‘If you won’t do as I tell you, I’ll give you up, I will indeed!’
Rodman stroked his moustache, smiling.
‘You will, will you?’
‘See if I don’t. To-night! It must be to-night! Shall I call you a pretty name? it’s only because I couldn’t bear to be found out before you tell him.’
He still stroked his moustache. His handsome face was half amused, half troubled. At last he said:
‘Very well; to-night.’
Shortly after, Mutimer came into the room.
‘Adela isn’t up to the mark,’ he said to Alice. ‘She’d better have dinner by herself, I think; but she’ll join us afterwards.’
Brother and sister exchanged looks.
‘Oh, it’s only a headache or something of the kind,’ he continued. ‘It’ll be all right soon.’
And he began to talk with Rodman cheerfully, so that Alice felt it must really be all right. She drew aside and looked into a novel.
Adela did appear after dinner, very pale and silent, but with a smile on her face. There had been no further conversation between her and her husband. She talked a little with ‘Arry, in her usual gentle way, then asked to be allowed to say goodnight. ‘Arry at the same time took his leave, having been privately bidden to do so by his sister. He was glad enough to get away; in the drawing-room his limbs soon began to ache, from inability to sit at his ease.
Then Alice withdrew, and the men were left alone.
Adela did not go to bed. She suffered from the closeness of the evening and sat by her open windows, trying to read a chapter in the New Testament. About eleven o’clock she had a great desire to walk upon the garden grass for a few minutes before undressing; perhaps it might help her to the sleep she so longed for yet feared she would not obtain. The desire became so strong that she yielded to it, passed quietly downstairs, and out into the still night. She directed her steps to her favourite remote corner. There was but little moonlight, and scarcely a star was visible. When she neared the laburnums behind which she often sat or walked, her ear caught the sound of voices. They came nearer, on the other side of the trees. The first word which she heard distinctly bound her to the spot and forced her to listen.
‘No, I shan’t put it off.’ It was Alice speaking. ‘I know what comes of that kind of thing. I am old enough to be my own mistress.’
‘You are not twenty-one,’ replied Richard in an annoyed voice. ‘I shall do everything I can to put it off till you are of age. Rodman is a good enough fellow in his place; but it isn’t hard to see why he’s talked you over in this way.’
‘He hasn’t talked me over!’ cried Alice, passionately. ‘I needn’t have listened if I hadn’t liked.’
‘You’re a foolish girl, and you want someone to look after you. If you’ll only wait you can make a good marriage. This would be a bad one, in every sense.’
‘I shall marry him.’
‘And I shall prevent it. It’s for your own sake, Alice.’
‘If you try to prevent it—I’ll tell Adela everything about Emma I I’ll tell her the whole plain truth, and I’ll prove it to her. So hinder me if you dare!’
Alice hastened away.
In the month of September Mr. Wyvern was called upon to unite in holy matrimony two pairs in whom we are interested. Alice Mutimer became Mrs. Willis Rodman, and Alfred Waltham took home a bride who suited him exactly, seeing that she was never so happy as when submitting herself to a stronger will. Alfred and Letty ran away and hid themselves in South Wales. Mr. and Mrs. Rodman fled to the Continent.
Half Alice’s fortune was settled upon herself, her brother and Alfred Waltham being trustees. This was all Mutimer could do. He disliked the marriage intensely, and not only because he had set his heart on a far better match for Alice; he had no real confidence in Rodman. Though the latter’s extreme usefulness and personal tact had from the first led Richard to admit him to terms of intimacy, time did not favour the friendship. Mutimer, growing daily more ambitious and more punctilious in his intercourse with all whom, notwithstanding his principles, he deemed inferiors from the social point of view, often regretted keenly that he had allowed any relation between himself and Rodman more than that of master and man. Experience taught him how easily he might have made the most of Rodman without granting him a single favour. The first suggestion of the marriage enraged him; in the conversation with Rodman, which took place, moreover, at an unfavourable moment, he lost his temper and flung out very broad hints indeed as to the suitor’s motives. Rodman was calm; life had instructed him in the advantages of a curbed tongue; but there was heightened colour on his face, and his demeanour much resembled that of a proud man who cares little to justify himself, but will assuredly never forget an insult. It was one of the peculiarities of this gentleman that his exterior was most impressive when the inner man was most busy with ignoble or venomous thoughts.
