Demos Part 4

Two hours later he had dined, with obvious lack of appet.i.te, and was deriving but slight satisfaction from a cigar, when the servant entered with a message from Mrs. Eldon: she desired to see her son.

Hubert threw his cigar aside, and made a gesture expressing his wish to be led to his mother's room. The man conducted him to the landing at the head of the first flight of stairs; there a female servant was waiting, who, after a respectful movement, led the way to a door at a few yards'

distance. She opened it and drew back. Hubert pa.s.sed into the room.

It was furnished in a very old-fas.h.i.+oned style--heavily, richly, and with ornaments seemingly procured rather as evidences of wealth than of taste; successive Mrs. Eldons had used it as a boudoir. The present lady of that name sat in a great chair near the fire. Though not yet fifty, she looked at least ten years older; her hair had streaks of white, and her thin delicate features were much lined and wasted. It would not be enough to say that she had evidently once been beautiful, for in truth she was so still, with a spiritual beauty of a very rare type. Just now her face was set in a sternness which did not seem an expression natural to it; the fine lips were much more akin to smiling sweetness, and the brows accepted with repugnance anything but the stamp of thoughtful charity.

After the first glance at Hubert she dropped her eyes. He, stepping quickly across the floor, put his lips to her cheek; she did not move her head, nor raise her hand to take his.

'Will you sit there, Hubert?' she said, pointing to a chair which was placed opposite hers. The resemblance between her present mode of indicating a wish and her son's way of speaking to the servant below was very striking; even the quality of their voices had much in common, for Hubert's was rather high-pitched. In face, however, the young man did not strongly evidence their relation to each other: he was not handsome, and had straight low brows, which made his aspect at first forbidding.

'Why have you not come to me before this?' Mrs. Eldon asked when her son had seated himself, with his eyes turned upon the fire.

'I was unable to, mother. I have been ill.'

She cast a glance at him. There was no doubting the truth of what he said; at this moment he looked feeble and pain-worn.

'Where did your illness come upon you?' she asked, her tone unsoftened.

'In Germany. I started only a few hours after receiving the letter in which you told me of the death.'

'My other letters you paid no heed to?'

'I could not reply to them.'

He spoke after hesitation, but firmly, as one does who has something to brave out.

'It would have been better for you if you had been able, Hubert. Your refusal has best you dear.'

He looked up inquiringly.

'Mr. Mutimer,' his mother continued, a tremor in her voice, 'destroyed his will a day or two before he died.'

Hubert said nothing. His fingers, looked together before him, twitched a little; his face gave no sign.

'Had you come to me at once,' Mrs. Eldon pursued, 'had you listened to my entreaties, to my commands'--her voice rang right queenly--'this would not have happened. Mr. Mutimer behaved as generously as he always has. As soon as there came to him certain news of you, he told me everything. I refused to believe what people were saying, and he too wished to do so. He would not write to you himself; there was one all sufficient test, he held, and that was a summons from your mother. It was a test of your honour, Hubert--and you failed under it.'

He made no answer.

'You received my letters?' she went on to ask. 'I heard you had gone from England, and could only hope your letters would be forwarded. Did you get them?'

'With the delay of only a day or two.'

'And deliberately you put me aside?'

'I did.'

She looked at him now for several moments. Her eyes grew moist. Then she resumed, in a lower voice--

'I said nothing of what was at stake, though I knew. Mr. Mutimer was perfectly open with me. "I have trusted him implicitly," he said, "because I believe him as staunch and true as his brother. I make no allowances for what are called young man's follies: he must be above anything of that kind. If he is not--well, I have been mistaken in him, and I can't deal with him as I wish to do." You know what he was, Hubert, and you can imagine him speaking those words. We waited. The bad news was confirmed, and from you there came nothing. I would not hint at the loss you were incurring; of my own purpose I should have refrained from doing so, and Mr. Mutimer forbade me to appeal to anything but your better self. If you would not come to me because I wished it, I could not involve you and myself in shame by seeing you yield to sordid motives.'

Hubert raised his head. A choking voice kept him silent for a moment only.

'Mother, the loss is nothing to you; you are above regrets of that kind; and for myself, I am almost glad to have lost it.'

