A week later; the scene, the familiar kitchen in Wilton Square. Mrs. Mutimer, upon whom time has laid unkind hands since last we saw her, is pouring tea for Alice Rodman, who has just come all the way from the West End to visit her. Alice, too, has suffered from recent vicissitudes; her freshness is to seek, her bearing is no longer buoyant, she is careless in attire. To judge from the corners of her mouth, she is confirmed in querulous habits; her voice evidences the same.
She was talking of certain events of the night before.
‘It was about half-past twelve—I’d just got into bed—when the servant knocks at my door. “Please, mum,” she says, “there’s a policeman wants to see master.” You may think if I wasn’t frightened out of my life! I don’t think it was two minutes before I got downstairs, and there the policeman stood in the hall. I told him I was Mrs. Rodman, and then he said a young man called Henry Mutimer had got locked up for making a disturbance outside a music hall, and he’d sent to my husband to bail him out. Well, just as we were talking in comes Willis. Rare and astonished he was to see me with all my things huddled on and a policeman in the house. We did so laugh afterwards; he said he thought I’d been committing a robbery. But he wouldn’t bail ‘Arry, and I couldn’t blame him. And now he says ‘Arry ‘ll have to do as best he can. He won’t get him another place.’
‘He’s lost his place too?’ asked the mother gloomily.
‘He was dismissed yesterday. He says that’s why he went drinking too much. Out of ten days that he’s been in the place he’s missed two and hasn’t been punctual once. I think you might have seen he got off at the proper time in the morning, mother.’
‘What’s the good o’ blamin’ me?’ exclaimed the old woman fretfully. ‘A deal o’ use it is for me to talk. If I’m to be held ‘countable he doesn’t live here no longer; I know that much.’
‘Dick was a fool to pay his fine. I’d have let him go to prison for seven days; it would have given him a lesson.’
Mrs. Mutimer sighed deeply, and lost herself in despondent thought. Alice sipped her tea and went on with her voluble talk.
‘I suppose he’ll show up some time to-night unless Dick keeps him. But he can’t do that, neither, unless he makes him sleep on the sofa in their sitting-room. A nice come-down for my lady, to be living in two furnished rooms! But it’s my belief they’re not so badly off as they pretend to be. It’s all very well for Dick to put on his airs and go about saying he’s given up every farthing; he doesn’t get me to believe that. He wouldn’t go paying away his pounds so readily. And they have attendance from the landlady; Mrs. Adela doesn’t soil her fine finger’s, trust her. You may depend upon it, they’ve plenty. She wouldn’t speak a word for us; if she cared to, she could have persuaded Mr. Eldon to let me keep my money, and then there wouldn’t have been all this law bother.’
‘What bother’s that?’
‘Why, Dick says he’ll go to law with my husband to recover the money he paid him when we were married. It seems he has to answer for it, because he’s what they call the administrator, and Mr. Eldon can compel him to make it all good again.’
‘But I thought you said you’d given it all up?’
‘That’s my own money, what was settled on me. I don’t see what good it was to me; I never had a penny of it to handle. Now they want to get all the rest out of us. How are we to pay back the money that’s spent and gone, I’d like to know? Willis says they’ll just have to get it if they can. And here’s Dick going on at me because we don’t go into lodgings! I don’t leave the house before I’m obliged, I know that much. We may as well be comfortable as long as we can.
‘The mean thing, that Adela!’ she pursued after a pause. ‘She was to have married Mr. Eldon, and broke it off when she found he wasn’t going to be as rich as she thought; then she caught hold of Dick. I should like to have seen her face when she found that will!—I wish it had been me!’
Alice laughed unpleasantly. Her mother regarded her with an air of curious inquiry, then murmured:
‘Dick and she did the honest thing. I’ll say so much for them.’
‘I’ll be even with Mrs. Adela yet,’ pursued Alice, disregarding the remark. ‘She wouldn’t speak for me, but she’s spoken for herself, no fear. She and her airs!’
There was silence; then Mrs. Mutimer said:
‘I’ve let the top bedroom for four-and-six.’
‘’Arry’s room? What’s he going to do then?’
‘He’ll have to sleep on the chair-bedstead, here in the kitchen. That is, if I have him in the ‘ouse at all. And I don’t know yet as I shall.’
‘Have you got enough money to go on with?’ Alice asked.
‘Dick sent me a pound this morning. I didn’t want it’
‘Has he been to see you yet, mother?’
The old woman shook her head.
‘Do you want him to come, or don’t you?’
There was silence. Alice looked at her mother askance. The leathern mask of a face was working with some secret emotion.
‘He’ll come if he likes, I s’pose,’ was her abrupt answer.
In the renewed silence they heard some one enter the house and descend the kitchen stairs. ‘Arry presented himself. He threw his hat upon a chair, and came forward with a swagger to seat himself at the tea-table.
His mother did not look at him.
‘Anything to eat?’ he asked, more loudly than was necessary, as if he found the silence oppressive.