But for Alice’s sake Mutimer could not persist in his hostility. Alice had a weapon which he durst not defy, and, the marriage being inevitable, he strove hard to see it in a more agreeable light, even tried to convince himself that his prejudice against Rodman was groundless. He loved his sister, and for her alone would put up with things otherwise intolerable. It was a new exasperation when he discovered that Rodman could not be persuaded to continue his work at New Wanley. All inducements proved vain. Richard had hoped that at least one advantage might come of the marriage, that Rodman would devote capital to the works; but Rodman’s Socialism cooled strangely from the day when his ends were secured. He purposed living in London, and Alice was delighted to encourage him. The girl had visions of a life such as the heroines of certain novels rejoice in. For a wonder, her husband was indispensable to the brightness of that future. Rodman had inspired her with an infatuation. Their relations once declared, she grudged him every moment he spent away from her. It was strangely like true passion, the difference only marked by an extravagant selfishness. She thought of no one, cared for no one, but herself, Rodman having become part of that self. With him she was imperiously slavish; her tenderness was a kind of greed; she did not pretend to forgive her brother for his threatened opposition, and, having got hold of the idea that Adela took part against Rodman, she hated her and would not be alone in her company for a moment. On her marriage day she refused Adela’s offered kiss and did her best to let everyone see how delighted she was to leave them behind.
The autumn was a time of physical suffering for Adela. Formerly she had sought to escape her mother’s attentions, now she accepted them with thankfulness. Mrs. Waltham had grave fears for her daughter; doctors suspected some organic disease, one summoned from London going so far as to hint at a weakness of the chest. Early in November it was decided to go south for the winter, and Exmouth was chosen, chiefly because Mrs. Westlake was spending a month there. Mr. Westlake, whose interest in Adela had grown with each visit he paid to the Manor, himself suggested the plan. Mrs. Waltham and Adela left Wanley together; Mutimer promised visits as often as he could manage to get away. Since Rodman’s departure Richard found himself overwhelmed with work. None the less he resolutely pursued the idea of canvassing Belwick at the coming general election. Opposition, from whomsoever it came, aggravated him. He was more than ever troubled about the prospects of New Wanley; there even loomed before his mind a possible abandonment of the undertaking. He had never contemplated the sacrifice of his fortune, and though anything of that kind was still very far off, it was daily more difficult for him to face with equanimity even moderate losses. Money had fostered ambition, and ambition full grown had more need than ever of its nurse. New Wanley was no longer an end in itself, but a stepping-stone You must come to your own conclusions in judging the value of Mutimer’s social zeal; the facts of his life up to this time are before you, and you will not forget how complex a matter is the mind of a strong man with whom circumstances have dealt so strangely. His was assuredly not the vulgar self-seeking of the gildedbourgeoiswho covets an after-dinner sleep on Parliamentary benches. His ignorance of the machinery of government was profound; though he spoke scornfully of Parliament and its members, he had no conception of those powers of dulness and respectability which seize upon the best men if folly lures them within the precincts of St. Stephen’s. He thought, poor fellow! that he could rise in his place and thunder forth his indignant eloquence as he did in Commonwealth Hall and elsewhere; he imagined a conscience-stricken House, he dreamed of passionate debates on a Bill which really had the good of the people for its sole object. Such Bill would of course bearhisname; shall we condemn him for that?
Adela was at Exmouth, drinking the mild air, wondering whether there was in truth a life to come, and, if so, whether it was a life wherein Love and Duty were at one. A year ago such thoughts could not have entered her mind. But she had spent several weeks in close companionship with Stella Westlake, and Stella’s influence was subtle. Mrs. Westlake had come here to regain strength after a confinement; the fact drew her near to Adela, whose time for giving birth to a child was not far off.
