Demos Part 21

'Happily, Miss Waltham, you can't realise their lives,' Richard began.

He was not smiling now; Adela's tone had struck him like a challenge, and he collected himself to meet her. 'The man who lives on wages is never free; he sells himself body and soul to his employer. What sort of freedom does a man enjoy who may any day find himself and his family on the point of starvation just because he has lost his work? All his life long he has before his mind the fear of want--not only of straitened means, mind you, but of dest.i.tution and the workhouse. How can such a man put aside his common cares? Religion is a luxury; the working man has no luxuries. Now, you speak of the free evenings; people always do, when they're asking why the working cla.s.ses don't educate themselves. Do you understand what that free evening means? He gets home, say, at six o'clock, tired out; he has to be up again perhaps at five next morning.

What can he do but just lie about half asleep? Why, that's the whole principle of the capitalist system of employment; it's calculated exactly how long a man can be made to work in a day without making him incapable of beginning again on the day following--just as it's calculated exactly how little a man can live upon, in the regulation of wages. If the workman returned home with strength to spare, employers would soon find it out, and workshop legislation would be revised--because of course it's the capitalists that make the laws. The principle is that a man shall have no strength left for himself; it's all paid for, every sc.r.a.p of it, bought with the wages at each week end.

What religion can such men have? Religion, I suppose, means thankfulness for life and its pleasures--at all events, that's a great part of it--and what has a wage-earner to be thankful for?'

'It sounds very shocking,' observed Mrs. Waltham, somewhat disturbed by the speaker's growing earnestness. Richard paid no attention and continued to address Adela.

'I dare say you've heard of the early trains--workmen's trains--that they run on the London railways. If only you could travel once by one of those! Between station and station there's scarcely a man or boy in the carriage who can keep awake; there they sit, leaning over against each other, their heads dropping forward, their eyelids that heavy they can't hold them up. I tell you it's one of the most miserable sights to be seen in this world. If you saw it, Miss Waltham, you'd pity them, I'm very sure of that! You only need to know what their life means. People who have never known hards.h.i.+p often speak more cruelly than they think, and of course it always will be so as long as the rich and the poor are two different races, as much apart as if there was an ocean between them.'

Adela's cheeks were warm. It was a novel sensation to be rebuked in this unconventional way. She was feeling a touch of shame as well as the slight resentment which was partly her cla.s.s-instinct, partly of her s.e.x.

'I feel that I have no right to give any opinion,' she said in an undertone.

'Meaning, Adela,' commented her brother, 'that you have a very strong opinion and stick to it.'

'One thing I dare say you are thinking, Miss Waltham,' Richard pursued, 'if you'll allow me to say it. You think that I myself don't exactly prove what I've been saying--I mean to say, that I at all events have had free time, not only to read and reflect, but to give lectures and so on. Yes, and I'll explain that. It was my good fortune to have a father and mother who were very careful and hard-working and thoughtful people; I and my sister and brother were brought up in an orderly home, and taught from the first that ceaseless labour and strict economy were the things always to be kept in mind. All that was just fortunate chance; I'm not praising myself in saying I've been able to get more into my time than most other working men; it's my father and mother I have to thank for it. Suppose they'd been as ignorant and careless as most of their cla.s.s are made by the hard lot they have to endure; why, I should have followed them, that's all. We've never had to go without a meal, and why? Just because we've all of us worked like slaves and never allowed ourselves to think of rest or enjoyment. When my father died, of course we had to be more careful than ever; but there were three of us to earn money, fortunately, and we kept up the home. We put our money by for the club every week, what's more.'

'The club?' queried Miss Waltham, to whom the word suggested Pall Mall and vague glories which dwelt in her imagination.

'That's to make provision for times when we're ill or can't get work,'

Mutimer explained. 'If a wage-earner falls ill, what has he to look to?

The capitalist won't trouble himself to keep him alive; there's plenty to take his place. Well, that's my position, or was a few months ago. I don't suppose any workman has had more advantages. Take it as an example of the most we can hope for, and pray say what it amounts to! Just on the right side, just keeping afloat, just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g out an hour here and there to work your brain when you ought to be taking wholesome recreation! That's nothing very grand, it seems to me. Yet people will point to it and ask what there is to grumble at!'

Adela sat uneasily under Mutimer's gaze; she kept her eyes down.

'And I'm not sure that I should always have got on as easily,' the speaker continued. 'Only a day or two before I heard of my relative's death, I'd just been dismissed from my employment; that was because they didn't like my opinions. Well, I don't say they hadn't a right to dismiss me, just as I suppose you've a right to kill as many of the enemy as you can in time of war. But suppose I couldn't have got work anywhere. I had nothing but my hands to depend upon; if I couldn't sell my muscles I must starve, that's all.'

Adela looked at him for almost the first time. She had heard this story from her brother, but it came more impressively from Mutimer's own lips. A sort of heroism was involved in it, the champions.h.i.+p of a cause regardless of self. She remained thoughtful with troublous colours on her face.

Mrs. Waltham was more obviously uneasy. There are certain things to which in good society one does not refer, first and foremost humiliating antecedents. The present circ.u.mstances were exceptional to be sure, but it was to be hoped that Mr. Mutimer would outgrow this habit of advertising his origin. Let him talk of the working-cla.s.ses if he liked, but always in the third person. The good lady began to reflect whether she might not venture shortly to give him friendly hints on this and similar subjects.

But it was nearly tea-time. Mrs. Waltham shortly rose and went into the house, whither Alfred followed her. Mutimer kept his seat, and Adela could not leave him to himself, though for the moment he seemed unconscious of her presence. When they had been alone together for a little while, Richard broke the silence.