‘There’s bread and butter,’ replied Alice, with lofty scorn.
‘Hullo! Is it you?’ exclaimed the young man, affecting to recognise his sister. ‘I thought you was above coming here Have they turned you out of your house?’
‘That’s what’ll happen to you, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Arry cast a glance towards his mother. Seeing that her eyes were fixed in another direction, he began pantomimic interrogation of Alice. The latter disregarded him.
‘Arry presented an appearance less than engaging. He still bore the traces of last night’s debauch and of his sojourn in the police-cell. There was dry mud on the back of his coat, his shirt-cuffs and collar were of a slaty hue, his hands and face filthy. He began to eat bread and butter, washing down each morsel with a gulp of tea. The spoon remained in the cup whilst he drank. To ‘Arry it was a vast relief to be free from the conventionalities of Adela’s table.
‘That lawyer fellow Yottle’s been to see them to-day,’ he remarked presently.
Alice looked at him eagerly.
‘What about?’
‘There was talk about you and Rodman.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Couldn’t hear. I was in the other room. But I heard Yottle speaking your name.’
He had, in fact, heard a few words through the keyhole, but not enough to gather the sense of the conversation, which had been carried on in discreet tones.
‘There you are!’ Alice exclaimed, addressing her mother. ‘They’re plotting against us, you see.’
‘I don’t think it ‘ud be Dick’s wish to do you harm,’ said Mrs. Mutimer absently.
‘Dick ‘ll do whatever she tells him.’
‘Adela, eh?’ observed ‘Arry. ‘She’s a cat.’
‘You mind your own business!’ returned his sister.
‘So it is my business. She looked at me as if I wasn’t good enough to come near her ‘igh-and-mightiness. I’m glad to seeherbrought down a peg, chance it!’
Alice would not condescend to join her reprobate brother, even in abuse of Adela. She very shortly took leave of her mother, who went up to the door with her.
‘Are you going to see Dick?’ Mrs. Mutimer said, in the passage.
‘I shan’t see him till he comes to my house,’ replied Alice sharply.
The old woman stood on the doorstep till her daughter was out of sight, then sighed and returned to her kitchen.
Alice returned to her more fashionable quarter by omnibus. Though Rodman had declined to make any change in their establishment, he practised economy in the matter of his wife’s pin-money. Gone were the delights of shopping, gone the little lunches in confectioners’ shops to which Alice, who ate sweet things like a child, had been much addicted. Even the carriage she could seldom make use of, for Rodman had constant need of it—to save cab-fares, he said. It was chiefly employed in taking him to and from the City, where he appeared to have much business at present.
On reaching home Alice found a telegram from her husband.
‘Shall bring three friends to dinner. Be ready for us at half-past seven.’
Yet he had assured her that he would dine quietly alone with her at eight o’clock. Alice, who was weary of the kind of men her husband constantly brought, felt it as a bitter disappointment. Besides, it was already after six, and there were no provisions in the house. But for her life she durst not cause Rodman annoyance by offering a late or insufficient dinner. She thanked her stars that her return had been even thus early.
The men when they presented themselves were just of the kind she expected—loud-talking—their interests divided between horse-racing and the money-market; she was a cipher at her own table, scarcely a remark being addressed to her. The conversation was meaningless to her; it seemed, indeed, to be made purposely mysterious; terms of the stock-exchange were eked out with nods and winks. Rodman was in far better spirits than of late, whence Alice gathered that some promising rascality was under consideration.
The dinner over, she was left to amuse herself as she could in the drawing-room. Rodman and his friends continued their talk round the table, and did not break up till close upon mid night. Then she heard the men take their departure. Rodman presently came up to her and threw himself into a chair. His face was very red, a sign with which Alice was familiar; but excessive potations apparently had not produced the usual effect, for he was still in the best of tempers.
‘Seen that young blackguard?’ he began by asking.
‘I went to see mother, and he came while I was there.’
‘He’ll have to look after himself in future. You don’t catch me helping him again.’
‘He says Mr. Yottle came to see them to-day.’
‘To see who?’
‘Dick and his wife. He heard them talking about us.’
Rodman laughed.
‘Let ‘em go ahead! I wish them luck.’
‘But can’t they ruin us if they like?’
‘It’s all in a life. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been ruined, old girl. Let’s enjoy ourselves whilst we can. There’s nothing like plenty of excitement.’
‘It’s all very well for you, Willis. But if you had to sit at home all day doing nothing, you wouldn’t find it so pleasant.’
‘Get some novels.’
‘I’m tired of novels,’ she replied, sighing.
‘So Yottle was with them?’ Rodman said musingly, a smile still on his face. ‘I wish I knew what terms they’ve come to with Eldon.’
‘I wish I could do something to pay out that woman!’ exclaimed Alice bitterly. ‘She’s at the bottom of it all. She hates both of us. Dick ‘ud never have gone against you but for her.’