Adela at first regarded this friend with much the same feeling of awe as mingled with Letty’s affection for Adela herself. Stella Westlake was not only possessed of intellectual riches which Adela had had no opportunity of gaining; her character was so full of imaginative force, of dreamy splendours, that it addressed itself to a mind like Adela’s with magic irresistible and permanent. No rules of the polite world applied to Stella; she spoke and acted with an independence so spontaneous that it did not suggest conscious opposition to the received ways of thought to which ordinary women are confined, but rather a complete ignorance of them. Adela felt herself startled, but never shocked, even when the originality went most counter to her own prejudices; it was as though she had drunk a draught of most unexpected flavour, the effect of which was to set her nerves delightfully trembling, and make her long to taste it again. It was not an occasional effect, the result of an effort on Stella’s part to surprise or charm; the commonest words had novel meanings when uttered in her voice; a profound sincerity seemed to inspire every lightest question or remark. Her presence was agitating; she had but to enter the room and sit in silence, and Adela forthwith was raised from the depression of her broodings to a vividness of being, an imaginative energy, such as she had never known. Adela doubted for some time whether Stella regarded her with affection; the little demonstrations in which women are wont to indulge were incompatible with that grave dreaminess, and Stella seemed to avoid even the common phrases of friendship. But one day, when Adela had not been well enough to rise, and as she lay on the borderland of sleeping and waking, she half dreamt, half knew, that a face bent over her, and that lips were pressed against her own; and such a thrill struck through her that, though now fully conscious, she had not power to stir, but lay as in the moment of some rapturous death. For when the presence entered into her dream, when the warmth melted upon her lips, she imagined it the kiss which might once have come to her but now was lost for ever. It was pain to open her eyes, but when she did so, and met Stella’s silent gaze, she knew that love was offered her, a love of which it was needless to speak.
Mrs. Waltham was rather afraid of Stella; privately she doubted whether the poor thing was altogether in her perfect mind. When the visitor came the mother generally found occupation or amusement elsewhere, conversation with Stella was so extremely difficult. Mr. Westlake was also at Exmouth, but much engaged in literary work. There was, too, an artist and his family, with whom the Westlakes were acquainted, their name Boscobel. Mrs. Boscobel was a woman of the world, five-and-thirty, charming, intelligent; she read little, but was full of interest in literary and artistic matters, and talked as only a woman can who has long associated with men of brains. To her Adela was interesting, personally and still more as an illustration of a social experiment.
‘How young she is!’ was her remark to Mr. Westlake shortly after making Adela’s acquaintance. ‘It will amuse you, the thought I had; I really must tell it you. She realises my idea of a virgin mother. Haven’t you felt anything of the kind?’
Mr. Westlake smiled.
‘Yes, I understand. Stella said something evidently traceable to the same impression; her voice, she said, is full of forgiveness.’
‘Excellent! And has she much to forgive, do you think?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Yet she is not exactly happy, I imagine?’
Mr. Westlake did not care to discuss the subject. The lady had recourse to Stella for some account of Mr. Mutimer.
‘He is a strong man,’ Stella said in a tone which betrayed the Socialist’s enthusiasm. ‘He stands for earth-subduing energy. I imagine him at a forge, beating fire out of iron.’
‘H’m! That’s not quite the same thing as imagining him that beautiful child’s husband. No education, I suppose?’
‘Sufficient. With more, he would no longer fill the place he does. He can speak eloquently; he is the true voice of the millions who cannot speak their own thoughts. If he were more intellectual he would become commonplace; I hope he will never see further than he does now. Isn’t a perfect type more precious than a man who is neither one thing nor another?’
‘Artistically speaking, by all means.’
‘In his case I don’t mean it artistically. He is doing a great work.’
‘A friend of mine—you don’t know Hubert Eldon, I think?—tells me he has ruined one of the loveliest valleys in England.’
‘Yes, I dare say he has done that. It is an essential part of his protest against social wrong. The earth renews itself, but a dead man or woman who has lived without joy can never be recompensed.’
‘She, of course, is strongly of the same opinion?’
‘Adela is a Socialist.’
Mrs. Boscobel laughed rather satirically.
‘I doubt it.’
Stella, when she went to sit with Adela, either at home or by the sea-shore, often carried a book in her hand, and at Adela’s request she read aloud. In this way Adela first came to know what was meant by literature, as distinguished from works of learning. The verse of Shelley and the prose of Landor fell upon her ears; it was as though she had hitherto lived in deafness. Sometimes she had to beg the reader to pause for that day; her heart and mind seemed overfull; she could not even speak of these new things, but felt the need of lying back in twilight to marvel and repeat melodies.
Mrs. Boscobel happened to approach them once whilst this reading was going on.
‘You are educating her?’ she said to Stella afterwards.
‘Perhaps—a little,’ Stella replied absently.
‘Isn’t it just a trifle dangerous?’ suggested the understanding lady.
