Demos Part 45

'What is it, Rodman?' he asked abruptly, pa.s.sing into the library.

'I'll go to the drawing-room,' Alice said, and left the men together.

In half an hour Richard again joined her. He seemed in a better frame of mind, for he came in humming. Alice, having glanced at him, averted her face again and kept silence. She felt a hand smoothing her hair. Her brother, leaning over the back of her seat, whispered to her,--

'You'll help me, Princess?'

She did not answer.

'You won't be hard, Alice? It's a wretched business, and I don't know what I shall do if you throw me over. I can't do without you, old girl.'

'I can't tell mother, d.i.c.k. You know very well what it'll be. I daren't do that.'

But even that task Alice at last took upon herself, after another half-hour's discussion. Alas! she would never again feel towards her brother as before this necessity fell upon her. Her life had undergone that impoverishment which is so dangerous to elementary natures, the loss of an ideal.

'You'll let me stay over to-morrow?' she said. 'There's nothing very pleasant to go back to, and I don't see that a day 'll matter.'

'You can stay if you wish. I'm going to take you to have tea with Adela now. If you stay we'll have her to dinner to-morrow.'

'I wonder whether we shall get along?' Alice mused.

'I don't see why not. You'll get lots of things from her, little notions of all kinds.'

This is always a more or less dangerous form of recommendation, even in talking to one's sister. To suggest that Adela would benefit by the acquaintance would have been a far more politic procedure.

'What's wrong with me?' Alice inquired, still depressed by the scene she had gone through.

'Oh, there's nothing wrong. It's only that you'll see differences at first; from the people you've been used to, I mean. But I think you'll have to go and get your things on; it's nearly five.'

In Alice's rising from her chair there was nothing of the elasticity that had marked her before luncheon. Before moving away she spoke a thought that was troubling her.

'Suppose mother tries to stop it?'

Richard looked to the ground moodily.

'I meant to tell you,' he said. 'You'd better say that I'm already married.'

'You're giving me a nice job,' was the girl's murmured rejoinder.

'Well, it's as good as true. And it doesn't make the job any worse.'

As is wont to be the case when two persons come to mutual understanding on a piece of baseness, the tone of brother and sister had suffered in the course of their dialogue. At first meeting they had both kept a certain watch upon their lips, feeling that their position demanded it; a moral limpness was evident in them by this time.

They set forth to walk to the Walthams'. Exercise in the keen air, together with the sense of novelty in her surroundings, restored Alice's good humour before the house was reached. She gazed with astonishment at the infernal glare over New Wanley. Her brother explained the sight to her with gusto.

'It used to be all fields and gardens over there,' he said. 'See what money and energy can do! You shall go over the works in the morning.

Perhaps Adela will go with us, then we can take her back to the Manor.'

'Why do they call the house that, d.i.c.k?' Alice inquired. 'Is it because people who live there are supposed to have good manners?'

'May be, for anything I know,' was the capitalist's reply. 'Only it's spelt different, you know. I say, Alice, you must be careful about your spelling; there were mistakes in your last letter. Won't do, you know, to make mistakes if you write to Adela.'

Alice gave a little shrug of impatience. Immediately after, they stopped at the threshold sacred to all genteel accomplishments--so Alice would have phrased it if she could have fully expressed her feeling--and they speedily entered the sitting-room, where the table was already laid for tea. Mrs. Waltham and her daughter rose to welcome them.

'We knew of your arrival,' said the former, bestowing on Alice a maternal salute. 'Not many things happen in Wanley that all the village doesn't hear of, do they, Mr. Mutimer? Of course we expected you to tea.'

Adela and her future sister-in-law kissed each other. Adela was silent, but she smiled.

'You'll take your things off, my dear?' Mrs. Waltham continued. 'Will you go upstairs with Miss Mutimer, Adela?'

But for Mrs. Waltham's persistent geniality the hour which followed would have shown many lapses of conversation. Alice appreciated at once those 'differences' at which her brother had hinted, and her present frame of mind was not quite consistent with patient humility. Naturally, she suffered much from self-consciousness; Mrs. Waltham annoyed her by too frequent observation, Adela by seeming indifference. The delicacy of the latter was made perhaps a little excessive by strain of feelings.

Alice at once came to the conclusion that d.i.c.k's future wife was cold and supercilious. She was not predisposed to like Adela. The circ.u.mstances were in a number of ways unfavourable. Even had there not existed the very natural resentment at the painful task which this young lady had indirectly imposed upon her, it was not in Alice's blood and breeding to take kindly at once to a girl of a cla.s.s above her own.

Alice had warm affections; as a lady's maid she might very conceivably have attached herself with much devotion to an indulgent mistress, but in the present case too much was asked of her, Richard was proud of his sister; he saw her at length seated where he had so often imagined her, and in his eyes she bore herself well. He glanced often at Adela, hoping for a return glance of congratulation; when it failed to come, he consoled himself with the reflection that such silent interchange of sentiments at table would be ill manners. In his very heart he believed that of the two maidens his sister was the better featured. Adela and Alice sat over against each other; their contrasted appearances were a chapter of social history. Mark the difference between Adela's gently closed lips, every muscle under control; and Alice's, which could never quite close without forming a saucy pout or a self-conscious primness.

Contrast the foreheads; on the one hand that tenderly shadowed curve of brow, on the other the surface which always seemed to catch too much of the light, which moved irregularly with the arches above the eyes. The grave modesty of the one face, the now petulant, now abashed, now vacant expression of the other. Richard in his heart preferred the type he had 80 long been familiar with; a state of feeling of course in no way inconsistent with the emotions excited in him by continual observation of Adela.

The two returned to the Manor at half-past seven, Alice rising with evident relief when he gave the signal. It was agreed that the latter part of the next morning should be spent in going over the works. Adela was very willing to be of the party.

'They haven't much money, have they?' was Alice's first question as soon as she got away from the door.

'No, they are not rich,' replied the brother. 'You got on very nicely, old girl.'

'Why shouldn't I? You talk as if I didn't know how to behave myself, d.i.c.k.'

'No, I don't. I say that you did behave yourself.'

'Yes, and you were surprised at it.'

'I wasn't at all. What do you think of her?'

'She doesn't say much.'

'No, she's always very quiet. It's her way.'

'Yes.'

The monosyllable meant more than Richard gathered from it. They walked on in silence, and were met presently by a gentleman who was coming along the village street at a sharp pace. A lamp discovered Mr. Willis Rodman. Richard stopped.

'Seen to that little business?' he asked, in a cheerful voice.

'Yes,' was Rodman's reply. 'We shall hear from Agworth in the morning.'

'All right.--Alice, this is Mr. Rodman.--My sister, Rodman.'

Richard's right-hand man performed civilities with decidedly more finish than Richard himself had at command.

'I am very happy to meet Miss Mutimer. I hope we shall have the pleasure of showing her New Wanley to-morrow.'

'She and Miss Waltham will walk down in the morning. Good night, Rodman.

Cold, eh?'