Rodman, extended in the low chair at full length, fixed an amused look on her.
‘You’d like to pay her out, eh?’
‘Wouldn’t I just!’
‘Ha! ha! what a vicious little puss you are! It’s a good thing I don’t tell you everything, or you might do damage.’
Alice turned to him with eagerness.
‘What do you mean?’
He let his head fall back, and laughed with a drunken man’s hilarity. Alice persisted with her question.
‘Come and sit here,’ Rodman said, patting his knee.
Alice obeyed him.
‘What is it, Willis? What have you found out? Do tell me, there’s a dear!’
‘I’ll tell you one thing, old girl: you’re losing your good looks. Nothing like what you were when I married you.’
She flushed and looked miserable.
‘I can’t help my looks. I don’t believe you care how I look.’
‘Oh, don’t I, though! Why, do you think I’d have stuck to you like this if I didn’t? What was to prevent me from realising all the cash I could and clearing off, eh? ‘Twouldn’t have been the first—’
‘The first what?’ Alice asked sharply.
‘Never mind. You see I didn’t do it. Too bad to leave the Princess in the lurch, wouldn’t it be?’
Alice seemed to have forgotten the other secret. She searched his face for a moment, deeply troubled, then asked:
‘Willis, I want to know who Clara is?’
He moved his eyes slowly, and regarded her with a puzzled look.
‘Clara? What Clara?’
‘Somebody you know of. You’ve got a habit of talking in your sleep lately. You were calling out “Clara!” last night, and that’s the second time I’ve heard you.’
He was absent for a few seconds, then laughed and shook his head.
‘I don’t know anybody called Clara. It’s your mistake.’
‘I’m quite sure it isn’t,’ Alice murmured discontentedly.
‘Well, then, we’ll say it is,’ he rejoined in a firmer voice. ‘If I talk in my sleep, perhaps it’ll be better for you to pay no attention. I might find it inconvenient to live with you.’
Alice looked frightened at the threat.
‘You’ve got a great many secrets from me,’ she said despondently.
‘Of course I have. It is for your good. I was going to tell you one just now, only you don’t seem to care to bear it.’
‘Yes, yes, I do!’ Alice exclaimed, recollecting. ‘Is it something about Adela?’
He nodded.
‘Wouldn’t it delight you to go and get her into a terrible row with Dick?’
‘Oh, do tell me! What’s she been doing?’
‘I can’t quite promise you the fun,’ he replied, laughing. ‘It may miss fire. What do you think of her meeting Eldon alone in the wood that Monday afternoon, the day after she found the will, you know?’
‘You mean that?’
‘I saw them together.’
‘But she—you don’t mean she—?’
Even Alice, with all her venom against her brother’s wife, had a difficulty in attributing this kind of evil to Adela. In spite of herself she was incredulous.
‘Think what you like,’ said Rodman. ‘It looks queer, that’s all.’
It was an extraordinary instance of malice perpetrated out of sheer good-humour. Had he not been assured by what he heard in the wood of the perfectly innocent relations between Adela and Eldon, he would naturally have made some profitable use of his knowledge before this. As long as there was a possibility of advantage in keeping on good terms with Adela, he spoke to no one of that meeting which he had witnessed. Even now he did not know but that Adela had freely disclosed the affair to her husband. But his humour was genially mischievous. If he could gratify Alice and at the same time do the Mutimers an ill turn, why not amuse himself?
‘I’ll tell Dick the very first thing in the morning!’ Alice declared, aglow with spiteful anticipation.
Rodman approved the purpose, and went off to bed laughing uproariously.
Adela allowed a week to pass before speaking of her desire to visit Mrs. Westlake. In Mutimer a fit of sullenness had followed upon his settlement in lodgings. He was away from home a good deal, but his hours of return were always uncertain, and Adela could not help thinking that he presented himself at unlikely times, merely for the sake of surprising her and discovering her occupation. Once or twice she had no knowledge of his approach until he opened the door of the room; when she remarked on his having ascended the stairs so quietly, he professed not to understand her. On one of those occasions she was engaged on a letter to her mother; he inquired to whom she was writing, and for reply she merely held out the sheet for his perusal. He glanced at the superscription, and handed it back. Breathing this atmosphere of suspicion, she shrank from irritating him by a mention of Stella, and to go without his express permission was impossible. Stella did not write; Adela began to fear lest her illness had become more serious. When she spoke at length, it was in one of the moments of indignation, almost of revolt, which at intervals came to her, she knew not at what impulse. At Wanley her resource at such times had been to quit the house, and pace her chosen walk in the garden till she was weary. In London she had no refuge, and the result of her loss of fresh air had speedily shown itself in moods of impatience which she found it very difficult to conquer. Her husband came home one afternoon about five o’clock, and, refusing to have any tea, sat for several hours in complete silence; occasionally he pretended to look at a pamphlet which he had brought in with him, but for the most part he sat, with his legs crossed, frowning at vacancy. Adela grew feverish beneath the oppression of this brooding ill-temper; her endeavour to read was vain; the silence was a constraint upon her moving, her breathing. She spoke before she was conscious of an intention to do so.
