Demos Part 103

Presently Mr. Wyvern stopped and faced his companion.

'Are you serious in what you said just now? I mean about her love for Mutimer?'

'Serious? Of course I am. Why should you ask such a question?'

'Because I find it difficult to distinguish between the things a young man says in jealous pique and the real belief he entertains when he is not throwing savage words about. You have convinced yourself that she loved her husband in the true sense of the word?'

'The conviction was forced upon me. Why did she marry him at all? What led her to give herself, heart and soul, to Socialism, she who under ordinary circ.u.mstances would have shrunk from that and all other _isms_?

Why should she make it a special entreaty to me to pursue her husband's work? The zeal for his memory is nothing unantic.i.p.ated; it issues naturally from her former state of mind.'

'Your vehemence,' replied the vicar, smiling, 'is sufficient proof that you don't think it impossible for all these questions to be answered in another sense. I can't pretend to have read the facts of her life infallibly, but suppose I venture a hint or two, just to give you matter for thought. Why she married him I cannot wholly explain to myself, but remember that she took that step very shortly after being brought to believe that you, my good friend, were utterly unworthy of any true woman's devotion. Remember, too, her brother's influence, and--well, her mother's. Now, on the evening before she accepted Mutimer she called at the Vicarage alone. Unfortunately I was away--was walking with you, in fact. What she desired to say to me I can only conjecture; but it is not impossible that she was driven by the common impulse which sends young girls to their pastor when they are in grievous trouble and without other friends.'

'Why did you never tell me of that?' cried Hubert.

'Because it would have been useless, and, to tell you the truth, I felt I was in an awkward position, not far from acting indiscreetly. I did go to see her the next morning, but only saw her mother, and heard of the engagement. Adela never spoke to me of her visit.'

'But she may have come for quite other reasons. Her subsequent behaviour remains.'

'Certainly. Here again I may be altogether wrong, but it seems to me that to a woman of her character there was only one course open. Having become his wife, it behoved her to be loyal, and especially--remember this--it behoved her to put her position beyond doubt in the eyes of others, in the eyes of one, it may be, beyond all. Does that throw no light on your meeting with her in the wood, of which you make so much?'

Hubert's countenance shone, but only for an instant.

'Ingenious,' he replied, good-humouredly.

'Possibly no more,' Mr. Wyvern rejoined. 'Take it as a fanciful sketch of how a woman's life _might_ be ordered. Such a life would not lack its dignity.'

Neither spoke for a while.

'You will call on Mrs. Westlake as you pa.s.s through London?' Mr. Wyvern next inquired.

'Mrs. Westlake?' the other repeated absently. 'Yes, I dare say I shall see her.'

'Do, by all means.'

They began to descend the hill.

The Walthams no longer lived in Wanley. A year ago the necessities of Alfred Waltham's affairs had led to a change; he and his wife and their two children, together with Mrs. Waltham the dowager, removed to what the auctioneers call a commodious residence on the outskirts of Belwick.

Alfred remarked that it was as well not to be so far from civilisation; he pointed out, too, that it was time for him to have an eye to civic dignities, if only a place on the Board of Guardians to begin with.

Our friend was not quite so uncompromising in his political and social opinions as formerly. His wife observed that he ceased to subscribe to Socialist papers, and took in a daily of orthodox Liberal tendencies--that is to say, an organ of capitalism. Letty rejoiced at the change, but knew her husband far too well to make any remark upon it.

To their house, about three months after her husband's death, came Adela. The intermediate time she had pa.s.sed with Stella. All were very glad to have her at Belwick--Letty in particular, who, though a matron with two bouncing boys, still sat at Adela's feet and deemed her the model of womanhood. Adela was not so sad as they had feared to find her.

She kept a great deal to her own room, but was always engaged in study, and seemed to find peace in that way. She was silent in her habits, scarcely ever joining in general conversation; but when Letty could steal an hour from household duties and go to Adela's room she was always sure of hearing wise and tender words in which her heart delighted. Her pride in Adela was boundless. On the day when the latter first attired herself in modified mourning, Letty, walking with her in the garden, could not refrain from saying how Adela's dress became her.

'You are more beautiful every day, dear,' she added, in spite of a tremor which almost checked her in uttering a compliment which her sister might think too frivolous.

But Adela blushed, one would have thought it was with pleasure. Sadness, however, followed, and Letty wondered whether the beautiful face was destined to wear its pallor always.