‘Dangerous? How?’
‘The wife of the man who makes sparks fly out of iron? The man who is on no account to learn anything?’
Stella shook her head, saying, ‘You don’t know her.’
‘I should much like to,’ was Mrs. Boscobel’s smiling rejoinder.
In Stella’s company it did not seem very likely that Adela would lose her social enthusiasm, yet danger there was, and that precisely on account of Mrs. Westlake’s idealist tendencies. When she spoke of the toiling multitude, she saw them in a kind of exalted vision; she beheld them glorious in their woe, ennobled by the tyranny under which they groaned. She had seen little if anything of the representative proletarian, and perchance even if she had the momentary impression would have faded in the light of her burning soul. Now Adela was in the very best position for understanding those faults of the working class which are ineradicable in any one generation. She knew her husband, knew him better than ever now that she regarded him from a distance; she knew ‘Arry Mutimer; and now she was getting to appreciate with a thoroughness impossible hitherto, the monstrous gulf between men of that kind and cultured human beings. She had, too, studied the children and the women of New Wanley, and the results of such study were arranging themselves in her mind. All unconsciously, Stella Westlake was cooling Adela’s zeal with every fervid word she uttered; Adela at times with difficulty restrained herself from crying, ‘But it is a mistake! They have not these feelings you attribute to them. Such suffering as you picture them enduring comes only of the poetry-fed soul at issue with fate.’ She could not as yet have so expressed herself, but the knowledge was growing within her. For Adela was not by nature a social enthusiast. When her heart leapt at Stella’s chant, it was not in truth through contagion of sympathy, but in admiration and love of the noble woman who could thus think and speak. Adela—and who will not be thankful for it?—was, before all things, feminine; her true enthusiasms were personal. It was a necessity of her nature to love a human being, this or that one, not a crowd. She had been starving, killing the self which was her value. This home on the Devon coast received her like an earthly paradise; looking back on New Wanley, she saw it murky and lurid; it was hard to believe that the sun ever shone there. But for the most part, she tried to keep it altogether from her mind, tried to dissociate her husband from his public tasks, and to remember him as the man with whom her life was irrevocably bound up. When delight in Stella’s poetry was followed by fear, she strengthened herself by thought of the child she bore beneath her heart; for that child’s sake she would accept the beautiful things offered to her, some day to bring them, as rich gifts to the young life. Her own lot was fixed; she might not muse upon it, she durst not consider it too deeply. There were things in the past which she had determined, if by any means it were possible, utterly to forget. For the future, there was her child.
Mutimer came to Exmouth when she had been there three weeks, and he stayed four days. Mrs. Boscobel had an opportunity of making his acquaintance.
‘Who contrived that marriage?’ she asked of Mr. Westlake subsequently. ‘Our lady mother, presumably.’
‘I have no reason to think it was not well done,’ replied Mr. Westlake with reserve.
‘Most skilfully done, no doubt,’ rejoined the lady.
But at the end of the year, the Westlakes returned to London, the Boscobels shortly after. Mrs. Waltham and her daughter had made no other close connections, and Adela’s health alone allowed of her leaving the house for a short drive on sunny days. At the end of February the child was born prematurely; it entered the world only to leave it again. For a week they believed that Adela would die. Scarcely was she pronounced out of danger by the end of March. But after that she recovered strength.
May saw her at Wanley once more. She had become impatient to return. The Parliamentary elections were very near at hand, and Mutimer almost lived in Belwick; it seemed to Adela that duty required her to be near him, as well as to supply his absence from New Wanley as much as was possible. She was still only the ghost of her former self, but disease no longer threatened her, and activity alone could completely restore her health. She was anxious to recommence her studies, to resume her readings to the children; and she desired to see Mr. Wyvern. She understood by this time why he had chosen Andersen’s Tales for her readings; of many other things which he had said, causing her doubt, the meaning was now clear enough to her. She had so much to talk of with the vicar, so many questions to put to him, not a few of a kind that would—she thought—surprise and trouble him. None the less, they must be asked and answered. Part of her desire to see him again was merely the result of her longing for the society of well-read and thoughtful people. She knew that he would appear to her in a different light from formerly; she would be far better able to understand him.