‘I think I must go and see Mrs. Westlake to-morrow morning.’
Mutimer vouchsafed no answer, gave no sign of having heard. She repeated the words.
‘If you must, you must.’
‘I wish to,’ Adela said with an emphasis she could not help. ‘Do you object to my going?’
He was surprised at her tone.
‘I don’t object. I’ve told you I think you get no good there. But go if you like.’
She said after a silence:
‘I have no other friend in London; and if it were only on account of her kindness to me, I owe her a visit.’
‘All right, don’t talk about it any more; I’m thinking of something.’
The evening wore on. At ten o’clock the servant brought up a jug of beer, which she fetched for Mutimer every night; he said he could not sleep without this sedative. It was always the sign for Adela to go to bed.
She visited Stella in the morning, and found her still suffering. They talked for an hour, then it was time for Adela to hasten homewards, in order to have dinner ready by half-past one. From Stella she had no secret, save the one which she did her best to make a secret even to herself; she spoke freely of her mode of life, though without comment. Stella made no comments in her replies.
‘And you cannot have lunch with me?’ she asked when her friend rose.
‘I cannot; dear.’
‘May I write to you?’ Stella said with a meaning look.
‘Yes, to tell me how you are.’
Adela had not got far from the house when she saw her husband walking towards her. She looked at him steadily.
‘I happened to be near,’ he explained, ‘and thought I might as well go home with you.’
‘I might have been gone.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t have waited long.’
The form of his reply discovered that he had no intention of calling at the house; Adela understood that he had been in Avenue Road for some time, probably had reached it very soon after her.
The next morning there arrived for Mutimer a letter from Alice. She desired to see him; her husband would be from home all day, and she would be found at any hour; her business was of importance—underlined.
Mutimer went shortly after breakfast, and Alice received him very much as she would have done in the days before the catastrophe. She had arrayed herself with special care; he found her leaning on cushions, her feet on a stool, the eternal novel on her lap. Her brother had to stifle anger at seeing her thus in appearance unaffected by the storm which had swept away his own happiness and luxuries.
‘What is it you want?’ he asked at once, without preliminary greeting.
‘You are not very polite,’ Alice returned. ‘Perhaps you’ll take a chair.’
‘I haven’t much time, so please don’t waste what I can afford.’
‘Are you so busy? Have you found something to do?’
‘I’m likely to have enough to do with people who keep what doesn’t belong to them.’
‘It isn’t my doing, Dick,’ she said more seriously.
‘I don’t suppose it is.’
‘Then you oughtn’t to be angry with me.’
‘I’m not angry. What do you want?’
‘I went to see mother yesterday. I think she wants you to go; it looked like it.’
‘I’ll go some day.’
‘It’s too bad that she should have to keep ‘Arry in idleness.’
‘She hasn’t to keep him. I send her money.’
‘But how are you to afford that?’
‘That’s not your business.’
Alice looked indignant.
‘I think you might speak more politely to me in my own house.’
‘It isn’t your own house.’
‘It is as long as I live in it. I suppose you’d like to see me go back to a workroom. It’s all very well for you; if you live in lodgings, that doesn’t say you’ve got no money. We have to do the best we can for ourselves; we haven’t got your chances of making a good bargain.’
It was said with much intention; Alice hall closed her eyes and curled her lips in a disdainful smile.
‘What chances? What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps ifI’d been a particular friend of Mr. Eldon’s—never mind.’
He flashed a look at her.
‘What are you talking about? Just speak plainly, will you? What do you mean by “particular friend”? I’m no more a friend of Eldon’s than you are, and I’ve made no bargain with him.’
‘I didn’t sayyou.’
‘Who then?’ he exclaimed sternly.
‘Don’t you know? Some one is so very proper, and such a fine lady, I shouldn’t have thought she’d have done things without your knowing.’
He turned pale, and seemed to crush the floor with his foot, that he might stand firm.
‘You’re talking of Adela?’
Alice nodded.
‘What about her? Say at once what you’ve got to say.’
Inwardly she was a little frightened, perhaps half wished that she had not begun. Yet it was sweet to foresee the thunderbolt that would fall on her enemy’s head. That her brother would suffer torments did not affect her imagination; she had never credited him with strong feeling for his wife; and it was too late to draw back.
‘You know that she met Mr. Eldon in the wood at Wanley on the day after she found the will?’
Mutimer knitted his brows to regard her. But in speaking he was more self-governed than before.
‘Who told you that?’
‘My husband. He saw them together.’
‘And heard them talking?’
‘Yes.’
Rodman had only implied this. Alice’s subsequent interrogation had failed to elicit more from him than dark hints.
Mutimer drew a quick breath.