'In very truth,' answered the mother, 'I care little about the wealth you might have possessed. What I do care for is the loss of all the hopes I had built upon you. I thought you honour itself; I thought you high-minded. Young as you are, I let you go from me without a fear.

Hubert, I would have staked my life that no shadow of disgrace would ever fall upon your head! You have taken from me the last comfort of my age.'

He uttered words she could not catch.

'The purity of your soul was precious to me,' she continued, her accents struggling against weakness; 'I thought I had seen in you a love of that chast.i.ty without which a man is nothing; and I ever did my best to keep your eyes upon a n.o.ble ideal of womanhood. You have fallen. The simpler duty, the point of every-day honour, I could not suppose that you would fail in. From the day when you came of age, when Mr. Mutimer spoke to you, saying that in every respect you would be as his son, and you, for your part, accepted what he offered, you owed it to him to respect the lightest of his reasonable wishes. The wish which was supreme in him you have utterly disregarded. Is it that you failed to understand him? I have thought of late of a way you had now and then when you spoke to me about him; it has occurred to me that perhaps you did him less than justice. Regard his position and mine, and tell me whether you think he could have become so much to us if he had not been a gentleman in the highest sense of the word. When G.o.dfrey first of all brought me that proposal from him that we should still remain in this house, it seemed to me the most impossible thing. You know what it was that induced me to a.s.sent, and what led to his becoming so intimate with us. Since then it has been hard for me to remember that he was not one of our family. His weak points it was not difficult to discover; but I fear you did not understand what was n.o.blest in his character. Uprightness, clean-heartedness, good faith--these things he prized before everything.

In you, in one of your birth, he looked to find them in perfection.

Hubert, I stood shamed before him.'

The young man breathed hard, as if in physical pain. His eyes were fixed in a wide absent gaze. Mrs. Eldon had lost all the severity of her face; the profound sorrow of a pure and n.o.ble nature was alone to be read there now.

'What,' she continued--'what is this cla.s.s distinction upon which we pride ourselves? What does it mean, if not that our opportunities lead us to see truths to which the eyes of the poor and ignorant are blind?

Is there nothing in it, after all--in our pride of birth and station?

That is what people are saying nowadays: you yourself have jested to me about our privileges. You almost make me dread that you were right. Look back at that man, whom I came to honour as my own father. He began life as a toiler with his hands. Only a fortnight ago he was telling me stories of his boyhood, of seventy years since. He was without education; his ideas of truth and goodness he had to find within his own heart. Could anything exceed the n.o.ble simplicity of his respect for me, for you boys? We were poor, but it seemed to him that we had from nature what no money could buy. He was wrong; his faith misled him. No, not wrong with regard to all of us; my boy G.o.dfrey was indeed all that he believed. But think of himself; what advantage have we over him? I know no longer what to believe. Oh, Hubert!'

He left his chair and walked to a more distant part of the room, where he was beyond the range of lamp and firelight. Standing here, he pressed his hand against his side, still breathing hard, and with difficulty suppressing a groan.

He came a step or two nearer.

'Mother,' he said, hurriedly, 'I am still far from well. Let me leave you: speak to me again to-morrow.'

Mrs. Eldon made an effort to rise, looking anxiously into the gloom where he stood. She was all but standing upright--a thing she had not done for a long time--when Hubert sprang towards her, seizing her hands, then supporting her in his arms. Her self-command gave way at length, and she wept.

Hubert placed her gently in the chair and knelt beside her. He could find no words, but once or twice raised his face and kissed her.

'What caused your illness?' she asked, speaking as one wearied with suffering. She lay back, and her eyes were closed.

'I cannot say,' he answered. 'Do not speak of me. In your last letter there was no account of how he died.'

'It was in church, at the morning service. The pew-opener found him sitting there dead, when all had gone away.'

'But the vicar could see into the pew from the pulpit? The death must have been very peaceful.'

'No, he could not see; the front curtains were drawn.'

'Why was that, I wonder?'

Mrs. Eldon shook her head.

'Are you in pain?' she asked suddenly. 'Why do you breathe so strangely?'

'A little pain. Oh, nothing; I will see Manns to-morrow.'

His mother gazed long and steadily into his eyes, and this time he bore her look.