On this same spring morning, when Hubert Eldon was taking leave of Wanley, Mrs. Waltham and Letty were talking of a visit Adela was about to pay to Stella in London. They spoke also of a visitor of their own, or, perhaps, rather of Adela's, who had been in the house for a fortnight and would return to London on the morrow. This was Alice Mutimer--no longer to be called Mrs. Rodman. Alice had lived with her mother in Wilton Square since her recovery from the illness which for a long time had kept her in ignorance of the double calamity fallen upon her. It was Adela who at length told her that she had no husband, and that her brother Richard was dead. Neither disclosure affected her gravely. The months of mental desolation followed by physical collapse seemed to have exhausted her powers of suffering. For several days she kept to herself and cried a good deal, but she exhibited no bitter grief. It soon became evident that she thought but little of the man who had so grossly wronged her; he was quite gone from her heart Even when she was summoned to give evidence against him in court, she did it without much reluctance, yet also without revengeful feeling; her state was one of enfeebled vitality, she was like a child in all the concerns of life. Rodman went into penal servitude, but it did not distress her, and she never again uttered his name.

Adela thought it would be a kindness to invite her to Belwick and Alice at once accepted the invitation. Yet she was not at her ease in the house. She appeared to have forgiven Adela, overcome by the latter's goodness, but her nature was not of the kind to grow in liberal feeling.

Mrs. Waltham the elder she avoided as much as possible. Perhaps Letty best succeeded in conciliating her, for Letty was homely and had the children to help her.

'I wish I had a child,' Alice said one day when she sat alone with Letty, and a.s.sisted in nursery duties. But at once her cheeks coloured.

'I suppose you're ashamed of me for saying that I'm not even a married woman.'

Letty replied, as she well knew how to, very gently and with comfort.

'I wonder where she goes to when she sets off by herself,' said Mrs.

Waltham this morning. 'She seems to object to walk with any of us.'

'She always comes back in better spirits,' said Letty. 'I think the change is doing her good.'

'But she won't be sorry to leave us, my dear, I can see that. To be sure it was like Adela to think of having her here, but I scarcely think it would be advisable for the visit to be repeated. She is not at home with us. And how can it be expected? It's in her blood, of course; she belongs so distinctly to an inferior cla.s.s.'

'I am so very sorry for her,' Letty replied. 'What dreadful things she has gone through!'

'Dreadful, indeed, my dear; but after all such things don't happen to ladies. We must remember that. It isn't as if you or Adela had suffered in that way. That, of course, would be shocking beyond all words. I can't think that persons of her cla.s.s have quite the same feelings.'

'Oh, mother!' Letty protested. And she added, less seriously, 'You mustn't let Alfred hear you say such a thing as that.'

'I'm glad to say,' replied Mrs. Waltham, 'that Alfred has grown much more sensible in his views of late.'

Adela entered the room. Letty was not wrong in saying that she grew more beautiful. Life had few joys for her, save intellectual, but you saw on her countenance the light of freedom. In her manner there was an unconscious dignity which made her position in the house one of recognised superiority; even her mother seldom ventured to chat without reserve in her presence. Alfred drew up in the midst of a tirade if she but seemed about to speak. Yet it was happiness to live with her; where she moved there breathed an air of purity and sweetness.

She asked if Alice had returned from her walk. Receiving a reply in the negative, she went out into the garden.

'Adela looks happy to-day,' said Letty. 'That article in the paper has pleased her very much.'

'I really hope she won't do such a thing again,' remarked Mrs. Waltham, with dignified disapproval. 'It seems very unlady-like to write letters to the newspapers.'

'But it was brave of her.'

'To be sure, we must not judge her as we should ordinary people. Still, I am not sure that she is always right. I shall never allow that she did right in paying back that money to those wretches in London. I am sure she wanted it far more than they did. The bloodthirsty creatures!'

Letty shuddered, but would not abandon defence of Adela.

'Still it was very honourable of her, mother. She understands those things better than we can.'

'Perhaps so, my dear,' said Mrs. Waltham, meaning that her own opinion was not likely to be inferior in justice to that of anyone else.

Adela had been in the garden for a few minutes when she saw Alice coming towards her. The poor Princess had a bright look, as if some joyful news had just come to her. Adela met her with a friendly smile.

'There is someone you used to know,' Alice said, speaking with embarra.s.sment, and pointing towards the road. 'You remember Mr. Keene?

I met him. He says he wrote that in the "Chronicle." He would like to speak to you if you'll let him.'

'I shall be glad to,' Adela replied, with a look of curiosity.

They walked to the garden gate. Mr. Keene was just outside; Alice beckoned to him to enter. His appearance was a great improvement on the old days; he had grown a beard, and in his eye you saw the responsible editor. Altogether he seemed to have gained in moral solidity. None the less, his manner of approaching Adela, hat in hand, awoke reminiscences of the footlights.