‘He must be good at spying. Next time I hope he’ll find out something worth talking about.’
Alice was surprised.
‘You know about it?’
‘Just as much as Rodman, do you understand that?’
‘You don’t believe?’
She herself had doubts.
‘It’s nothing to you whether I believe it or not. Just be good enough in future to mind your own business; you’ll have plenty of it before long. I suppose that’s what you brought me here for?’
She made no answer; she was vexed and puzzled.
‘Have you anything else to say?’
Alice maintained a stubborn silence.
‘Alice, have you anything more to tell me about Adela?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Then you might have spared me the trouble. Tell Rodman with my compliments that it would be as well for him to keep out of my way.’
He left her.
On quitting the house he walked at a great pace for a quarter of a mile before he remembered the necessity of taking either train or omnibus. The latter was at hand, but when he had ridden for ten minutes the constant stoppages so irritated him that he jumped out and sought a hansom. Even thus he did not travel fast enough; it seemed an endless time before the ascent of Pentonville Hill began. He descended a little distance from his lodgings.
As he was paying the driver another hansom went by; he by chance saw the occupant, and it was Hubert Eldon. At least he felt convinced of it, and he was in no mind to balance the possibilities of mistake. The hansom had come from the street which Mutimer was just entering.
He found Adela engaged in cooking the dinner; she wore an apron, and the sleeves of her dress were pushed up. As he came into the room she looked at him with her patient smile; finding that he was in one of his worst tempers, she said nothing and went on with her work. A coarse cloth was thrown over the table; on it lay a bowl of vegetables which she was preparing for the saucepan.
Perhaps it was the sight of her occupation, of the cheerful simplicity with which she addressed herself to work so unworthy of her; he could not speak at once as he had meant to. He examined her with eyes of angry, half foiled suspicion. She had occasion to pass him; he caught her arm and stayed her before him.
‘What has Eldon been doing here?’
She paused and shrank a little.
‘Mr. Eldon has not been here.’
He thought her face betrayed a guilty agitation.
‘I happen to have met him going away. I think you’d better tell me the truth.’
‘I have told you the truth. If Mr. Eldon has been to the house, I was not aware of it.’
He looked at her in silence for a moment, then asked:
‘Are you the greatest hypocrite living?’
Adela drew farther away. She kept her eyes down. Long ago she had suspected what was in Mutimer’s mind, but she had only been apprehensive of the results of jealousy on his temper and on their relations to each other; it had not entered her thought that she might have to defend herself against an accusation. This violent question affected her strangely. For a moment she referred it entirely to the secrets of her heart, and it seemed impossible to deny what was imputed to her, impossible even to resent his way of speaking. Was she not a hypocrite? Had she not many, many times concealed with look and voice an inward state which was equivalent to infidelity? Was not her whole life a pretence, an affectation of wifely virtues? But the hypocrisy was involuntary; her nature had no power to extirpate its causes and put in their place the perfect dignity of uprightness.
‘Why do you ask me that?’ she said at length, raising her eyes for an instant.
‘Because it seems to me I’ve good cause. I don’t know whether to believe a word you say.’
‘I can’t remember to have told you falsehoods.’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘Yes, one; that I confessed to you.’
It brought to his mind the story of the wedding ring.
‘There’s such a thing as lying when you tell the truth. Do you remember that I met you coming back to the Manor that Monday afternoon, a month ago, and asked you where you’d been?’
Her heart stood still.
‘Answer me, will you?’
‘I remember it.’
‘You told me you’d been for a walk in the wood. You forgot to say who it was you went to meet.’
How did he know of this? But that thought came to her only to pass. She understood at length the whole extent of his suspicion. It was not only her secret feelings that he called in question, he accused her of actual dishonour as it is defined by the world—that clumsy world with its topsy-turvydom of moral judgments. To have this certainty flashed upon her was, as soon as she had recovered from the shock, a sensible assuagement of her misery. In face of this she could stand her ground. Her womanhood was in arms; she faced him scornfully.
‘Will you please to make plain your charge against me?’
‘I think it’s plain enough. If a married woman makes appointments in quiet places with a man she has no business to see anywhere, what’s that called? I fancy I’ve seen something of that kind before now in cases before the Divorce Court.’
It angered him that she was not overwhelmed. He saw that she did not mean to deny having met Eldon, and to have Alice’s story thus confirmed inflamed his jealousy beyond endurance.
‘You must believe of me what you like,’ Adela replied in a slow, subdued voice. ‘My word would be vain against that of my accuser, whoever it is.’
‘Your accuser, as you say, happened not only to see you, but to hear you talking.’
He waited for her surrender before this evidence. Instead of that Adela smiled.
‘If my words were reported to you, what fault have you to find with me?’
Her confidence, together with his actual ignorance of what Rodman had heard, troubled him with doubt.
‘Answer this question,’ he said. ‘Did you make an appointment with that man?’
‘I did not.’
‘You did not? Yet you met him?’