She began by seeking his opinion of her husband’s chances in Belwick. Mr. Wyvern shook his head and said frankly that he thought there was no chance at all. Mutimer was looked upon in the borough as a mischievous interloper, who came to make disunion in the Radical party. The son of a lord and an ironmaster of great influence were the serious candidates. Had he seen fit, Mr. Wyvern could have mentioned not a few lively incidents in the course of the political warfare; such, for instance, as the appearance of a neat little pamphlet which purported to give a full and complete account of Mutimer’s life. In this pamphlet nothing untrue was set down, nor did it contain anything likely to render its publisher amenable to the law of libel; but the writer, a gentleman closely connected with Comrade Roodhouse, most skilfully managed to convey the worst possible impression throughout. Nor did the vicar hesitate to express his regret that Mutimer should be seeking election at all. Adela felt with him.
She found Richard in a strange state of chronic excitement. On whatever subject he spoke it was with the same nervous irritation, and the slightest annoyance set him fuming. To her he paid very little attention, and for the most part seemed disinclined to converse with her; Adela found it necessary to keep silence on political matters; once or twice he replied to her questions with a rough impatience which kept her miserable throughout the day, so much had it revealed of the working man. As the election day approached she suffered from a sinking of the heart, almost a bodily fear; a fear the same in kind as that of the wretched woman who anticipates the return of a brute-husband late on Saturday night. The same in kind; no reasoning would overcome it. She worked hard all day long, that at night she might fall on deep sleep. Again she had taken up her hard German books, and was also busy with French histories of revolution, which did indeed fascinate her, though, as she half perceived, solely by the dramatic quality of the stories they told. And at length the morning of her fear had come.
When he left home Mutimer bade her not expect him till the following day. She spent the hours in loneliness and misery. Mr. Wyvern called, but even him she begged through a servant to excuse her; her mother likewise came, and her she talked with for a few minutes, then pleaded headache. At nine o’clock in the evening she went to her bedroom. She had a soporific at hand, remaining from the time of her illness, and in dread of a sleepless night she had recourse to it.
It seemed to her that she had slept a very long time when a great and persistent noise awoke her. It was someone knocking at her door, even, as she at length became aware, turning the handle and shaking it. Being alone, she had locked herself in. She sprang from bed, put on her dressing-gown, and went to the door. Then came her husband’s voice, impatiently calling her name. She admitted him.
Through the white blind the morning twilight just made objects visible in the room; Adela afterwards remembered noticing the drowsy pipe of a bird near the window. Mutimer came in, and, without closing the door, began to demand angrily why she had locked him out. Only now she quite shook off her sleep, and could perceive that there was something unusual in his manner. He smelt strongly of tobacco, and, as she fancied, of spirits; but it was his staggering as he moved to draw up the blind that made her aware of his condition. She found afterwards that he had driven all the way from Belwick, and the marvel was that he had accomplished such a feat; probably his horse deserved most of the credit. When he had pulled the blind up, he turned, propped himself against the dressing-table, and gazed at her with terribly lack-lustre eyes. Then she saw the expression of his face change; there came upon it a smile such as she had never seen or imagined, a hideous smile that made her blood cold. Without speaking, he threw himself forward and came towards her. For an instant she was powerless, paralysed with terror; but happily she found utterance for a cry, and that released her limbs. Before he could reach her, she had darted out of the room, and fled to another chamber, that which Alice had formerly occupied, where she locked herself against him. To her surprise he did not discover her retreat; she heard him moving about the passages, stumbling here and there, then he seemed to return to his bedroom. She wrapped herself in a counterpane, and sat in a chair till it was full morning.
He was absent for a week after that. Of course his polling at the election had been ridiculously small compared with that of the other candidates. When he returned he went about his ordinary occupations; he was seemingly not in his usual health, but the constant irritableness had left him. Adela tried to bear herself as though nothing unwonted had come to pass, but Mutimer scarcely spoke when at home; if he addressed her it was in a quick, off-hand way, and without looking at her. Adela again lived almost alone. Her mother and Letty understood that she preferred this. Letty had many occupations; before long she hoped to welcome her first child. The children of New Wanley still came once a week to the Manor; Adela endeavoured to amuse them, to make them thoughtful, but it had become a hard, hard task. Only with Mr. Wyvern did she occasionally speak without constraint, though not of course without reserve; speech ofthatkind she feared would never again be possible to her. Still she felt that the vicar saw far into her life. On some topics she was more open than she had hitherto ventured to be; a boldness, almost a carelessness, for which she herself could not account, possessed her at such times.
