Demos Part 34

'Think what we may, my dear, of Mr. Mutimer's opinions, no one can deny that he is making a most unselfish use of his wealth. We shall have an opportunity to-day of hearing how it is regarded by those who--who understand such questions.'

Adela implored to be allowed to remain at home instead of attending the lecture, but on this point Mrs. Waltham was inflexible. The girl could not offer resolute opposition in a matter which only involved an hour or two's endurance. She sat in pale silence. Then her mother broke into tears, bewailed herself as a luckless being, entreated her daughter's pardon, but in the end was perfectly ready to accept Adela's self-sacrifice.

On her return from New Wanley, Adela sat alone till tea-time, and after that meal again went to her room. She was not one of those girls to whom tears come as a matter of course on any occasion of annoyance or of grief; her bright eyes had seldom been dimmed since childhood, for the lightsomeness of her character threw off trifling troubles almost as soon as they were felt, and of graver afflictions she had hitherto known none since her father's death. But since the shock she received on that day when her mother revealed Hubert Eldon's unworthiness, her emotional life had suffered a slow change. Evil, previously known but as a dark mystery shadowing far-off regions, had become the constant preoccupation of her thoughts. Drawing a.n.a.logies from the story of her faith, she imaged Hubert as the angel who fell from supreme purity to a terrible lords.h.i.+p of perdition. Of his sins she had the dimmest conception; she was told that they were sins of impurity, and her understanding of such could scarcely have been expressed save in the general language of her prayers. Guarded jealously at every moment of her life, the world had made no blur on the fair tablet of her mind; her Eden had suffered no invasion. She could only repeat to herself that her heart had gone dreadfully astray in its fondness, and that, whatsoever it cost her, the old hopes, the strength of which was only now proved, must be utterly uprooted. And knowing that, she wept.

Sin was too surely sorrow, though it neared her only in imagination. In a few weeks she seemed to have almost outgrown girlhood; her steps were measured, her smile was seldom and lacked mirth. The revelation would have done so much; the added and growing trouble of Mutimer's attentions threatened to sink her in melancholy. She would not allow it to be seen more than she could help; cheerful activity in the life of home was one of her moral duties, and she strove hard to sustain it. It was a relief to find herself alone each night, alone with her sickness of heart.

The repugnance aroused in her by the thought of becoming Mutimer's wife was rather instinctive than reasoned. From one point of view, indeed, she deemed it wrong, since it might be entirely the fruit of the love she was forbidden to cherish. Striving to read her conscience, which for years had been with her a daily task and was now become the anguish of every hour, she found it hard to establish valid reasons for steadfastly refusing a man who was her mother's choice. She read over the marriage service frequently. There stood the promise--to love, to honour, and to obey. Honour and obedience she might render him, but what of love? The question arose, what did love mean? Could there be such a thing as love of an unworthy object? Was she not led astray by the spirit of perverseness which was her heritage?

Adela could not bring herself to believe that 'to love' in the sense of the marriage service and to 'be in love' as her heart understood it were one and the same thing. The Puritanism of her training led her to distrust profoundly those impulses of mere nature. And the circ.u.mstances of her own unhappy affection tended to confirm her in this way of thinking. Letty Tew certainly thought otherwise, but was not Letty's own heart too exclusively occupied by worldly considerations?

Yet it said 'love.' Perchance that was something which would come after marriage; the promise, observe, concerned the future. But she was not merely indifferent; she shrank from Mutimer.

She returned home from the lecture to-day full of dread--dread more active than she had yet known. And it drove her to a step she had timidly contemplated for more than a week. She stole from the house, bent on seeing Mr. Wyvern. She could not confess to him, but she could speak of the conflict between her mother's will and her own, and beg his advice; perhaps, if he appeared favourable, ask him to intercede with her mother. She had liked Mr. Wyvern from the first meeting with him, and a sense of trust had been nourished by each succeeding conversation.

In her agitation she thought it would not be hard to tell him so much of the circ.u.mstances as would enable him to judge and counsel.

Yet it was with relief, on the whole, that she turned homewards with her object unattained. It would be much better to wait and test herself yet further. Why should she not speak with her mother about that vow she was asked to make?

She did not seek solitude again, but joined her mother and Alfred in the sitting-room. Mrs. Waltham made no inquiry about the short absence.

Alfred had only just called to mind the newspaper which Mr. Keene had given him; and was unfolding it for perusal. His eye caught a marked paragraph, one of a number under the heading 'Gossip from Town.' As he read it he uttered a 'Hullo!' of surprise.

'Well, here's the latest,' he continued, looking at his companions with an amused eye. 'Something about that fellow Eldon in a Belwick newspaper. What do you think?'

Adela kept still and mute.

'Whatever it is, it cannot interest us, Alfred,' said Mrs. Waltham, with dignity. 'We had rather not hear it.'

'Well, you shall read it for yourself,' replied Alfred on a second thought. 'I think you'd like to know.'

His mother took the paper under protest, and glanced down at the paragraph carelessly. But speedily her attention became closer.

'An item of intelligence,' wrote the London gossiper, 'which I dare say will interest readers in certain parts of--s.h.i.+re. A lady of French extraction who made a name for herself at a leading metropolitan theatre last winter, and who really promises great things in the Thespian art, is back among us from a sojourn on the Continent. She is understood to have spent much labour in the study of a new part, which she is about to introduce to us of the modern Babylon. But Albion, it is whispered, possesses other attractions for her besides appreciative audiences. In brief, though she will of course appear under the old name, she will in reality have changed it for one of another nationality before presenting herself in the radiance of the footlights. The happy man is Mr. Hubert Eldon, late of Wanley Manor. We felicitate Mr. Eldon.'