‘Unexpectedly.’
‘But you talked with him?’
‘How can you ask? You know that I did.’
He collected his thoughts.
‘Repeat to me what you talked about.’
‘That I refuse to do.’
‘Of course you do!’ he cried, driven to frenzy. ‘And you think I shall let this rest where it is? Have you forgotten that I came to the Westlakes and found Eldon there with you? And what was he doing in this street this morning if he hadn’t come to see you? I begin to understand why you were so precious eager about giving up the will. That was your fine sense of honesty, of course! You are full of fine senses, but your mistake is to think I’ve no sense at all. What do you take me for?’
The thin crust of refinement was shattered; the very man came to light, coarse, violent, whipped into fury by his passions, of which injured self-love was not the least. Whether he believed his wife guilty or not he could not have said; enough that she had kept things secret from him, and that he could not overawe her. Whensoever he had shown anger in conversation with her, she had made him sensible of her superiority; at length he fell back upon his brute force and resolved to bring her to his feet, if need be by outrage. Even his accent deteriorated as he flung out his passionate words; he spoke like any London mechanic, with defect and excess of aspirates, with neglect of g’s at the end of words, and so on. Adela could not bear it; she moved to the door. But he caught her and thrust her back; it was all but a blow. Her face half recalled him to his senses.
‘Where are you going?’ he stammered.
‘Anywhere, anywhere, away from this house and from you!’ Adela replied. Effort to command herself was vain; his heavy hand had completed the effect of his language, and she, too, spoke as nature impelled her. ‘Let me pass! I would rather die than remain here!’
‘All the same, you’ll stay where you are!’
‘Yes, your strength is greater than mine. You can hold me by force. But you have insulted me beyond forgiveness, and we are as much strangers as if we had never met. You have broken every bond that bound me to you. You can make me your prisoner, but like a prisoner my one thought will be of escape. I will touch no food whilst I remain here. I have no duties to you, and you no claim upon me!’
‘All the same, you stay!’
Before her sobbing vehemence he had grown calm. These words were so unimaginable on her lips that he could make no reply save stubborn repetition of his refusal. And having uttered that he went from the room, changing the key to the outside and locking her in. Fear lest he might be unable to withhold himself from laying hands upon her was the cause of his retreat. The lust of cruelty was boiling in him, as once or twice before. Her beauty in revolt made a savage of him. He went into the bedroom and there waited.
Adela sat alone, sobbing still, but tearless. Her high-spirited nature once thoroughly aroused, it was some time before she could reason on what had come to pass. The possibility of such an end to her miseries had never presented itself even in her darkest hours; endurance was all she could ever look forward to. As her blood fell into calmer flow she found it hard to believe that she had not dreamt this scene of agony. She looked about the room. There on the table were the vegetables she had been preparing; her hands bore the traces of the work she had done this morning. It seemed as though she had only to rise and go on with her duties as usual.
Her arm was painful, just below the shoulder. Yes, that was where he had seized her with his hard hand to push her away from the door.
What had she said in her distraction? She had broken away from him, and repudiated her wifehood. Was it not well done? If he believed her unfaithful to him—
At an earlier period of her married life such a charge would have held her mute with horror. Its effect now was not quite the same; she could face the thought, interrogate herself as to its meaning, with a shudder, indeed, but a shudder which came of fear as well as loathing. Life was no longer an untried country, its difficulties and perils to be met with the sole aid of a few instincts and a few maxims; she had sounded the depths of misery and was invested with the woeful knowledge of what we poor mortals call the facts of existence. And sitting here, as on the desert bed of a river whose water had of a sudden ceased to flow, she could regard her own relation to truths, however desolating, with the mind which had rather brave all than any longer seek to deceive itself.
Of that which he imputed to her she was incapable; that such suspicion of her could enter his mind branded him with baseness. But his jealousy was justified; howsoever it had awakened in him, it was sustained by truth. Was it her duty to tell him that, and so to render it impossible for him to seek to detain her?
But would the confession have any such result? Did he not already believe her criminal, and yet forbid her to leave him? On what terms did she stand with a man whose thought was devoid of delicacy, who had again and again proved himself without understanding of the principles of honour? And could she indeed make an admission which would compel her at the same time to guard against revolting misconceptions?
The question of how he had obtained this knowledge recurred to her. It was evident that the spy had intentionally calumniated her, professing to have heard her speak incriminating words. She thought of Rodman. He had troubled her by his private request that she would appeal to Eldon on Alice’s behalf, a request which was almost an insult. Could he have been led to make it in consequence of his being aware of that meeting in the wood? That might well be; she distrusted him and believed him capable even of a dastardly revenge.
What was the troublesome thought that hung darkly in her mind and would not come to consciousness? She held it at last; Mutimer had said that he met Hubert in the street below. How to explain that? Hubert so near to her, perhaps still in the neighbourhood?