Late in June she received from Stella Westlake a pressing invitation to come and spend a fortnight in London. It was like sunshine to her heart; almost without hesitation she re solved to accept it. Her husband offered no objection, seemed to treat the proposal with indifference. Later in the day he said:
‘If you have time, you might perhaps give Alice a call.’
‘I shall do that as soon as ever I can.’
He had something else to say.
‘Perhaps Mrs. Westlake might ask her to come, whilst you are there.’
‘Very likely, I think,’ Adela replied, with an attempt at confidence.
It was only her second visit to London: the first had been in winter time, and under conditions which had not allowed her to attend to anything she saw. But for Stella’s presence there she would have feared London; her memory of it was like that of an ill dream long past; her mind only reverted to it in darkest hours, and then she shuddered. But now she thought only of Stella; Stella was light and joy, a fountain of magic waters. Her arrival at the house in Avenue Road was one of the most blissful moments she had ever known. The servant led her upstairs to a small room, where the veiled sun made warmth on rich hangings, on beautiful furniture, on books and pictures, on ferns and flowers. The goddess of this sanctuary was alone; as the door opened the notes of a zither trembled into silence, and Adela saw a light-robed loveliness rise and stand before her. Stella took both her hands very gently, then looked into her face with eyes which seemed to be new from some high vision, then drew her within the paradise of an embrace. The kiss was once more like that first touch of lips which had come to Adela on the verge of sleep; she quivered through her frame.
Mr. Westlake shortly joined them, and spoke with an extreme kindness which completed Adela’s sense of being at home. No one disturbed them through the evening; Adela went to bed early and slept without a dream.
Stella and her husband talked of her in the night. Mr. Westlake had, at the time of the election, heard for the first time the story of Mutimer and the obscure work-girl in Hoxton, and had taken some trouble to investigate it. It had not reached his ears when the Hoxton Socialists made it a subject of public discussion; Comrade Roodhouse had inserted only a very general report of the proceedings in his paper the ‘Tocsin, and even this Mr. Westlake had not seen. But a copy of the pamphlet which circulated in Belwick came into his hands, and when he began to talk on the subject with an intimate friend, who, without being a Socialist, amused himself with following the movement closely, he heard more than he liked. To Stella he said nothing of all this. His own ultimate judgment was that you cannot expect men to be perfect, and that great causes have often been served by very indifferent characters.
‘She looks shockingly ill,’ he began to-night when alone with Stella. ‘Wasn’t there something said about consumption when she was at Exmouth? Has she any cough?’
‘No, I don’t think it is that,’ Stella answered.
‘She seems glad to be with you.’
‘Very glad, I think.’
‘Did the loss of her child affect her deeply?’
‘I cannot say. She has never spoken of it.’
‘Poor child!’
Stella made no reply to the exclamation.
The next day Adela went to call on Mrs. Rodman. It was a house in Bayswater, not large, but richly furnished. Adela chose a morning hour, hoping to find her sister-in-law alone, but in this she was disappointed. Four visitors were in the drawing-room, three ladies and a man of horsey appearance, who talked loudly as he leaned back with his legs crossed, a walking-stick held over his knee, his hat on the ground before him. The ladies were all apparently middle-aged; one of them had a great quantity of astonishingly yellow hair, and the others made up for deficiency in that respect with toilets in very striking taste. The subject under discussion was a recent murder. The gentleman had the happiness of being personally acquainted with the murderer, at all events had frequently met him at certain resorts of the male population. When Mrs. Rodman had briefly welcomed Adela, the discussion continued. Its tone was vulgar, but perhaps not more so than the average tone among middle-class people who are on familiar terms with each other. The gentleman, still leading the conversation, kept his eyes fixed on Adela, greatly to her discomfort.
In less than half an hour these four took their departure.
‘So Dick came a cropper!’ was Alice’s first remark, when alone with her sister-in-law.
Adela tried in vain to understand.
‘At the election, you know. I don’t see what he wanted to go making himself so ridiculous. Is he much cut up?’
‘I don’t think it troubles him much,’ Adela said; ‘he really had no expectation of being elected. It was just to draw attention to Socialism.’
‘Of course he’ll put it in that way. But I’d no idea you were in London. Where are you living?’