'I hope I didn't speak rudely to you; Miss Waltham. I don't think I need fear to say what I mean, but I know there are always two ways of saying things, and perhaps I chose the roughest.'

Adela was conscious of having said a few hard things mentally, and this apology, delivered in a very honest voice, appealed to her instinct of justice. She did not like Mutimer, and consequently strove against the prejudice which the very sound of his voice aroused in her; it was her nature to aim thus at equity in her personal judgments.

'To describe hard things we must use hard words,' she replied pleasantly, 'but you said nothing that could offend.'

'I fear you haven't much sympathy with my way of looking at the question. I seem to you to be going to work the wrong way.'

'I certainly think you value too little the means of happiness that we all have within our reach, rich and poor alike.'

'Ah, if you could only see into the life of the poor, you would acknowledge that those means are and can be nothing to them. Besides, my way of thinking in such things is the same as your brother's, and I can't expect you to see any good in it.'

Adela shook her head slightly. She had risen and was examining the leaves upon an apple branch which she had drawn down.

'But I'm sure you feel that there is need for doing something,' he urged, quitting his seat. 'You're not indifferent to the hard lives of the people, as most people are who have always lived comfortable lives?'

She let the branch spring up, and spoke more coldly.

'I hope I am not indifferent; but it is not in my power to do anything.'

'Will you let me say that you are mistaken in that?' Mutimer had never before felt himself constrained to qualify and adorn his phrases; the necessity made him awkward. Not only did he aim at polite modes of speech altogether foreign to his lips, but his own voice sounded strange to him in its forced suppression. He did not as yet succeed in regarding himself from the outside and criticising the influences which had got hold upon him; he was only conscious that a young lady--the very type of young lady that a little while ago he would have held up for scorn--was subduing his nature by her mere presence and exacting homage from him to which she was wholly indifferent. 'Everyone can give help in such a cause as this. You can work upon the minds of the people you talk with and get them to throw away their prejudices. The cause of the working cla.s.ses seems so hopeless just because they're too far away to catch the ears of those who oppress them.'

'I do not oppress them, Mr. Mutimer.'

Adela spoke with a touch of impatience. She wished to bring this conversation to an end, and the man would give her no opportunity of doing so. She was not in reality paying attention to his arguments, as was evident in her echo of his last words.

'Not willingly, but none the less you do so,' he rejoined. 'Everyone who lives at ease and without a thought of changing the present state of society is tyrannising over the people. Every article of clothing you put on means a life worn out somewhere in a factory. What would your existence be without the toil of those men and women who live and die in want of every comfort which seems as natural to you as the air you breathe? Don't you feel that you owe them something? It's a debt that can very easily be forgotten, I know that, and just because the creditors are too weak to claim it. Think of it in that way, and I'm quite sure you won't let it slip from your mind again.'

Alfred came towards them, announcing that tea was ready, and Adela gladly moved away.

'You won't make any impression there,' said Alfred with a shrug of good-natured contempt. 'Argument isn't understood by women. Now, if you were a revivalist preacher--' Mrs. Waltham and Adela went to church.

Mutimer returned to his lodgings, leaving his friend Waltham smoking in the garden.

On the way home after service, Adela had a brief murmured conversation with Letty Tew. Her mother was walking out with Mrs. Mewling.

'It was evidently pre-arranged,' said the latter, after recounting certain details in a tone of confidence. 'I was quite shocked. On _his_ part such conduct is nothing less than disgraceful. Adela, of course, cannot be expected to know.'

'I must tell her,' was the reply.

Adela was sitting rather dreamily in her bedroom a couple of hours later when her mother entered.

'Little girls shouldn't tell stories,' Mrs. Waltham began, with playfulness which was not quite natural. 'Who was it that wanted to go and speak a word to Letty this afternoon?'

'It wasn't altogether a story, mother,' pleaded the girl, shamed, but with an endeavour to speak independently. 'I did want to speak to Letty.'

'And you put it off, I suppose? Really, Adela, you must remember that a girl of your age has to be mindful of her self-respect. In Wanley you can't escape notice; besides--'

'Let me explain, mother.' Adela's voice was made firm by the suggestion that she had behaved unbecomingly. 'I went to Letty first of all to tell her of a difficulty I was in. Yesterday afternoon I happened to meet Mr.

Eldon, and when he was saying good-bye I asked him if he wouldn't come and see you before he left Wanley. He promised to come this afternoon.

At the time of course I didn't know that Alfred had invited Mr. Mutimer.

It would have been so disagreeable for Mr. Eldon to meet him here, I made up my mind to walk towards the Manor and tell Mr. Eldon what had happened.'

'Why should Mr. Eldon have found the meeting with Mr. Mutimer disagreeable?'

'They don't like each other.'

'I dare say not. Perhaps it was as well Mr. Eldon didn't come. I should most likely have refused to see him.'

'Refused to see him, mother?'

Adela gazed in the utmost astonishment.

'Yes, my dear. I haven't spoken to you about Mr. Eldon, just because I took it for granted that he would never come in your way again. That he should have dared to speak to you is something beyond what I could have imagined. When I went to see Mrs. Eldon on Friday I didn't take you with me, for fear lest that young man should show himself. It was impossible for you to be in the same room with him.'

'With Mr. Hubert Eldon? My dearest mother, what are you saying?'

'Of course it surprises you, Adela. I too was surprised. I thought there might be no need to speak to you of things you ought never to hear mentioned, but now I am afraid I have no choice. The sad truth is that Mr. Eldon has utterly disgraced himself. When he ought to have been here to attend Mr. Mutimer's funeral, he was living at Paris and other such places in the most shocking dissipation. Things are reported of him which I could not breathe to you; he is a bad young man!'