Again she shrank with fear. What might it mean, if he had really come in hope of seeing her? That was unworthy of him. Had she betrayed herself in her conversation with him? Then he was worse than cruel to her.
It seemed to her that hours passed. From time to time she heard a movement in the next room; Mutimer was still there. There sounded at the house door a loud postman’s knock, and in a few minutes someone came up the stairs, doubtless to bring a letter. The bedroom door opened; she heard her husband thank the servant and again shut himself in.
The fire which she had been about to use for cooking was all but dead. She rose and put fresh coals on. There was a small oblong mirror over the mantelpiece; it showed her so ghastly a face that she turned quickly away.
If she succeeded in escaping from her prison, whither should she go? Her mother would receive her, but it was impossible to go to Wanley, to live near the Manor. Impossible, too, to take refuge with Stella. If she fled and hid herself in some other part of London, how was life to be supported? But there were graver obstacles. Openly to flee from her husband was to subject herself to injurious suspicions—it might be, considering Mutimer’s character, to involve Hubert in some intolerable public shame. Or, if that worst extremity were avoided’, would it not be said that she had deserted her husband because he had suddenly become poor?
That last thought brought the blood to her cheeks.
But to live with him after this, to smear over a deadly wound and pretend it was healed, to read hourly in his face the cowardly triumph over her weakness, to submit herself—Oh, what rescue from this hideous degradation! She went to the window, as if it had been possible to escape by that way; she turned again and stood moaning, with her hands about her head. When was the worst to come in this life so long since bereft of hope, so forsaken of support from man or God? The thought of death came to her; she subdued the tumult of her agony to weigh it well Whom would she wrong by killing herself? Herself, it might be; perchance not even death would be sacred against outrage.
She heard a neighbouring clock strike five, and shortly after her husband entered the room. Had she looked at him she would have seen an inexplicable animation in his face. He paced the floor once or twice in silence, then asked in a hard voice, though the tone was quite other than before:
‘Will you tell me what it was you talked of that day in the wood?’
She did not reply.
‘I suppose by refusing to speak you confess that you dare not let me know?’
Physical torture could not have wrung a word from her. She felt her heart surge with hatred.
He went to the cupboard in which food was kept, took out a loaf of bread, and cut a slice. He ate it, standing before the window. Then he cleared the table and sat down to write a letter; it occupied him for hall-an-hour. When it was finished, he put it in his pocket and began again to pace the room.
‘Are you going to, sit like that all night?’ he asked suddenly.
She drew a deep sigh and rose from her seat. He saw that she no longer thought of escaping him. She began to make preparations for tea. As helpless in his hands as though he had purchased her in a slave market, of what avail to sit like a perverse child? The force of her hatred warned her to keep watch lest she brought herself to his level. Without defence against indignities which were bitter as death, by law his chattel, as likely as not to feel the weight of his hand if she again roused his anger, what remained but to surrender all outward things to unthinking habit, and to keep her soul apart, nourishing in silence the fire of its revolt? It was the most pity-moving of all tragedies, a noble nature overcome by sordid circumstances. She was deficient in the strength of character which will subdue all circumstances; her strength was of the kind that supports endurance rather than breaks a way to freedom. Every day, every hour, is some such tragedy played through; it is the inevitable result of our social state. Adela could have wept tears of blood; her shame was like a branding iron upon her flesh.
She was on the second floor of a lodging-house in Pentonville, making tea for her husband.
That husband appeared to have undergone a change since lie quitted her a few hours ago. He was still venomous towards her, but his countenance no longer lowered dangerously. Something distinct from his domestic troubles seemed to be occupying him, something of a pleasant nature. He all but smiled now and then; the glances he cast at Adela were not wholly occupied with her. He plainly wished to speak, but could not bring himself to do so.
He ate and drank of what she put before him. Adela took a cup of tea, but had no appetite for food. When he had satisfied himself, she removed the things.
Another half-hour passed. Mutimer was pretending to read. Adela at length broke the silence.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘I was wrong in refusing to tell you what passed between Mr. Eldon and myself when I by chance met him. Someone seems to have misled you. He began by hoping that we should not think ourselves hound to leave the Manor until we had had full time to make the necessary arrangements. I thanked him for his kindness, and then asked something further. It was that, if he could by any means do so, he would continue the works at New Wanley without any change, maintaining the principles on which they had been begun. He said that was impossible, and explained to me what his intentions were, and why he had formed them. That was our conversation.’
Mutimer observed her with a smile which affected incredulity.
‘Will you take your oath that that is true?’ he asked.
‘No. I have told you because I now see that the explanation was owing, since you have been deceived. If you disbelieve me, it is no concern of mine.’
She had taken up some sewing, and, having spoken, went on with it. Mutimer kept his eyes fixed upon her. His suspicions never resisted a direct word from Adela’s lips, though other feelings might exasperate him. What he had just heard he believed the more readily because it so surprised him; it was one of those revelations of his wife’s superiority which abashed him without causing evil feeling. They always had the result of restoring to him for a moment something of the reverence with which he had approached her in the early days of their acquaintance. Even now he could not escape the impression.