Mrs. Waltham's hands trembled as she doubled the sheet: there was a gleam of pleasure on her face.

'Give me the paper when you have done with it,' she said.

Alfred laughed, and whistled a tune as he continued the perusal of Mr.

Keene's political and social intelligence, on the whole as trustworthy as the style in which it was written was terse and elegant. Adela, finding she could feign indifference no longer, went from the room.

'Where did you get this?' Mrs. Waltham asked with eagerness as soon as the girl was gone.

'From the writer himself,' Alfred replied, visibly proud of his intimacy with a man of letters. 'Fellow called Keene. Had a long talk with him.'

'About this?'

'Oh, no. I've only just come across it. But he said he'd marked something for Mutimer. I'm to pa.s.s the paper on to him.'

'I suppose this is the same woman--?'

'No doubt.'

'You think it's true?'

'True? Why, of course it is. A newspaper with a reputation to support can't go printing people's names at haphazard. Keene's very thick with all the London actors. He told me some first-cla.s.s stories about--'

'Never mind,' interposed his mother. 'Well, to think it should come to this! I'm sure I feel for poor Mrs. Eldon. Really there is no end to her misfortunes.'

'Just how such families always end up,' observed Alfred complacently.

'No doubt he'll drink himself to death, or something of that kind, and then we shall have the pleasure of seeing a new tablet in the church, inscribed with manifold virtues; or even a stained-gla.s.s window: the last of the Eldons deserves something noteworthy.'

'I think it's hardly a subject for joking, Alfred. It is very, very sad.

And to think what a fine handsome boy he used to be! But he was always dreadfully self-willed.'

'He was always an impertinent puppy! How he'll play the swell on his wife's earnings! Oh, our glorious aristocracy!'

Mrs. Waltham went early to her daughter's room. Adela was sitting with her Bible before her--had sat so since coming upstairs, yet had not read three consecutive verses. Her face showed no effect of tears, for the heat of a consuming suspense had dried the fountains of woe.

'I don't like to occupy your mind with such things, my dear,' began her mother, 'but perhaps as a warning I ought to show you the news Alfred spoke of. It pleases Providence that there should be evil in the world, and for our own safety we must sometimes look it in the face, especially we poor women, Adela. Will you read that?'

Adela read. She could not criticise the style, but it affected her as something unclean; Hubert's very name suffered degradation when used in such a way. Prepared for worse things than that which she saw, no shock of feelings was manifest in her. She returned the paper without speaking.

'I wanted you to see that my behaviour to Mr. Eldon was not unjustified,' said her mother. 'You don't blame me any longer, dear?'

'I have never blamed you, mother.'

'It is a sad, sad end to what might have been a life of usefulness and honour. I have thought so often of the parable of the talents; only I fear this case is worse. His poor mother! I wonder if I could write to her! Yet I hardly know how to.'

'Is this a--a wicked woman, mother?' Adela asked falteringly.

Mrs. Waltham shook her head and sighed.

'My love, don't you see that she is an actress?'

'But if all actresses are wicked, how is it that really good people go to the theatre?'

'I am afraid they oughtn't to. The best of us are tempted into thoughtless pleasure. But now I don't want you to brood over things which it is a sad necessity to have to glance at. Read your chapter, darling, and get to bed.'

To bed--but not to sleep. The child's imagination was aflame. This scarlet woman, this meteor from h.e.l.l flas.h.i.+ng before the delighted eyes of men, she, then, had bound Hubert for ever in her toils; no release for him now, no ransom to eternity. No instant's doubt of the news came to Adela; in her eyes _imprimatur_ was the guarantee of truth. She strove to picture the face which had drawn Hubert to his doom. It must be lovely beyond compare. For the first time in her life she knew the agonies of jealousy.

She could not shed tears, but in her anguish she fell upon prayer, spoke the words above her breath that they might silence that terrible voice within. Poor lost lamb, crying in the darkness, sending forth such piteous utterance as might create a spirit of love to hear and rescue.

Rescue--none. When the fire wasted itself, she tried to find solace in the thought that one source of misery was stopped. Hubert was married, or would be very soon, and if she had sinned in loving him till now, such sin would henceforth be multiplied incalculably; she durst not, as she valued her soul, so much as let his name enter her thoughts. And to guard against it, was there not a means offered her? The doubt as to what love meant was well-nigh solved; or at all events she held it proved that the 'love' of the marriage service was something she had never yet felt, something which would follow upon marriage itself.

Earthly love had surely led Hubert Eldon to ruin; oh, not that could be demanded of her! What reason had she now to offer against her mother's desire? Letty's arguments were vain; they were but as the undisciplined motions of her own heart. Marriage with a worthy man must often have been salvation to a rudderless life; for was it not the _ceremony_ which, after all, const.i.tuted the exclusive sanction?

Mutimer, it was true, fell sadly short of her ideal of goodness. He was an unbeliever. But might not this very circ.u.mstance involve a duty? As his wife, could she not plead with him and bring him to the truth? Would not that be _loving_ him, to make his spiritual good the end of her existence? It was as though a great light shot athwart her darkness.

She raised herself in bed, and, as if with her very hands, clung to the inspiration which had been granted her. The light was not abiding, but something of radiance lingered, and that must stead her.