Alice had suffered, had suffered distinctly, in her manners, and probably in her character. It was not only that she affected a fastness of tone, and betrayed an ill-bred pleasure in receiving Adela in her fine drawing-room; her face no longer expressed the idle good-nature which used to make it pleasant to contemplate, it was thinner, less wholesome in colour, rather acid about the lips. Her manner was hurried, she seemed to be living in a whirl of frivolous excitements. Her taste in dress had deteriorated; she wore a lot of jewellery of a common kind, and her headgear was fantastic.
‘We have a few friends to-morrow night,’ she said when the conversation had with difficulty dragged itself over ten minutes. ‘Will you come to dinner? I’m sure Willis will be very glad to see you.’
Adela heard the invitation with distress. Fortunately it was given in a way which all but presupposed refusal.
‘I am afraid I cannot,’ she answered. ‘My health is not good; I never see people. Thank you very much.’
‘Oh, of course I wouldn’t put you out,’ said Alice, inspecting her relative’s face curiously. And she added, rather more in her old voice, ‘I’m sorry you lost your baby. I believe you’re fond of children? I don’t care anything about them myself; I hope I shan’t have any.’
Adela could not make any reply; she shook hands with Alice and took her leave, only breathing freely when once more in the street. All the way back to St. John’s Wood she was afflicted by the thought that it would be impossible to advise a meeting between Stella and Mrs. Rodman. Yet she had promised Richard to do so. Once more she found herself sundered from him in sympathies. Affection between Alice and her there could be none, yet Alice was the one person in the world whom Richard held greatly dear.
The enchanted life of those first weeks at Exmouth was now resumed. The golden mornings passed with poetry and music; in the afternoon visits were paid to museums and galleries, or to the studios of artists who were Mrs. Westlake’s friends, and who, as Adela was pleased to see, always received Stella with reverential homage. The evening, save when a concert called them forth, was generally a time of peaceful reading and talking, the presence of friends making no difference in the simple arrangements of the home. If a man came to dine at this house, it was greatly preferred that he should not present himself in the costume of a waiter, and only those came who were sufficiently intimate with the Westlakes to know their habits. One evening weekly saw a purely Socialist gathering; three or four artisans were always among the guests. On that occasion Adela was sorely tempted to plead a headache, but for several reasons she resisted. It was a trial to her, for she was naturally expected to talk a good deal with the visitors, several of whom she herself had entertained at Wanley. Watching Stella, she had a feeling which she could not quite explain or justify; she was pained to see her goddess in this company, and felt indignant with some of the men who seemed to make themselves too much at their ease. There was no talk of poetry.
Among the studios to which Stella took her was that of Mr. Boscobel. Mrs. Boscobel made much of them, and insisted on Adela’s coming to dine with her. An evening was appointed. Adela felt reproofs of conscience, remembering the excuse she had offered to Alice, but in this case it was impossible to decline. Stella assured her that the party would be small, and would be sure to comprise none but really interesting people. It was so, in fact. Two men whom, on arriving, they found in the drawing-room Adela knew by fame, and the next to enter was a lady whose singing she had heard with rapture at a concert on the evening before. She was talking with this lady when a new announcement fell upon her ear, a name which caused her to start and gaze towards the door. Impossible for her to guard against this display of emotion; the name she heard so distinctly seemed an unreal utterance, a fancy of her brain, or else it belonged to another than the one she knew. But there was no such illusion; he whom she saw enter was assuredly Hubert Eldon.
A few hot seconds only seemed to intervene before she was called upon to acknowledge him, for Mrs. Boscobel was presenting him to her.
‘I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Mutimer before,’ Hubert said as soon as he saw that Adela in voice and look recognised their acquaintance.
Mrs. Boscobel was evidently surprised. She herself had met Hubert at the house of an artist in Rome more than a year ago, but the details of his life were unknown to her. Subsequently, in London, she happened once to get on the subject of Socialism with him, and told him, as an interesting story, what she heard from the Westlakes about Richard Mutimer. Hubert admitted knowledge of the facts, and made the remark about the valley of Wanley which Mrs. Boscobel repeated at Exmouth, but he revealed nothing more. Having no marriageable daughter, Mrs. Boscobel was under no necessity of searching into his antecedents. He was one of ten or a dozen young men of possible future whom she liked to have about her.