‘What was Eldon doing about here to-day?’ he asked after a pause.
‘I have told you that I did not even know he had been near.’
‘Perhaps not. Now, will you just tell me this: Have you written to Eldon, or had any letter from him since our marriage?’
Her fingers would not continue their work. A deadening sensation of disgust made her close her eyes as if to shut out the meaning of his question. Her silence revived his distrust.
‘You had rather not answer?’ he said significantly.
‘Cannot you see that it degrades me to answer such a question? What is your opinion of me? Have I behaved so as to lead you to think that I am an abandoned woman?’
After hesitating he muttered: ‘You don’t give a plain yes or no.’
‘You must not expect it. If you think I use arts to deceive you—if you have no faith whatever in my purity—it was your duty to let me go from you when I would have done so. It is horrible for us to live together from the moment that there is such a doubt on either side. It makes me something lower than your servant—something that has no name!’
She shuddered. Had not that been true of her from the very morrow of their marriage? Her life was cast away upon shoals of debasement; no sanctity of womanhood remained in her. Was not her indignation half a mockery? She could not even defend her honesty, her honour in the vulgarest sense of the word, without involving herself in a kind of falsehood, which was desolation to her spirit. It had begun in her advocacy of uprightness after her discovery of the will; it was imbuing her whole nature, making her to her own conscience that which he had called her—a very hypocrite.
He spoke more conciliatingly.
‘Well, there’s one thing, at all events, that you can’t refuse to explain. Why didn’t you tell me that you had met Eldon, and what he meant to do?’
She had not prepared herself for the question, and it went to the root of her thoughts; none the less she replied instantly, careless how he understood the truth.
‘I kept silence because the meeting had given me pain, because it distressed me to have to speak with Mr. Eldon at that place and at that time, because Iknewhow you regard him, and was afraid to mention him to you.’
Mutimer was at a loss. If Adela had calculated her reply with the deepest art she could not have chosen words better fitted to silence him.
‘And you have told me every word that passed between you?’ he asked.
‘That would be impossible. I have told you the substance of the conversation.’
‘Why did you ask him to keep the works going on my plan?’
‘I can tell you no more.’
Her strength was spent. She put aside her sewing and moved towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t feel well. I must rest.’
‘Just stop a minute. I’ve something here I want to show you.’
She turned wearily. Mutimer took a letter from his pocket.
‘Will you read that?’
She took it. It was written in a very clear, delicate hand, and ran thus:—
‘DEAR SIR,—I who address you have lain for two years on a bed from which I shall never move till I am carried to my grave. My age is three-and-twenty; an accident which happened to me a few days after my twenty-first birthday left me without the use of my limbs; it often seems to me that it would have been better if I had died, but there is no arguing with fate, and the wise thing is to accept cheerfully whatever befalls us. I hoped at one time to take an active part in life, and my interest in the world’s progress is as strong as ever, especially in everything that concerns social reform. I have for some time known your name, and have constantly sought information about your grand work at New Wanley. Now I venture to write (by the hand of a dear friend), to express my admiration for your high endeavour, and my grief at the circumstances which have made you powerless to continue it.
‘I am possessed of means, and, as you see, can spend but little on myself. I ask you, with much earnestness, to let me be of some small use to the cause of social justice, by putting, in your hands the sum of five hundred pounds, to be employed as may seem good to you. I need not affect to be ignorant of your position, and it is my great fear lest you should be unable to work for Socialism with your undivided energies. Will you accept this money, and continue by means of public lecturing to spread the gospel of emancipation? That I am convinced is your first desire. If you will do me this great kindness, I shall ask your permission to arrange that the same sum be paid to you annually, for the next ten years, whether I still live or not. To be helping in this indirect way would cheer me more than you can think. I enclose a draft on Messrs.—.
‘As I do not know your private address, I send this to the office of the “Piery Cross.” Pardon me for desiring to remain anonymous; many reasons necessitate it. If you grant me this favour, will you advertise the word “Accepted” in the “Times” newspaper within ten days?
‘With heartfelt sympathy and admiration, ‘I sign myself, ‘A FRIEND.’
Adela was unmoved; she returned the letter as if it had no interest for her.
‘What do you think of that?’ said Mutimer, forgetting their differences in his exultation.
‘I am glad you can continue your work,’ Adela replied absently.
She was moving away when he again stopped her.
‘Look here, Adela.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you still angry with me?’
She was silent.
‘I am sorry I lost my temper. I didn’t mean all I said to you. Will you try and forget it?’
Her lips spoke for her.
‘I will try.’
‘You needn’t go on doing housework now,’ he said assuringly. ‘Are you going? Come and say good-night.’
He approached her and laid his hand upon her shoulder. Adela shrank from his touch, and for an instant gazed at him with wide eyes of fear.
He dropped his hands and let her go.